I've read with interest all the talk about determining whether a machine pays out the expected amount, more or less.
I use a 4th method. Whenever I sit down at a machine and put in, say, a $100 bill, I enter that event into my iPhone (using a program called Gamble Track--www.gambletrackapp.com). If I later cash out zero, I do nothing and if its $500, I enter that into the application too. Each machine has a machine # so I have gotten into the habit of entering that as well. As a result, I can tell at an instant which machines seem to be "lucky" for me (read honest) and which have any hanky-panky going on. Since it automatically gives it a date and time stamp, I also can tell during what time of day I do the best (between 6 and 8 AM for me). I play nothing but DB so it's important to me that the machines give an expected distribution of 4OAKs in Aces and 2-4's and this app allows you to track 4OAKs as well. This may all sound burdensome but the program works with drop down lists so if you change casinos, for instance, and you've been to that one before, it will appear on the dropdown list so you just point and shoot; you don't have to type the name of the casino each time (or machine number, or even the cash-in amounts). Once you have entered the casino information, you do not have to enter it ever again, until you change casinos. Same for machine #. And of course, you don't need to ever enter the date and time because, like all smart phones, it already knows that.
Call me superstitious but when I go to Vegas, I know which machines in which casinos treat me the best. More than that, I like to know where I am at for the trip. With Gamble Track, if a friend comes up to me and asks me how I'm doing, I can respond with where I'm at to the dollar. There was another long thread regarding records needed for income tax purposes. The data stored in my phone, which can easily be transferred to a computer and sucked up in Excel, would give any accountant more info than they asked for . . . for a change. And simply by pressing the PRINT button on your computer and handing him or her the resulting print out.
Anyway, that's my nerdy method of tracking machine performance. True, the sample size is much smaller than peeking at reels and such but it works for me, actually personalized to my play. I used to keep track of all this in a tiny notebook but, after all, this is now the 21st century isn't it?
Leaving for Vegas tomorrow night! Wooo Hooooooo!
Good luck to all of you!
Lee
2.8. Re: machine's
Posted by: "Mickey" mickeycrimm@yahoo.com mickeycrimm
Date: Tue Jan 4, 2011 10:06 pm ((PST))
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "nightoftheiguana2000" <nightoftheiguana2000@...> wrote:
>
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> Compare the coin-in and coin-out meters.
>>
I'm dying to know the third way. But here's a little trick I used to use on the IGT Vision Series advantage slots. On the machines made before 2000 you could get down in the window and look past the third reel to see the coin in and coin out meters. I used to track those meters to get an idea how strong or weak the payback was. The intelligence came in real handy.
Take the Wild Cherry Pie, the original version where you had to put all 54 cherries in the pie to get a 40 to 200 coin bonus. The top line hit did not get recorded in the coin out meter. So the biggest hits going into that meter was 100 for 1 for three sevens or if you caught the 200 coin bonus after filling the pie.
After 30,000 or so coin in I had a good idea of the payback percentage of that particular machine. If the coin in - coin out meters showed that particular Cherry Pie was only returning 90% then I would only play it if there were just a few cherries to go. But on a machine that showed a 97% return I would play it when it was only half way filled up.
