Slots Bonus Rounds on Slots

My wife likes to play the video slots and I quite enjoy playing for a few hours a day on different ones for fun. We understand the odds of winning are not high and any wins are a bonus as we would only be spending the $ on something else!

Anyway my question is this:

I understand how the random generator works on the initial roll of the reels (or video version of reels) to determine if it is a win or not. However if that number generated determines a bonus round has the win on that also already been determined? Or does every decision you make on the bonus round start a new random generator number that determines that outcome separately. I open box 1 and win $10, if I had opened box 2 would I have won the $100? Or does it not matter which choice I had made would I still have won $10??

 

It is my understanding that the initial play (spin) is independent of the bonus spin, and each subsequent spin is independent of the next.

Basically, each spin is independent in itself, one spin, or win, has nothing to do with any other spin or win (or non-win)

It's all random and subject to the RNG independently

In regards to a "choosing" bonus, the choices are the choices, what you picked is what you picked, not what the machine decided to give you.

If you have three choices, and it's (in order) $10, $100, and $250, and you pick the center one, it's $100, had you picked the last, it'd been $250
The choices are there, you must just make the correct choice

 

A lot depends on the bonus round.
If its one of those "U-Spins" or monopoly where the dice roll you have no control over them.
If its the bonus round where you actually pick or choose then its entirely based on what you do.

 

If you can directly make the win bigger by choosing the correct box, doesn't that game then become a game of skill although a very limited one? Reading other threads I understand that stopping the reels early makes no difference to the outcome of the spin as this makes the machine a game of skill.

How do they determine what is skill and what is a game of chance. There seems to be alot of skill in Video Poker in knowing what to hold, or does the overall payout percentage not really matter if it is played perfectly or just randomly by a novice over a long time?

How long is the time period that a machine is expected to reach it's 95% payout? There must be some other software controlling the RNG or they could not set payout levels, it would be just random. I just don't get how we are told that there is no such thing as a hot machine and yet we all have sat close to someone playing a machine that hits time after time. Same as the bonus rounds on machines, some days you pick the right thing almost every go and other times you pick the lowest payout time after time.

Maybe I'm getting into it too deep and should just play and remember that it's only money.......!!

 

The choices are random, so it's still a game of luck in choosing correctly. There's no pattern or deck (Though I have found on "Quick Hits" if you find the 20 3x choice, the other ones are USUALLY near or next to it), but is still a game of chance because the choices are random.

VP is a deck of cards. It's required by law to play like a deck of cards, it can't have two queens of hearts or two ace of clubs, it is to play as a single deck of cards.

As for a machine's payout percentage, that is set to be the payout over the entire lifetime of the machine. One day, or even week, that machine could pay out very well, and then essentially stop paying out for weeks. On this topic, I know the experts say there's no such thing as a "hot machine" and it is all a matter of perception, but I disagree, in my opinion, slot machines cycle and have various cycles of various lengths, depending on machine. If you sit at a machine long enough, especially older style mechanical three reel slots (non-video), and you play fast, you can feel the machine "stall" after a few dozens spins (say 10-15 minutes), after this "stall" happens, many times you can see a change in the reel pattern stops and sometimes a machine will start to play a little better, little (or lot) more payouts. Experts will disagree and say this is a psychological phenomena, but I disagree. I have spent many many hours on slots, and I pay attention to these "stalls" and have experienced and witnessed these changes in play.
I was at a casino in Eindhoven, Netherlands, playing a standard 3-reel mechanical slot, I believe it was an IGT machine, and this machine was completely predictable, I have never seen one this bad (or good), it have 5 cycles, so all you had to do is wait out 4 weak cycles, then once it got to the 5th cycles, payouts came fast and heavy, then once it cycled again (back to 1), the payouts and generosity stopped. It was this machine that convinced me of machines "cycling."
Either way, the payout percentage is over the life of the machine.

That said, an exception to that rule has to be the MGM's famous "Majestic Lions" machine that has yet to pay out it's now $2MM+ jackpot. I think it has well exceeded it's expected life cycle.

 

Hot and cold machines: Every slot machine has a theoretical payback built into its virtual reel layout. That is the way (and the only way) the manufacturer has control over the payback on the machine. The RNG picks COMPLETELY randomly for each of the reels on every spin; thus the chances of jackpots and/or any other paying combination remains the same on every spin.

The pattern of any random distribution ALWAYS shows hot and cold streaks; if it didn't it wouldn't be random. You should never expect a VP machine to pay a ROYAL once every 40,000 spins; if it actually did this it would be good evidence that it IS rigged. Streaks of winning and streaks of nothing are always to be expected of random spins; that's how random distributions ALWAYS look. Expecting a slot machine to have a smooth distribution of paying spins over time (not 100% of course) is merely not understanding what random looks like.

So you get long streaks of losses and wins on any machine; that is absolutely NOT evidence that the machine has been rigged to do so or someone is shifting the payback percentages on the machine. That is really evidence that the RNG is working correctly and that your chances are the same on every spin.

 

Explained like that, I guess that makes sense