Slots

Video poker machines lined up at the entrance to any casino, or lurking in the corner of social clubs where the local gambling ordinances permit them can decieve everyone but not you. They are here to take moiney from people. They play to the greed, the get-rich-quick in the poor saps who can’t resist them. . . Keep listening their cries that they’re not winning enough. Keep seeing them coming back to the machines. There’s only one thing you can say about these people. They have worked out the one important feature of the machines. The House has an edge. No matter where you go in the casino world, whether its to some swanky place or online, the paytables are set in a way that gives the House a mathematical advantage. So let’s put those sore losers right. There’s no need for the House to rig the machines. The casino operators are going to win in the long term without having to cheat. There’s no way they will spoil a sure thing by risking detection as a fraud by regulators. There will be times when players have a hot streak and it will seem like all the jackpots are falling. Then those streaks will go cold. That’s just the way statistics work their way to the one mathematical certainty. The House will win in the end.