In the electromechanical days, the reels had wheels with slots on them. A lever would fit into the slot to stop the reel and the depth of the reel caused the other end of the lever to touch contacts corresponding to the payout of that reel position. There was no weighting of the reel positions, so changing the hold required changing both the reel strips as well as the slotted wheel that went with it. All payouts were controlled with relay logic. Old slots like this are a nightmare to repair.
D
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, Jason Pawloski <jpawloski@...> wrote:
>
> I believe this information is wrong. Swapping out reels is only required if the theme changes. To change the payback of a particular slot game, the weighting of each spot on the reels change, not the physical reels themselves. As far as I know this has always been the case.
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> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jan 1, 2011, at 4:19 PM, "Frank" <frank@...> wrote:
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> > This is an interesting question. Since video poker machines cannot be "changed" without a visible alteration to the pay-table, I can only guess you are asking about slots.
>
> > In the old days most casinos only changed slot return after monthly or quarterly accounting sessions, or even more commonly during remodeling. Changing the return of a slot required replacing the reels and as this was costly, it was usually avoided. Nor did the casinos need to change them, many slots (Even the ones with 10% meter-rise) had massive holds and needed no alteration to be big bread winners for the house.
> >
> > Machines might be shut down and checked for errors mid-month, only if they required 3 fills in a shift (standard house rule). Even so they were not changed, only fixed, if broken.
> >
> > This is no longer the case. Now changing the return of a slot only requires swapping out the chip-set, with no alteration to the hardware or physical reels. I have even heard that some casinos can alter return on the fly with newly available software suites.
> >
> > I have not personally verified or disproved these claims, since I stopped playing slots the day the went electromechanical.
>
>
> > --- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, Meredith And Kenny <meredithandkenny@> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Do any of you know how often the machine's are updated or changed ?? IE:: a bunch of people are winning on one machine,,,,do they change it ?
>
