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Comment by svilen_dobrev | Hacker News Reader

pff, there was some movie long ago, some technician was installing a few 1-armed-bandits in some pub, and asked the owner - should they give 1 win per 100, or 1 per 1000 ? And the owner answered: What? 1 per 1000? We're not a charity here, there must be zero wins!

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Having worked in casinos and actually owning a real, unrestricted gambling machine (for laughs, tbh): that's bullshit. Gambling works because there is always, always some machine that is paying out money. This one machine is sufficient to get all other patrons to throw more and more money at them.

Sometimes all hell breaks loose and multiple or all machines pay out. The joke is that most gamblers won't cash out and go home - they will "reinvest" their entire win in hope to win more... and the really desperate ones throw even more "fresh" money at them.

Yup, pretty much. The machines are configured for a certain win percentage though, so the house always wins in the end.

I interviewed about engineer who used to work for a South American casino company, and he explained that on Saturday nights the machines are configured to pay out 110%, then the next morning... Much less.

You mentioned owning an 'unrestricted' gambling machine - I've always wondered, do such machines have a setting to actually be fair (or I guess, totally random?) Or is it always a matter of payout percentages?

"Unrestricted" in that most second-hand gambling machines are switched to a "demo mode" which delivers unrealistic winning chances.

The situation with the modes is more complex in Germany:

- "real", licensed casinos can carry the big ass slot machines. These have very high limits, both in wins and losses, and can be centrally controlled by the casino.

- bars, "machine casinos" and other unlicensed venues carry the machines of the kind which I have. On these you can lose (aka pay in) no more than 80€/h, and win (aka pay out) no more than 500€/h. Which means: if you win e.g. 1000€, you'll have to hang around for 2 hours to withdraw your win. Machines based on the new rules (TR5) actually have even lower limits (80/400 loss/win). These are mandated to only collect a certain amount of money - only 33€/hour used should go as profits to the operator, the rest of the money paid in must be distributed to the gamblers over time ("long term").

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