I've been asked to discuss why the game got pulled so here goes.
In Montana a licensed establishment can have a maximum of only 20 machines. So each machine had both keno and poker games. On the machines that had the game on it, there were a dozen keno games and 6 video poker games. Then video line games got legalized. So now you have three choices on each machine, keno, poker, lines games. I suspect the game got pulled to make room for the line games. It was my observance that the game wound up being one of the lowest grossing games for the house.
They put the game on a little over 4 years ago. It was in the bottom right hand corner of the game selection screen with a little symbol that said "new game." This attracted attention and the game initially got lots of action. I hadn't gotten around to analyzing the game yet. I generally stay backed up on analyzing games.
But I was in a joint on another play one day. Someone walked up to the machine beside me and punched the game up. From my peripheral I seen him looking at something at the top of the screen. He didn't find anything and left. So I slid over to see what he was looking for. I seen the little icons and went "uh oh!!" I went through the game rules and everything, checked the meter speeds--I found the 4% meters on the 7 and 10 spots.
Then I went home and crunched the math. It was a lot of work because I had to do everything from the 5-Spot up to the 10-Spot. I had to figure out the Bonus Round, a game within the game, and what it was worth. Luckily, it was worth the same, 9 bets, no matter how many spots I was playing. There were just different frequencies for getting into the Bonus Round. For instance, the 7-Spot frequency was 102 and the 10-Spot frequency was 128.
I created par numbers and listed them in my pocket notebook. Then I went out to see what I could find. I found a lot. The game was new and getting action. I did little else but play that particular game. I knocked the whole state down.
After that initial rush the plays were less frequent but I was still getting them. But after about 6 months action on the game waned. The one thing a square bettor notices is how fast his/her money is disappearing. Depending on the number of spots I was playing, I was fading an 18% to 28% drop to collect the jackpot. This was the kind of drop the square bettors were fading too....but so many of them didn't make up for it on the end by collecting the jackpot. So action dwindled down....but the game continued to add to my bottom line for 4 years.
There were some interesting things that happened along the way. Sometimes I would find a meter way out of wack. Like a 6-Spot with no icons filled in but the meter is at $500+. This was huge so I would spin them off--all the while hoping that the meter reset way higher than the $100 it was supposed to reset at. No luck there, but eventually, I walked into a joint one day....
to be continued.
