gaming machines and cheats

[JohnBud]

hi guys, I'm well known in these parts as a player of Fruit machines

I have a few pubs I visit in order to play machines. recently one of the pubs got taken over.

Now lets look at me. I will invest a couple of hundred minimum on using these, that's weekly by the way. however recently one of the machines I play has become bothersome. Every time I get a decent win it resets

yesterday I was on a £15 repeater and had doubled up to £30 with the chance of getting more repeats.

A couple of days earlier it did the same, Now whilst I'm happy to gamble my cash I would still like a chance to win it back but I do feel that the machine is resetting due to a programme fault it re-sets itself every time I start to empty it. Is it possible to doctor the payout to such an extent that it re-sets hence cutting down on payouts ?

I'm getting ready to call the gambling commission. that's how i feel right now. I'm not a happy bunny at all. I am not a bad loser I accept my losses, just the same as I accept my gain but I'm getting bad vibes from this machine its just not playing the way it should I have played the exact same machine in lots of places but something is not right. any advice would be great cheers.

John Bud

edit did what i could to improve spelling and grammar

AnDyC2010-08-20 17:26:46

 

[Guests]

Maybe the best thing is to stop playing that machine?

You wont get much help on this forum for playing fruit machines I'm afraid maybe try somewhere like the mcu mecca or fruit emu forums?
AnDyC2010-08-20 17:28:05

 

[trm]

What's a puggie and what's your average return on your "investments"?

It's possible the code is modified to cause a reboot, but most modern fruities store the status of the payout for a quick reboot (well, the ones I have do).

If you really think it's been engineered to crash on purpose then call in the licensing people, but beware if you really like the pub

 

[JohnBud]

the pub is on a route home. the machine worked fine until about 10 days ago. the licencee said that the power supply had been changed, but that doesnt ring true. its just that i play these things and something is not right. on the returns side, it depends where i work. i often work away and stay in nice wee villages etc. on these stays if i do a pub crawl i can get a couple of hundred if im lucky other times i may drop £100-150. i know its a gamble but i have played these all my days. and summit is amiss. i dont want to rock the boat with them. they are a nice enough couple but i know they are struggling. i could just drop the pub but its handy and on a direct route home. cheers.

john bud

 

[JohnBud]

an update.
went to the pub today and asked for my £30. i was advised that the guy who came to look at it was only an engineer. but someone else will be coming on monday. fine says i, got some change went to the machine and its different. took £40 moved onto another and took £35. after this i then had a word with the pub licencee. i asked why if they took the machine away when i was not reimbursed for my money. he then gave me some waffle about hard drives. after listening to his waffle i have told him, if i dont get my dosh im reporting both the company who supplied it and the pub as well. i am seriously hacked of about this. why would they change the machine without checking the payout. i do not like getting ripped of and will be taking this as far as i can. these type of machines make enough without having to use underhand tactics to make more. cheers.

john bud

 

[JohnBud]

alls well that ends well

got my money back. i have now removed this pub from my list of pubs to visit. i still reckon they are jigged but i agree with the above why bother. cheers.

john bud

 

[backflipper]

I am unsure why anyone would expect to make money out of a fruit machine by playing them. They are programmed to pay out a set low percentage. Check out the simulators they prove theres no chance involved.
backflipper2010-09-03 19:12:58

 

[JohnBud]

i do agree with you there. but there are tell tale signs that a machine is ready to drop. tbh im getting ready to stop playing them, its very pricey now. im on the lookout for a decent machine, to go with my new ice cold tennents pump and chiller

you get to know people who play them, and some of the losses are quite heavy. i know a guy who lost £470 in 3 days. i also know a pensioner who puts at least £40 of his pension in the machine every wednesday. of course its nice to win and when you do hit the £70 it feels good

for me its not just about winning. i enjoy trying to beat the machine, much the same as when i get a new game. but these things as you say are designed to make money. its probably 1 of the worst gambles around. ive actually been banned from playing these in 2 pubs

1 of these was in my local pub. as far as the owner was concerned i was cheating his machine

i suppose in a way i was. but only in the same mould as using a cheat in for example crazy taxi. there are lots of things which you can notice, that other people may miss. all these signs will help you on your way to the jackpot. as im getting on a bit now i tend to drink in bars not lounges. these are usually full of old guys who dont know about the special features. the old guy above lost out on the jackpot twice because he didnt have a clue. the machine simply flashes for a short time on the display, go all the way. you cant lose and it still offers a gamble on the numbers i.e. hi or low. if you dont know about it then most people would collect. i did pass this info on to the old guy, and he did win his first ever jackpot. cheers.

john bud

 

[karlcdoe]

I doubt the machine was rigged to reset to avoid a payout and in any case as was mentioned they keep a record of transactions and in theory are required by law to pay out a minimum percentage. So unless the reset was clearing the statistics or showing as a payout even though one or two coins had dropped there would be little to gain for the op. I'd say it's much more likely a fault, possibly related to the hopper driver or maybe that section of the psu. I think you seriously overestimate the skills/dedication of most ops, I used to do some tech work for an arcade that had quite a few fruities and nobody there had a clue how they work even less how to 'fix' them. They probaly just swapped the machine out as they didn't know what was wrong with it (this is common practice). Most of the fraud was carried out by the punters (smashing buttons off and aiming laser pointers at the hopper sensor, or partially leavering the door open so they could put it into test mode and dump £125 (or whatever it is these days) from the hopper. As regards 'winning', well, no, the house always wins, most of our customers left down on money and the fruities took several hundred a week compared to £60 or whatever for a (then new) sega rally2, the only 'winners' were the ones who had enough skill to tell when it was going to pay out based on (1)the length of time since it last paid out and (2)the pattern of the machine, ie does it keep going up the feature trail, do certain lights turn red 'because it's going to pay out', etc. Either way the developers put all these 'tells' into the machines to keep people playing and legally they are (were) not defined as 'games of skill' -mind you neither was pinball IIRC....

One other thing I forgot to consider is that there may well be bugs in the code on fruit machines that may be exploted to get greater payouts, however fruit manufacturers are pretty hot on this and (5+ years ago at least) would hurry out rom revisions to be installed by site engineers. I also recall going for a dev job at a fruity conversion company once in Birmingham (notable only for the fact it was the day of the last Concorde flight) and the conversation I had with them echoed most of what I've said here.
karlcdoe2010-09-07 10:24:08