Probability Of Jackpot Slot Machine 6,4/10 3644 reviews

Suppose you have a slot machine with three reels with ten symbols on each, and it only pays out when three cherries hit. The odds of winning that jackpot, as we determined earlier, is 1/1000. If we set the jackpot as $900, and charge $1 per bet, the payout percentage for that game will be 90%, or $900/$1000. The payout you see on a slot machine is not determined by how many people have played; it is purely determined by chance. In a modern day casino, if the probability was 1/56, the jackpot would be about 56 dollars. This seems strange, if the probability says you will win one in 56 times, and the jackpot is 56 dollars, how do they make any money?

Probability Of Winning Slot Machine Jackpot

If you’re the type of person who isn’t that great at Blackjack or Poker and feel left out when you go with your friends to a casino, you can always spend your time on the slot machines. Slot Machines are those big boxes shaped like vending machines that have bright, flashy lights and play wonky circus music. In a big casino like the ones in Macau or Las Vegas, you will have rooms with rows of slot machines and slot machines in random corners of the casino. They are the perfect gambling entertainment for the rookie gambler and the newbie casino goer. It’s a simple game and I will try to explain how it works and your chances of winning a jackpot.

All slot machines will have the same type of features. They will have:

A Lever: It’s the big handle that sticks out from the side of the machine. If you pull it, you start the game.
Reels: The spinning wheels inside the machine that have different types of symbols and pictures on them. They start turning once you pull the lever. Then all the reels start turning and stop one-by-one from left to right. You win the game based on the arrangement of the types of symbols that appear on the reels. There are generally in most slot machines three spinning reels.

There are two types of slot machines that are based on how they are made. There is the classic, mechanical slot machine that turns with the reels with gears and pulleys, and the modern, computerized slot machine that uses a computer program to turn the reels. The computerized slot machines can allow casinos to be really creative, and sneaky, with how they set them up.

Let’s set up a make-believe mechanical slot machine that has three reels with 64 symbols on each. To make things simple, to get a jackpot, you need to have a ‘7’ symbol on each reel, other combinations are losers. The first reel has no effect on where the second reel stops, and the second reel has no effect on where the third reel stops, making each reel independent of the other reels.

If each reel has 64 symbols, of which only the ‘7’ symbol can let us win, therefore the probability of getting a ‘7’ on the first reel is 1 out of 64.
Since all the reels are identical, that means the probability of getting a ‘7’ on the second reel is also 1 out of 64.
Same like before, the probability of getting a ‘7’ on the third reel is also 1 out of 64.
Since each reel is an independent event, the formula to calculate the probability of getting a ‘7’ on each reel is P(Three ‘7’s) = P(‘7’ on first reel)*P(‘7’ on second reel)*P(‘7’ on third reel)
Therefore: P(Three ‘7’s or Jackpot) = (1/64)(1/64)(1/64) = 1/262144 or 1/(2^18)
The odds of getting a jackpot or three ‘7’s in a row are: P(Jackpot)/P(Losing) = P(Jackpot)=P'(Jackpot) = P(Jackpot)=(1-P(Jackpot)) = (1/262144)/(262143/262144) = 1:262143. If you really think about it, it seems almost impossible to win.

Probability Of Jackpot Slot Machines

People sometimes think that some machines are hotter than others in the way that they are more likely to give a jackpot because more people have played them before, when in fact it is not true at all! Because the reels are independent events and each lever pull is a new event every time, your odds of winning a jackpot will remain 1:262143, even if you play for 12 hours straight non-stop.

The Computerized Slot Machines are harder to calculate because they use complex computer programs to generate the random numbers for which symbol appears on the machine. I won’t be able to give you a calculation, but I will try to explain how casinos use probability to ruin our chances of winning:

Let’s say we use a 3-reeled machine that has 21 symbols this time on each one.
First the lever is pulled
The computer generates three random numbers. For example: 12,34,56. The first number tells which symbol will appear on the first reel and so on.
If you noticed, we have 21 symbols, so why are there numbers like 34 or 56? This is because there actually 4 reels, 3 mechanical and 1 virtual, in the matrix…
The virtual reel has 64 numbers from 1 to 64 (could also be 32 or 128 and so on). Each of these 64 numbers match to one of the 21 symbols in each reel.
But that would mean some of the 21 symbols will have more numbers from the virtual reel than others. Exactly, that means so symbols are more likely to appear than others. So your chance of getting a jackpot number in one reel is not 1 out of 21, but even less.
What casinos will do is have the symbols that appear before and after the jackpot symbol on each reel to be those symbols with more numbers on the virtual reel. It gives the false idea to players like us that we are so close to winning, and so we need to play more until we get a Jackpot, but in reality you’re being a tricked and are losing a lot of money.

So next time your friends abandon you at the bar while they make millions, or lose them, at the Blackjack or Poker table, you can entertain yourself with a slot machine, but will be more prepared to stop if you think you’re close to winning after 20 pulls.

(some random dude on Google :P)