Slots Geeking out on slot data - interesting to anyone?

Sure......why not? It's not too significant from a statistical point of view, but it can certainly help you track your money. And it adds a little fun to the equation, too.

I've kept a similar spread sheet (TableEdit) to track my (theoretical) win/loss record betting on baseball, for the past few seasons. One season by itself isn't a lot, but one actual week in Las Vegas is nothing.....statistically speaking.

 

I'm going to start lowering my denom. On my last VP trip, I hit just over 60k coin-in, but my average denom was $13-something. I lost too much because of volatility. I'm cool with running money through the machine, but it gets boring at the lower denoms...which ends up hurting me I suppose.

 

Yeah I agree that's another reason to track coin-in. If you always play at a consistent per day level, you can tell how the value of offers is changing, and if you go often and are willing to experiment with changing your coin in level from trip to trip, you can possibly find some threshold areas, and so find the minimum level that will get you the offers you want.

 

I stepped down my denom and per spin on the volatile video slots (Cleo, DaVinci, etc) the last couple of trips because of a couple of trips with bad suckouts at $1 denom/$20 spin. I moved down to quarter denom at $5/spin or even lower denom at $3 - $5/spin. You give up some payback % but at least the video slots don't really get boring. The problem with VP I guess is, if you move down in denom, you give up payback % AND it's STILL boring.

The 3 reelers I play can get boring, but I do hit big enough often enough to keep me playing them.

 

For V/P I was actually thinking of tracking the payout percentage for each machine based on the points each machine gives. I think it would actually be pretty easy to do because of the “xxx” number to next points display on the screen and the info on the Grazie site. I’ll check later but if anyone geekier than me feels like taking a stab at a formula that would get the payout percentage based on coinin and points for a gold card member, that’s be super. If I track this, I think that would actually be SUPER informative for all slot players since you can probably roughly guess how certain types of machines ( by denom/theme/popularity) are being set across casinos. While I know paybacks are set diffferent everywhere, I’d guess that all casinos are giving the same type of machines higher and lower payout percentages. And I did notice at V/P that the theos vary widely even among differing penny machines just by glancing at the credits until next points display.

 

Formula just depends on points. For sterling members at Cosmo, the website says you earn 2 points for every 2.50 wagered. So, since I’m staying there first, the formula for coin is currently set at x=Points*1.25. After Cosmo, I’ll be going to PNG properties where it’s an easy 1 to 1. I plan to mostly dance with the one that brought me, so i will only have to change the formula when I switch hotels. I have each day in a different tab so I’ll lrobably just do all the formulas on my laptop on the plane on the way in since it’s easiee to drag-copy formulas on the laptop than on the app.

 

I should add video poker is $6 coin in per point at Cosmo. Since I mostly play slots, I’ll just manually enter the coin in when I play vp by multiplying the points by 6.

 

Yes, at V/P, you can determine the theo of a machine by the points you get.

• Put your card in, see how many points you are starting with.
• Run exactly $100 through
• Take your card out and put it back in again so that the point total refreshes
• At the base Grazie level, you get 10 points per $1 of theo, at Gold, it's 15, at Platinum it's 20.
• Divide the number of points you got for the session by the tier factor.

So if you're Gold, you run $100 through and you get 210 points, the theo is 14% (210 divided by 15).

I've had really short stays at Palazzo the last couple of trips and intended to do this on a good sample of machines, but just didn't bother to. But I can tell you that:

• A vanilla Double Diamond 3-reel machine with a low 800 credit / 1,600 credit top line jackpot that had multi-denom available was set to 12.5% at both $1 and $5 denoms.
• A machine with the same paytable, but with only $5 denom available was set to the same 12.5%
• A Simpsons penny slot was set to 14.5%

The Simpsons slot hold didn't surprise me, but the Double Diamond sure did. 12.5% is way higher on a $1 denom than I expected, never mind $5. I was expecting something more like 10% and 8%.

