Slots Slot Robot.

It seems it is often our own fault when losing at slots. We go about playing with countless emotional factors deciding what to do, or some unsubstantiated beliefs. “I played that machine with my girlfriend once, before we broke up”. “That machine paid me a Franklin months ago, on my last visit to this casino”. “I was up a Jackson in this machine, and I will not leave it until I am up again”. “The kitties in this machine are so cute, I can’t stop playing it”. “This VP machine has the best pay table; I don’t care if I’m down a thousand on it today, before I die I will be better off than those players on Little Green Men”. “The most you can win on that machine is a thousand, on this you can win half a million”. “They just installed these new machines, and new machines pay”. “I don’t care about those fancy machines, Quick Hit is where it’s at”. Etc.


I wonder if a robot programmed with no beliefs and with no emotions, let loose on a casino free to play any slots, keno machines or VP, will find an optimum way to play and beat the average good player. I am assuming the robot does not have any inside information or X-ray vision, whatever all that is or implies, but can read all pay tables and instructions and help on machines, and compute whatever needed. This hypothetical gambling robot will have an instruction, “win the most or lose the least”. What will it do? Go back to headquarters and declare mission impossible?

 

Since slots are wholly (pseudo) random, I don't see how this could work.

People often ask me how I can continue to sit at a machine that isn't paying, and it typically boils down to:

1)I'm too tired/lazy/other to move
2)It could change on the next spin

 

Actually, those superstitions will likely net you more if you catch the upside of a variance swing. I know it's random, but some people sit down and get lucky.

 

a robot would pick the highest returning video poker, dependant on the given bankroll, with the lowest RoR...

 

Basically what Tim said, it would try to exploit video poker, or possibly certain slots with features that turn the game occasionally positive. Here is an extreme example. Let's say there is a slot machine whose jackpot "must hit by $500" (these are pretty common in Vegas). The jackpot meter moves one penny per $2 coin-in and is currently $498 (200 penny steps to reach $500). In this case, you are a guaranteed winner as the most you would have to feed the machine to hit the jackpot is $2 x 200 steps = $400.

In the wild I haven't seen a "must hit jackpot" THAT good though.

 

Wait, what kind of robot? Like the sexy ones in Ex Machina, or like the Jetson's maid Rosie, or like that lame robot from Lost in Space?

If it was me, I'd use KITT to analyze each hand of full pay Joker's Wild for me, because I never know what to hold in that damn game.....and you can drive him.

See, the type of robot is very important.

 

Varied replies, thank you. The consensus seems to be that robots can be smart, but not necessarily lucky.

I was thinking of a robot that would look like the average gambler and not particularly drunk or sexy, nor look like a robot, so as not to call attention from the eye in the sky and risk being 86’d.

Most of us have had one or several days in which we win multiple jackpots. Can a robot have those days all the time, and his bad days only ending up even or with just a little profit? Can one build such a lucky robot? It seems not, from the replies, one can just make a very smart robot. If there are positive return VP games, the robot will play them perfectly, which should make it win often. Pity it is beyond the rules of casinos to allow gamblers to tamper with machines and make them run close to the speed of light, LOL.

 

Umm, no. A robot can't change negative payback to positive. Anyone (or anything in this case) can be lucky and win but at the end of the day, a robot and a person is as likely to win or lose the exact same amount. VP being an exception where a robot can possibly lose less than a player that doesn't know the optimal strategy.

 

Why would you want a robot to play for you? Couldn't you get a better return than, say, a 99.5% payback video poker machine by simply keeping your $ in a savings account which returns 100.01%? I thought the whole point of gambling is the excitement?

 

I built a perfect slot robot just the other day.

For some reason it just sat in the casino doing nothing.

 

Well did you remember to give it an envelope with it's bankroll for the day?

 

I apparently didn't program perfect life decisions into it, only gambling.

It spent all the bankroll on hookers and blow.

 

Robot just wants to have fun!

 

It's more of a hypothetical question of "can machine games be beaten longterm"? And the general answer is no and limiting yourself to only playing profitable opportunities takes a lot of knowledge and effort. Most gamblers would rather just have a normal job at that point.

 

Yep, a true degen! Robot - welcome to Vegas.

 

Thought some of this was also meant to be 'fun'. If the robot guaranteed it, nobody would be there. All of us love the good old fashioned game of chance.

 

What the robot would do most of us would consider a lot of strenuous work and no fun for us, turning gambling into a job we thought we would like but would learn to dislike. Robots are not programmed to have fun. How do you program your computer to have fun? I would not know how to program a computer that way as I don’t know what a computer considers to be fun. Further, I don’t think computers have fun. They might now know what luck is either, but you can teach them luck, programming them to “win lots”.

A robot programmed to win lots will not make mistakes. It would not play one coin on those machines that pay a big jackpot for three red sevens only if you play three coins. It would know the perfect way to play, say, Ultimate X. It would go to the Keno section and decide from the pay tables which is the Keno game that returns the most. Also since their movements are more precise than humans, it might be more successful at playing the millisecond cha cha cycle.

What gave me the idea of this thread was another thread in which it was asked what was better, to play the same game (same pay table) in dollar single VP or in dime ten line VP. What would a robot planned to win lots do? If there is no question of bankroll -and one assumes its Frankensteinish creator has complete faith in the performance of the robot, so the bankroll provided would be large enough- the robot will look, for example, for a positive return pay table, say 10/7 DB, and play the costliest, 100 play in dollars if available. Or in slots it might look for those “must hit by” mentioned and find the best one. The robot has the advantage of not getting distracted by booze or eye candy.

The problem for the robot is that positive opportunities in casinos are not too abundant, if they are available at all. I think the robot maybe eventually will suggest its master to take him away from the Strip to the suburbs or to Reno and vicinity where there seems to be more opportunities. Or, the robot will discover the secret of luck. For us luck is after the fact. At the end of the day we know if we were lucky or not. The robot perhaps works so well that it discovers ahead what brings luck.

My excuses to the serious posters if I am wasting their time. It’s all a joke. The varied replies have been fun, some have made me laugh for over twenty seconds.

 

B'rat, is that you?

 

Casinos can be exploited...but if you're that talented, I'm sure you could make better money doing something else.

 

Hi C-Stud,

Good to hear from you! Yes, it is I. Joined VMB a few months ago. in the forum "Introduce Yourself" I posted a thread "Greetings all Sin City sinners". VMB has gently provided a lifeboat to some flotsam and jetsam of the old defunct message board. GamblingGolfer here used to be BCguy, Chump used to be C&BG, and there are many others.
So how are you? I know you were to do a Vegas trip these days. How did that go? Hope you post a trip report. There are wonderful trip reports here full of great photos. It keeps me up to date with Vegas as I don't visit as often as I used to.

Interesting comment. I will search your posts and see if I find in them fun practical ways on how to exploit the casinos, LOL. As to the robot that has been programmed to be lucky and win all the time, not just in the long term (if all that is possible), it might not do well in something else as, for example, write a Broadway hit musical.