Dear Mark,
I thought I needed to share this with your readers
hoping that they never make the same mistake that
I have. I was walking through a casino when I approached
a progressive slot machine and inserted only one
coin. I hit centerline 7s for the big jackpot but
received far less because I only played one coin.
To this day, I'm still dreaming of "what could
have been." Please pass along my misfortune.
Sally G.
I
have always wondered how Cinderella felt the morning
after the ball. She dances with Prince Charming and
the next morning she wakes to sweep the cinders once
more. As luck would have it, you now know.
Quiz time, gentle readers. What is your verdict? Did
Sally, the unlucky heroine of this question, err?
Agreed, a blunder on Sally's part was in failing to
insert the full coin amount.
But if it's any consolation
for Sally, there would have been no fairy tale finish
had she inserted all three coins. The reason for
a no-fantasy-payoff was that the "spin"
button was pressed at a different moment. In the
brief time it would have taken her to insert the
two additional coins she failed to play, the machine's
random number generator (RNG) would have produced
a different result.
A slot machine's RNG continues, producing as many
as a million combinations per minute, until you
control fate by hitting the "spin" button
or pulling the handle. Only at that precise moment
is the machine alerted to go into action, pick,
and display a randomly selected outcome.