 

Bad news Bboy, this might make you sound like a geek to others, but on VMB? Excel spreadsheets on play, metrics, comp offers, coin-in/out, you name it, are regular hobbies.

We still definitely want to see your data, and I think it's a cool idea, but you've found your flock here on VMB...we make OCD cool...and beloved!

We'd all love to see your data, and I'm excited to have another Excel guru on here! (@Chuck60 might have an Excel throw-down with you though...."Let's get ready to RUMBLE!!!")

Crap, speak of the devil....he already replied

 

Holy $&%#! I know V/P is rumored to be tight. But if I do a sample and it turns out they are actually setting their dollar and 5 dollar machines at 12.5%, I just flat out will not play slots there. Those numbers are well south of what the gaming board reports for strip casinos at those denoms (though if those reports include video poker, I suppose those could not be as far south of what’s standard as I’d like to think ).

I am really hoping the machines spit out points for gold card members in 15 point increments, that way I can just look at the credits to next points display, choose the highest number I notice, and divide it out. Ie, a penny machine that is 1250 to 15 points would be at 92% (11.50 paid out per every 12.50). I’m not great at counting spins after some drinks!

 

LOL, spreadsheets are too much like work! I play for fun!

 

Yeah I was shocked at 12.5%. That machine is one of my go-tos, so it really put a damper on my bringing V/P back into rotation.

There is some kind of countdown display on the machines at V/P, but I never really looked close enough to tell how what it counts - coin in to your next point, or coin in to your next $1 of theo. I think the back end of the system at V/P (and most places) increments your points including any fractional amount after every spin. When I look at my monthly TR statement from CET, a lot of times it shows a fractional rewards credit out to 4 decimal places.

So if you were on a $1 machine that had a 12.5% hold, you're generating $0.125 of theo on each spin. It would take 8 spins to generate $1 in theo and 10 points. So if you had 10 machines lined up all at the same theo, and you did a single $1 spin on each, I'm pretty sure after you did the last spin, you'd have your 10 points. But what the display would show for points on each of the prior 7 spins, I'm not sure.

Maybe it includes points in the display as soon as you earn a whole one, but truncates any fraction.

So as you moved down the line, earning 1.25 points per spin, the displays might say:
1 (representing 1.25)
2 (2.50)
3 (3.75)
5 (5.00)
6 (6.25)
7 (7.50)
8 (8.75)
10 (10.00)

 

I would hope V/P would keep the fractions internally like CET does. Otherwise that is a rip, especially to VP players. Even with Sheldon's garbage paytables, it is often $20 or more coin-in to get a dollar of theo.

 

Not to geek out here but I think such small sample sizes will give bizarre and inaccurate results.

 

Agreed. Just doing it for fun. Nearly Totally statistically irrelevant.

 

I would love to do this but doing so and all of a sudden I don't feel like i am on vacation.

I would like to see this for a lot more games. Granted it is just a sampling but it would be interesting to see how my sessions compare.

Btw, what does "Dnm" pertain to?

 

dnm is for denomination. Needed a short abbrev so I could make the Column narrower.

I just landed in Vegas and am going to give this a shot. If it’s fun/easy I’ll keep up with it and start a TR later today. If it makes it feel like I’m not on vacation, I’ll abandon pretty quickly. So we’ll see. I still think it will be fun.

 

I would never criticize you for this "hobby". It does seem like a lot of work to me but It's your time/effort and apparently fun.

 

TR is here. Let’s see how long I last. This is tough with the cocktails !

https://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/index.php?threads/an-excel-ent-trip-report.151188/

 

Omg. Yaaaassss!!!

I too am a degenerate spreadsheet lover.

Its part of my job and as I have become more qualified in excel I love any excuse to play with them.

Obviously as stated the data is not relevent due to small sample size however if this is something you are willing to share others may be able to contribute to allow for a more reasonable account of the data and allow maybe a standard deviation veiw just for kicks.

Im so very sad..

I know.