April 7, 2014

Welcome to Las Vegas!

Filed under: Main — admin @ 12:01 am

I can’t claim to be an expert on Las Vegas or gambling, but I do have an inkling on how the slot machines work.

This past week, I sojourned to Las Vegas in celebration of my son Simon’s 21st birthday. It was his idea. I’ve taken him to Vegas twice before. Once when he was about 11 or so and again when he was 14.

I’ve been to Vegas frequently, mostly during the 1980s and 1990s for computer conventions. I don’t go to gamble, or to drink, or to go “clubbing” (which I don’t understand).

Slot machines are a primary feature of any Vegas casino. They have lights and sounds, although the sounds are different these days: The machines no longer pay out in coins. In fact, for the most part, the casino is purely digital: You slide in your money and, should you win or are wise enough to quit, you get a ticket back that you cash in at a machine — like an ATM. I do, however, really miss the sound of the metal coins clanking into the bins.

My son fared better on the slot machines than he did the table games. He won over $70 on two separate machines. Each time he quit after winning a jackpot.

After the game, we were trying to figure out how exactly it was played: Which “reels” (the machine was digital, with an interesting two-screen display) matched to produce winners. That’s when it hit me.

My inner nerd recognizes that the “game” part of the slot machine is a complete joke. At its core, a slot machine is a simple random number generator. The game part of the machine is merely for show; it’s entertainment to keep you feeding the random number generator.

I explained to Simon, it didn’t matter which machine you played. You could play the same machine, you could play a different machine each time: When the random number generator hits, it hits. You win. No skill is involved, although for the human psyche, the game provides some remote chance that your skill is what wins the money. It doesn’t.

A room full of random number generators probably wouldn’t be as exciting, bit’s effectively the same thing. Yes, leave it to me to suck all the fun from a slot machine, but that’s pretty much the way it works.

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