Slot machine Advantage Players (APs) are worried that casinos have found a new way to counter their play on “persistence” games. I hope the tactic they’re worried about is a paranoid myth. If it isn’t, I believe it may be illegal.
Background
By now, every operator knows the headaches persistence slots cause (if you do too, jump ahead to “The reset rumor”). But in case you’ve spent the last five years vacationing in Utah or Hawaii, here’s the short version. These machines, also called “variable state” games, give you a better chance of hitting a bonus or jackpot the more the game is played. They’ve been around in various forms for years, but a new wave of very popular video titles has made them an attractive and profitable target for APs.
The operators’ complaint has nothing to do with legality, profitability or popularity. The problem is that regular guests often build up a machine’s win potential, and then the APs swoop in and skim off the bonuses. Some call them “slot vultures.” They don’t do the hard work to make the kill; they just fly in and pick over the remains.
In the short term, this doesn’t hurt the casino’s bottom line. But it’s bad for regular players, who get fewer winning experiences than they’re entitled to. Meanwhile, the APs win far more than they should while piling up Free Play and promotional rewards. In other words, the least profitable players (many APs seldom lose) end up getting rewarded the most. And the larger crowd of regular patrons has less fun (and fewer wins) than they should.
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What can you do?
Unfortunately, not much. Today’s analytical software can spot these players easily enough. But then what? This is completely legal, and therefore handcuffs are not the solution.
You can, and should, ban them from your rewards club. But that won’t make them go away. There are estimations that skilled APs can generate 15% to 20% profit on these games; therefore, they’ll continue to happily play without a card if forced to do so. That’s why so many former video poker pros and blackjack card counters have switched to playing persistence machines.
If you have facial recognition, you could use it to ban them from the property. Just don’t be surprised when they show up in beards, fake noses and outrageous hats. Card counters perfected that routine decades ago.
The nuclear option (and not necessarily a good one) is to pull every persistence game off your floor. Unfortunately, the catch is that all players love them, not just the APs. If you are in a competitive market, you could drive many of your players to the neighbors.
The “reset” rumor
My friend Richard Munchkin asked me about this rumor several weeks ago. Yes, he is that Richard Munchkin, a well-known AP and a very good one. Why do I call him a friend? Because he and his frequent collaborator Bob Dancer have always shared their thoughts with me and asked for my opinions. I do the same with them.
Unlike many of my operator colleagues, I’ve found APs to be some of the best sources of information about our industry. It is not an exaggeration to say that most APs know more about specific machines and table games than the average slot director or pit boss. Ignoring them is a mistake. You should listen to them whenever you can.
Munchkin had heard that some Las Vegas Strip casinos were “resetting” their persistence meters and bonus features every evening to discourage AP play.
That would be an interesting countermeasure. The core AP strategy is to roam the floor looking for machines that other players abandoned in a favorable state. If casinos wiped those states clean every night, there’d be nothing ready for them to hit.
Munchkin wasn’t buying the fairness of it. As he put it on X, “Aren’t the casinos guilty of exactly what they are accusing the APs of? They say the rec players build up the machine, and the APs hit the feature. But casino(s) are resetting the machines at night essentially doing the same thing to the rec players.”
At first, I doubted any casino was really doing this, for two reasons. As Munchkin pointed out, resetting would hurt regular guests just as much as the APs. Second, and more importantly, I suspected it might be illegal. So, I asked the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB).
“We have regulations that prevent this,” says Jeremy Eberwein, NGCB’s Chief of Technology. “If a slot game accumulates any value, it must either be kept on that game or transferred to another game, it cannot just be reset without justification. There are tracking mechanisms in place, so if a casino operator was found to be doing this, they would be subject to disciplinary action.”
The Board also cited Regulation 5.110(5), which mainly covers progressive jackpots. The only exception it allows is transferring the accumulated amounts to a similar device (or in the case of a casino closure, creating approved promotions to dispense the funds).
Historically, most jurisdictions, including most tribal gaming agencies, have modeled their rules on Nevada’s. So, I think it’s safe to say that resetting persistence machines would get you in trouble almost anywhere in the U.S.
Again, I would hate to think any casino was doing this, but I have received numerous emails from several other APs who are convinced they are.
Operator defense
Could resetting a meter be legitimate? Yes, sometimes. Just like your computer, smart watch or streaming TV; things on slot machines can go wrong for no apparent reason. When that happens (just like you do with your “blue screen” computer), we reset it. It is called a “RAM clear.” The correct way to do it is to manually record all meters and other data, then reboot the game. You should verify that after a reset the meters are set to values as close as possible to their position before the reset.
