 
Inside
a cybernetic one-armed bandit
Dear
Mark,
On the weekends, do casinos make
adjustments on their video poker
machines to make more money? Sam
K.
Do
you mean do casinos take a screwdriver
to their slots on the weekends to
tighten them up? No way. It is not
cost effective for the casino to
continually alter the payouts on
their machines. To alter the percentage
return in their favor on a video
game, the casino must, by law, make
a hardware change. You do this by
swapping out an internal component,
the ROM portion of the microprocessor
chip. ROM, or read only memory,
is a chip the slot manufacturer
provides the casino. This is the
chip that tells the video poker
machine to pay 9 coins for a full
house, 6 coins for a flush. Additionally,
they would have to physically change
the glass payout schedule on their
machines.
What you could see is a seasonal
wholesale change to improve their
theoretical hold by making all 9/6
machines to 8/5 bandits. By changing
to all 8/5 machines, the house holds
an additional 3% edge on each and
every machine.
Dear
Mark,
Is there a way that the casino can
program a video poker machine so
that a royal flush never appears?
Shanon B.
Can,
yes. Would? Never!
What you have described is called
secondary decision programming.
A good programmer could write code
that allows the computer within
to stop a hand that is about to
be dealt in favor of a different
hand. This would prevent big winning
hands like royal flushes from appearing
their theoretical number of times.
In a highly regulated industry like
casinos, it is safe to assume honesty
in programming.
Dear
Mark,
When I am dealt the first five cards
on a video poker machine, are the
draw cards already sitting behind
the cards I want to discard, or
are they dealt from the top of the
deck? Ed. P.
It
depends, Ed, on the company who
produced the slot or how old the
machine is. In the past, the majority
of video poker machines operated
using parallel dealing. This is
where all 10 cards are dealt simultaneously,
meaning, you are dealt both the
display cards and their draw replacements.
Discard that dreadful four of clubs
and the seven of diamonds, which
you didn't need, was sitting behind
it all along. Today, the new machines
employ serial dealing. Here replacement
cards are dealt right from the top
of the deck-similar to a live poker
game.
Because the cards are shuffled and
displayed randomly, neither way
has any effect on the outcome.
Dear
Mark,
What are the chances of hitting
the lottery twice in one lifetime.
Has it ever happened? Milton G.
In
a perfect world we all would win
the lottery once, shoot scratch
golf and drive a Mercedes. But that
wasn't perfect enough for divorced
convenience-store manager Evelyn
Marie Adams of New Jersey when she
won her state's lottery twice within
a four-month span in 1985. The odds
against Ms. Adams winning the double
bonanza were 15 trillion to one.
Fifteen trillion, Milton, is three
thousand times the number of people
on this planet. Since then, seven
others have joined the elite fraternity
of repeat lottery winners.
Dear
Mark,
How much edge does the casino have
in blackjack? Bert B.
It
strictly depends on the skill level
of each individual player. Against
the average Joe the casino has about
a two percent edge. A hunch or superstitious
player can easily give back eight
percent.
Depending on the rules of a particular
casino, a Deal Me In reader who
uses perfect basic strategy has
only a half of a percent disadvantage.
They also get rated and work the
casino over for comps. Because many
casinos give back between 20 to
40 percent of the expected win-not
the actual win-in player gratuities,
the Deal Me In player actually shows
a positive expectation when playing
blackjack.
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