Indiana Casino Map: List of Gambling Locations

This is in response to this thread: http://www.reddit.com/IAmA/comments/os8xb/iama_request_casino_slotmachine_technician_o
I will post verification after I eat dinner, I am just now leaving work. I will also post a quite technical explanation of how slot machines work when I get settled down at home. For now, this link will have to do (I wrote this a couple years ago): http://fatboy.geekside.com/misc/slotmachine.php
I worked at a casino in Indiana, not Las Vegas, but most of the slot machines you'd find in Vegas, you'd find at the casino I worked at as well.
Answers to the original questions: 1) It's completely random, though there is a minimum theoretical payback percentage of 80% according to Indiana State Gaming Commission (note: Theoretical is not equal to actual). Yes, some games are programmed to "hit" more than others, but that's only a theoretical percentage that changes, forcing a hit frequency is illegal according to the state.
2) No, but technically the theoretical percentage changes when you have networked progressive machines, but I will expand on this later when I get home.
3) See answer 1.
4) Some machines have bonus games where you can set the theoretical percentage, some are just included with the game's overall percentage. This will also be covered more in depth later.
5) No, slot machines are all based off math. I hate sounding like a broken record, but I will expand on this as well when I get back home.
Please, ask me literally anything. I've seen / heard some crazy stories at the small casino I worked at.
This is a call to any math gurus out there: Some of the math will be pretty involved here, and while I can explain the most of it that I'll be discussing, I wouldn't mind some helping explaining some of it to others who might not understand my interpretations.
Edit: Here is my verification: http://imgur.com/TbB3T
So here comes the technical part of this and it might get a bit lengthy.
Definitions:
Theoretical Percentage: A theoretical value of how much the machine should pay out. This is usually referred to as the "PAR".
Actual PAR: How much the machine actually has paid out. Note: this can not be forced, according to the Indiana State Gaming Regulation (and none that I have heard of, but I'm not a law book either).
Coin In: How much money has been bet, this was derived from old "coin" machines when you still had to put coins into a slot machine. This is not the same as "Bill In" which referrs to the amount in dollars that has been put into the slot machine. A quick explanation: You can put in a $20 bill, and as long as you keep winning money back, you can keep betting more money, that eventually totals over $20. This amount of money is the Coin In.
Physical Reel Stops: Each symbol on the reel is a "stop." Typically due to size ratios most physical reels have 22 symbols (regardless of the width of the reel). If I'm wrong on that number, I apologize, but it's what I seemed to notice (though I might have been inadvertently looking at the same manufacturer).
Virtual Reel Stops: A set of virtual stops that correlate to each physical stop. Say you have this order on a reel: Cherry, 7, diamond, blank, bar. A virtual reel might have 7 cherries in a row, then 2 7's, then 18 diamonds, 12 blanks and 5 bars. So my best way to describe that is imagine a really big physical real with those symbols in that order.
Total Combinations: How many possible combinations can be formed from the virtual reel strips., this is the product of the amount of virtual stops on each reel. If the reel 1 = 30 stops, reel 2 = 54 stops, and reel 3 = 79 stops, then total combinations = 30 x 54 x 79. I've seen some slot machines with total combinations of over 10 million, and only one of those combinations is the "jackpot."
Progressive Machine: The type of slot machine where the jackpot keeps growing (or progressing :P)
PAR sheet: Paytable and Reels. This is a sheet with a table of information about the specific game on the slot machine. Typical information includes Theoretical PAR, hit frequency, total combinations, Physical Reel Stops, Virtual Reel Stops, etc.
Think of a slot machine with a crazy high amount of sides on a die. You can calculate your odds based off how many sides there are total (let's say to keep it simple 100 sides), compared to the total amount of money you could win back from all those sides. If the sides paid a sum of $97.00, and you paid $1 for each roll, you'd get a 97% theoretical payback.
If that was a bit much, try this: Let's play a game. You give me a dollar, I flip a quarter. If it lands on heads I give your dollar back to you; however, if it lands on tails, I get to keep the dollar. I would expect to land on heads 50% of the time, and tails the other 50%. If we played this game 10 times, you would get $5 in return. This has a 50% theoretical payback. As you may know, you could very well land on heads all ten times in a row and get 100% payback, or land on tails and get 0% payback. Multiply that on a much larger scale.