However, on some newer games (like Aristocrat’s “Phoenix Link”), the meters can reset to random amounts. As an exaggerated and hypothetical example, if a game like these had a meter at $5,129, it might reset to $15,911 after a RAM clear. That would be unfair to the casino. Or it could reset to $1,783. That would, of course, be unfair to the players. I would hope that most reputable casinos would continue to do RAM clears until they get an amount close to the original value.
If, as APs are speculating, they are resetting these games just to get a low meter, I believe this would be a violation of current gaming regulations.
Ben Rosenthal, who recently wrote the book “Breaking the Slot Code,” pointed out a similar allegation on his “Slot Slayers” blog. On a game like “Magic Treasures Dragon,” certain bonuses have a countdown (or count up) meter. On this game the counter starts at 5. The same happens after it has been hit (or reset). Then it can climb as high as 48 just before hitting the bonus (like shown). APs like to jump in sometime after the mid-point.
Rosenthal and several other players have contacted me saying they believe some casinos are resetting this game to 5 on purpose (often nightly) just to discourage APs. Again, if it is for a legitimate RAM clear to fix a malfunctioning machine, I have no objection. If they are doing it just to frustrate APs, shame on them. As mentioned above, this also cheats regular players.
I did not ask NGCB regulators about this specific counter issue, but I bet their answer would be the same since this practice is taking away value from the player and distorting the machine’s theoretical hold percentage.
If any casino is concerned that much about AP play, they should remove those machines, not rig them! Greed is not a good look.
Add it to the list
I’m grateful to Munchkin, Rosenthal and others for bringing this up. Hopefully, if any casinos are doing this, they will please STOP. That way I can add this claim to my long list of false casino myths:
- Playing with a rewards club card inserted hurts your odds. The exact opposite is true. The “rewards” you receive are part of the “Return to Player” (RTP) calculation on any game. These rewards improve your overall odds, not hurt them. Regulations also prohibit the card system from having any impact on a game outcome.
- We try to get players drunk. Not so. In my experience, drunks always seem to get lucky. Not to mention they are hardly a good look on your floor.
- There’s a dial in the slot director’s office to tighten the games. I wish.
- You can beat roulette with the Martingale system. Please, try it and let me know!
- New machines always pay off right away. Try this one too!
- Once a machine hits, it won’t hit again. Nope. Countless times in my career, I’ve seen back-to-back jackpots and even instant repeating Royal Flushes.
- We love gamblers with addiction problems. Totally wrong. They burn out quickly, and they create a terrible image for our business.
- The lottery is a better bet than the casino. Lotteries keep roughly half of every dollar wagered, and most of what’s left goes to just a handful of big winners. By contrast, Nevada law says slot machines can hold no more than 25%, and most other casinos across the country say no tighter than 20%. But nobody sets games anywhere near that tight. Some video poker games hold less than 0.5% (and despite that tighter state limit, Nevada has some of the best odds in the country).
- There’s no such thing as free drinks, meals or rooms. Comps are real, but you do have to play to get them. They wouldn’t be “free” if there wasn’t an overall profit made by the House. However, often winners get free comps. (One note: California law prohibits comping alcoholic beverages to anyone.)
- Video “draw poker” machines change the cards after your original hand is dealt so you can’t get a winner. The deck is digitally shuffled randomly before the start of these games. Your “draw” cards come from the top of that same deck with no reshuffling or reordering. There are no cards (pre-dealt) underneath the original dealt ones.
- Playing video poker fast is better. This is only true for talented players who measure their success by their hourly win (or lose) rate. Average players should take their time, according to their ability, to avoid costly mistakes.
- Today’s machines are tighter than ever. Yes and No. It’s complicated. Compared with the one-armed bandits of the 1940s through the ’70s, today’s games are looser. But the arrival of penny games three decades ago did push overall holds up. The trade-off is that modern games are more entertaining, offer many more ways to win, and pay bigger when they hit. Shop around: large publicly traded national properties tend to be tighter than “local” joints. Other high hold machines are generally found where there are steep gaming taxes and/or simply greedy corporations.
- Slot machines are looser if you turn up their volume. I’m laughing too loud to even consider this one. There is no connection between volume and winning (except for the screams from the Craps table).
- Casinos encourage money laundering. Despite a few senior-level Las Vegas managers who recently got caught doing this, every casino works hard to prevent this. All employees must complete annual anti-money-laundering training, with lectures and written tests. Those egotistical executives who got busted violating the AML laws paid multimillion-dollar fines, and some lost their licenses.
- Mobsters skim cash from the count room. You’ve been watching “Casino,” haven’t you? Today the bad guys try to sneak money into casinos, not take it out (see money laundering above).
Let me know if you’ve heard about any others. And please, rat out any casino illegally resetting meters and/or bonuses for no good reason.
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