This is the first of two reports examining slot advantage play. The second is about a new book and website that tell how even casual players can cash in on true-persistence slots.
The secret to identifying slot advantage players lies in data, but not the data casino operators typically look at, OPTX research shows.
Metrics such as visit frequency and theoretical win are insufficient to pinpoint the relative handful of slot pros who play only when they spot a true-persistence game nearing a sizable payout, said Tom Rafferty, co-CEO of OPTX, a Las Vegas-based company that enables casinos to apply advanced analytics and data-science principles throughout their properties.
However, AI can find patterns and behavior that separate those players from the crowd.
“You have to use machine-learning-type models to look at the various data points, both against the games themselves and the individuals, to find those people who are taking advantage,” Rafferty said. “We’re weeding out false positives to narrow in on the true advantage player.”
While advantage players don’t reduce overall slot revenue, many operators worry about losing day-to-day customers and enabling the pros through comps and free play.
Brooke Fiumara, the company’s other co-CEO and a co-founder, told of one player a client casino had rated as a high-value customer based on slot play totaling more than $6 million during more than 300 visits. Further analysis by OPTX showed the player posted a “statistically implausible” win rate and a profit of almost $2.4 million during that time. She said an OPTX review covering multiple properties has identified $17 million in advantage slot play winnings, with those players also receiving $5 million in free play.
In the past few years, several websites and books have spotlighted how knowledgeable players can gain an advantage by concentrating specifically on the popularity of true-persistence games, also known as “variable state” or “accumulation” games. Their key attraction could be a must-hit-by bonus or the collection of symbols from reel spins, with the collected total building from one player to the next. Advantage players pounce only when the collection has grown large enough to raise the expected return to more than 100 percent.
In contrast, some collection games are “perceived persistence,” meaning the bonus payment is random and unrelated to the size of the collection. The difference between the two formats is not immediately obvious, but available information specify which are true-persistence games.
“We’re focusing on players exploiting those true-persistence games, in which the likelihood of a jackpot occurring gets higher and higher the more it’s played,” Rafferty said. “They’re taking all of the benefits, the perks and incentives, and using those to further perpetuate this behavior.”
Although declining to detail all that OPTX looks for, Rafferty said one factor is low play on non-persistence games combined with high play on persistence machines. Some advantage players might concentrate on one game, while others spread play across multiple titles. Fiumara identified “another big piece of the behavioral puzzle”: how players earn and redeem free slot play.
She said OPTX rates suspicious play on a scale, such as “true advantage player” or “showing advantage-like behavior,” then notifies the operator of its findings. The operator can monitor suspected advantage players and decide what, if any, action to take. Options could include reducing or eliminating comps, excluding them from marketing campaigns, even banning them from the floor. So far, none of those OPTX identified as high-risk has been shown as a false positive.
Advantage players can also take the fun out of other gamblers’ experience, Fiumara and Rafferty said. Recreational players who helped build up the collection pots can sense they’re winning less often and cut back their visits. In some cases, “slot vultures” intimidate players by hovering behind them or using body odor, even fart spray, to encourage a player to leave a machine in positive expectation territory.
Identifying slot advantage players is “about preserving game integrity, maintaining guest experience, protecting marketing budgets, and just making sure that your normal average player base has a good, normal, average experience,” Fiumara said.
“If you have a group of players taking all of the bonuses intentionally, it changes that experience for everybody.”