Every press of the spin button is just like a new roll on a die (as in: the past roll does not affect the previous roll).
So wait, since these are virtual reels then how do we know what the symbols correlate to? This answer is quite easy: The spin button tells the computer inside the slot machine that a new spin is happening. The computer picks a random number, that random number is what "combination." This combination is then correlated from virtual reels to physical reels, and the computer (via optical sensors) tell the reels where to stop. The display then shows the player how much money (if any) that virtual combination won, but if you look at the reels, it would still be 2 cherries, or 3 bars, or whatever the winning combination might be.
I apologize if I was a little vague with that, let me know and I will do my best to explain in better terms.
Bonus games: Some of these have their own PAR to be set to, some are just factored into the game's PAR that you set the machine to. Generally bonus games are a cheap way of making the player feel like they won anymore than they would have if they would have kept playing the slot machine regularly.
Progressive machines: These machine will add x% theoretical payout to the overall PAR of the machine, since the "$150,000 jackpot" will add to the overall payout of the machine (albeit only once in a very long while, mathematically anyhow). When you tell the Gaming Jurisdiction the Theoretical PAR of a slot machine, you need to tell them the Game's Theo PAR, the Progressive PAR, and a sum of the two.
The Indiana State Gaming Commission requires the minimum Theoretical PAR to be at 80%, and no greater than 100%.
I am available to answer questions, I will check on this periodically throughout the evening / tomorrow.

Questions and Answers:

Have you ever seen people putting things in the slot machines other than coins? I can imagine some drunk bastards trying to stuff in buttons or something.
These days coin slot machines aren't near as common. I have seen plenty of people put coins into the card readers though, that you use for your player cards. I've also seen cardboard inserted into the bill validator (the machine that accepts your dollar bills), plastic, cigarette box wrappers, chewing gum, you name it. Cleaning trash out of card readers and Bill Validators was a real PITA.
What is the most extreme reaction you have ever witnessed by someone winning/losing? I don't know, really. You generally see excited screams/crying/jumping for winning, and often will see people screaming (angrily) at slot machines when losing, sometimes they punch them, etc. Just think of your typical extremes of excitement and anger, and you have that answer.
Highest amount you have seen someone win/lose? The most I have witnessed that was paid out correctly was only around $150,000. Shelbyville, Indiana is a little city, better referred to as a "podunk town," so they didn't have crazy million dollar jackpots or anything that I can recall (this was 2 years ago so memory might be a little fuzzy here).
Do you gamble? Which machine game is your favorite i.e. video poker, games like Jackpot Party, the 777 machines, etc. I don't gamble often, and if I do it is small amounts ($20-$40). I understand the math well enough to know that if I win I just got lucky. Video Poker is actually unique because the rules state how many decks are used and what hands win what amount, thus you can calculate your percentage on the fly. I generally play slot machines randomly though, a few spins on the higher denominations (as the general rule of thumb is that a higher denom will be set to a higher Theoretical PAR), and if I win some I cash out. I will generally try to win $40-$50 and buy pizza for the group I'm with, because they generally gamble all the money they brought away.
How long have you had this job? I had that job for 2 years.
What is the craziest thing you have ever seen in your casino? Crazy? Probably some of the people and their rituals. Funny? Probably the guy in a motorized wheelchair who backed away from his machine, hit a chair, then flipped the scooter over and fell out. Awesome? Probably the 3 way make out session from girls in the club the casino used to have; or this one girl liked to not wear any underwear and come in wearing a skirt, then anytime a guy walked buy she would uncross her legs then recross them (so if she's sitting right over left, uncross and go left over right).
Have you ever witnessed someone cheating (I'm guessing slots are pretty impossible to cheat on, but just curious). I've witness people try to fake ticket validation (when you cash out of a slot machine you get a dollar bill sized ticket that can be redeemed for cash). I caught that pretty easily though and he got arrested. I have run extensive testing on various machines in the casino (such as the electronic blackjack table) due to such allegations of inaccuracy, but I can assure you, the electronic tables Indiana Live had were pretty legit (this is not advertising, I hated working at that place).
Have you run across any Japanese machines made by Sammy or Aruze/Universal? If so, what are your opinions and insights? I have not. I will say that IGT has some really awesome machines though.
