I'm not sure I agree with you -- I think "how you're running" is more important to one's impression of a machine session. How long $20, or $100, will last, is actually affected more in the short run by WHAT you're hitting more than how much it pays. I've had many sessions where I'll put a lot of money in the machine before I get my first hand better than three of a kind, and if you didn't understand loose / tight or paytables in VP, you'd think that was a "bad" machine, when in fact you're just "running bad".
Hopefully we all understand the contribution of the royal flush to the return, and how a dry spell without the expected frequency of royals can almost guarantee losses, just as a below-expectation frequency of quads can do (although the latter is more apparent in a few hours of play). And we've all had that run where we play 20 or 30 hands (or more, I don't count 'em, although that might be something worth doing so I can complain about it quantitatively) and can't get anything at all to pay, not even a high pair, where the credits just spiral downward without a single uptick.
The underlying concept is important, of course -- if you decide to complain to management about a change for the worse in a paytable on video poker, the language to use is "my money doesn't seem to be lasting as long as it used to when I play, did you do anything?". Not that they listen, but they will be more receptive to that than a complaint that the return is no longer set at 99.54% :)
I do think that the "average gambler" (whatever that is) will notice that they are not doing well over several trips - that they are walking away a loser (as they expect to do) more frequently, or more quickly, than at a casino where the slots are in fact looser, but I also can believe a study where short-term perception is measured and it is found that they can't tell the difference -- if they had measured this perception over a longer period, I think the "average gambler" might be able to discern between loose and tight, but not over a short session, even if "short" is as long as a few hours.
The changes from 9/6 to 9/5 and 8/5 never affect me, of course, because I never make a flush or a full house anyway :)
--BG
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1. Last week's Gambling With an Edge radio show
I still find it incredible that Loveman is supposed to have done a study that proved the average gambler can't tell the difference between a loose and a tight slot and this is why Harrah's has the tightest slots in the industry. First off, you can't just group slots together, they are mathematically very different. Now, if you take a high payout, low frequency slot like MegaBucks, and you change the return by changing the top jackpot, of course the average gambler can't tell because the average gambler never plays enough cycles to actually get the top jackpot. But if you change the return by changing the frequently hit smaller jackpots, the average gambler can tell because this directly affects "machine time", i.e. the average amount of time say a $20 bill will last on the machine before being depleted. Any video poker player who has played some video poker (at least a royal cycle) knows this directly as you can tell the difference between 9/6 jacks and 8/5 jacks just by how frequently you have to feed the machine, likewise for 15/9/5 deuces versus 15/9/4 deuces. A similar effect occurs on many video slots, which is why the first generation Buffalo was so popular (it was set very loose, perhaps by mistake). The Wizard of Odds has demonstrated that it is relatively easy in the smart phone era to get the return of a slot that has frequent payoffs. Second, the statement was made that if you ignore debt and other fixed costs, Harrah's slots have the highest hold in the industry. Well, of course, because they are the tightest. So, of the people who play, Harrah's makes the most money per spin. But of course this is why Harrah's has so much competition and has never been able to dominate a market in the Loveman era, because they leave the business wide open to casinos that offer looser slots and get all the business from the gamblers who can tell. The casinos with the looser machines don't hold as much per spin, but they more than make up for that with more play time per machine and more customers. And the customers exhibit more loyalty and are less likelier to walk across the street or whatever to the Harrah's because it's well known on the street that Harrah's has the tightest slots in the industry. Harrah's does have a generous slot club, but of course they have to try harder to get gamblers to play tight slots and try to keep them from walking out to the loose slot casino next store. The fact that Harrah's repeatedly fails once competition moves in shows that their slot club is not loose enough to support their tight slot policy. Instead they are forced to go further into debt to build yet another casino in a market that does not yet have any competition.