I read that the machines with the best payouts are either in elevated areas or near main lobbies, or any place with a lot of traffic. The idea behind this was that the casino wants you to see people winning. Conversely, the machines near the table games were said to have lower payouts since the casino doesn't want the table players to complain about too much noise. Do you know if there is any truth to this? Typically at the casino I worked at all of the main lobby areas, entrances, etc. all had a typically lower payout than the same slot machine of the same game. The logic was something to do with when people first get into the casino they don't care about the payout, it's more about the fact they get to play.
The machines around the electronic tables that casino had (they were not allowed to have real cards/chips/games due to Indiana Gaming Regulations for Racing Casinos - "Racinos") were at a significantly lower percentage, but this was not due to noise. The idea behind this was that when people stand in line waiting on a spot for the table to open up, they'll drop a $20 or more into the available machines around the tables. This was the case for all the popular machines as well (such as Wheel of Fortune, Jaws, Wizard of Oz, etc).
Have you or your peers ever encountered or discovered an exploit within a slot machine that allowed for cash to be withdrawed without playing fair or anything of the sort?\Not quite what you are thinking of, no, however there are some instances I can tell you about of incorrect payouts, etc.
1) A progressive jackpot for $100,000+ was hit one night. A Slot Attendant (the supposed-to-be-friendly customer service people that walk around and pay people their money) was getting ready to fill out his Hand Pay slip (if you win $1200+ then you must be paid by the cashier as $1200 is the tax limit in the state of Indiana) and noticed that the combination on the reels was not a winning combination, however, the machine had said he won. I was called to the machine to investigate this issue, upon doing a reel test (where you tell it which symbols to line up and it lines them up as they should be) I noticed that one of the reels was incorrect. The reel strip had been moved by a few symbols away from the "home position." This is generally due to people not putting them on right from the start of the slot machine's life, or an error while cleaning the strips (they do get dust on them after so long, so part of the Preventive Maintenance process was cleaning these with a damp rag). When setting up a slot machine for the first time it must pass rigorous testing from the Gaming Commission, and the test apparently passed then. We checked the log inside the machine and noticed just a couple weeks prior the slot machine had been PM'ed. Needless to say, the customer got paid out anyway.
2) One time a progress for $93,000 hit, pretty much same events as the previous story of how I get called to the machine. Upon reviewing the settings, I see that a second level progressive (which is usually MUCH lower than the highest level progressive) was set to the same amount as the top level, but for a much easier combination (by comparison to the jackpot winning combination) was set to hit it. I found this while the VP of Slots was down investing the issue as well. We again went through the log and found which supervisor and technician had worked on the machine and both of them had actually previously been fired to this event happening. This customer also got paid out without any further issues (though the VP was quite upset that we had to pay the customer $93,000 due to this size of an error). The best part about that error: The casino should have been fined for that, since the machine's PAR was actually a higher percentage than the state was aware, since the game was configured incorrectly. This slipped through the testing process because hitting the 2nd level jackpot award isn't exactly frequent (it had been nearly a year since the machine was setup that way).
3) One way of tampering that I was actually mentioning in my OP (where a guy ended up arrested) was photocopying his higher value tickets (say redeemable for $300+) and then cutting the barcode off and taping it onto a $20 ticket. He then runs this ticket through a slot machine. The machine only reads a barcode, so it was not aware it had been cut and pasted. This genius then decides to take his $300 ticket to the cashier and say "hey this machine won't give me my money for my $300 ticket." I happened to be the tech to receive the call to go open a cash box (which also required a security officer, a Slot Manager, and Bank Manager) to investigate this dispute (I hated doing cash box runs unless they were really heated disputes because you basically stand around with your thumb up your ass; but the heated ones are always fun to watch the Gaming Agents put the unruly guests in their place). Needless to say, I laughed out loud when we pulled the ticket with the cut and pasted barcode out in front of the dude's face (they had previously pulled surveillance footage to see this same guy cashing in the false ticket in a slot machine). They hit him with a few charges.
Can you help explain the mentality behind someone wanting to bet against a computer designed to take your money? I just don't understand the appeal. If I'm gonna gamble why not have fun and play some table games, at least light your money on fire in an exciting way. I truly cannot answer that question. I think it's the excitement that you have a chance to win that much money, and some people convince themselves that they will win it. There are a lot of idiot "Professional Gamblers" out there with outrageous claims.
Which vendor do you hate the most? Ballys, IGT, Williams, Rocket, MGAM, Western Money? Or, all of the above? Wow, out of the list you gave me that's hard to answer. I honestly enjoy the IGT and Bally product. I feel that I knew IGT the best, I got very into learning the various AVP platforms they had (Advanced Video Platform, not Alien Vs Predator). I liked learning the older stuff too (the S2000 which had big ol' EEPROMs).
Bally seemed to be the easiest to work on universally, but that's only because most of the machines were newer, so it's like working on IGT AVP and up machines. The IGT S2000's became pretty easy after awhile, but they took some getting used to. Williams actually used to be with Bally so a lot of their software was very similar, but the layout of the Williams machines just peeved me; for example, to change the "backplane" or "bulkhead" (or 30 other names for this part) in a WMS Bluebird or Bluebird 2 you have to remove a fair amount of components that are in the way. It's just bad design. It was this way for an IGT S2000, but that machine is also really old (whereas a BBU is only a few years old, maybe up to 5 or 6 years old now).
The over all slot manufacturer I disliked the most: Aristocrat. The machines were so inconsistent with operations, the RAM Clear (the equivalent of a reformat) was a PITA until you got the hang of it, and so many themes were developed without proper testing and would be revoked and/or updated like crazy.
The over all company I disliked most due to their technicians: ShuffleMaster. The technicians I interfaced with there knew about as much as my grandmother who doesn't own a computer. Funny story about good ol' ShuffleMaster: Vendor Tech comes in to work on the table. This table has a server and the rest of the stations are clients (pretty simple, right?). As he's working on the server, all the clients pop up a "Not Registered" to the LCD screens of where you put your player reward cards. I inform him that he must have set something wrong otherwise that wouldn't happen (This error means 1 of 4 things set in the options does not match what the main casino's Slot Accounting System's database for that slot machine). He kept assuring me he was reading the instructions and setting them line for line. I end up looking at these instructions and replied "Chris, you're on the wrong page." He threw his arms up telling me to do his job and stormed off to the soda fountain. I despised this guy, and the other 3 dimwits they would send if he couldn't come were just as bad. I feel no remorse for somebody in a technical field who cannot even follow simple directions.
To be fair: I really didn't like most of the technicians I worked with, including Vendor techs. For awhile, we had a bally technician that was quite knowledgeable. I wouldn't call him smart, but he could give me knowledge which would usually end up helping me out. All of the IGT guys except one guy that I got to talk to one time were no better than the ShuffleMaster tech I mentioned. The aristocrat tech actually knew the procedures he was to know, and I suppose he wasn't too bad at troubleshooting, but when it came time to feed knowledge he was horrible at it (so I feel that he was only "good" at his job due to time spent in it, not actual comprehensive ability). The one Konami tech I got to talk to seemed to know what he was talking about, but that was also a one time thing. I just got annoyed pretty quick at the amount of vendor techs I interfaced with that just had no clue what they were doing, but that's going to be prevalent in any industry, not just the casino.
How does the computer equalize the odds? The cold hard truth: it doesn't, and that's why I said to look for a machine that's been paying out over 100% for over a month with thousands of games played for the duration(s) you are checking (that means for whatever reason that game has some sort of error, most cases it would be a set-able jackpot amount (progressive) since games won't just error like that).
The best way to explain how this happens: Think of flipping a coin again. I don't know the exact probability here, but there's a good chance that if we flipped the coin 1,000,000 times that we could see it land on heads 10 times in a row. Now, normally if I were to say "I'll flip this coin 10 times, and it will land on heads everytime" most people would say "No, but the probability is 50/50, so that's not right!" The thing to understand here is: The smaller the sample size, the harder it is to produce consistent results. I don't argue that it might take some time to flip a quarter 10 times, log the results, flip 10 more, log results, etc and have one of those "sessions" be all 10 heads (whereas a sample size of 1,000 flips it might show 10 consecutive heads fairly quick). Anyhow: If you get 100% heads the first 10 flips, then an exact alternating heads/tails the next 999,990 times, the truth is that you'd be awfully close to 50/50 (49.995%/50.005% to be more precise). That is "how slot machines equalize their odds." They don't ever really pay out more the next spin to compensate for losing money from a previous spin. The best way to truly understand slot machines is to understand probabilities.
I'll re-explain my explanation in the OP a bit: We have a 6 sided die. If you land on one, three, or 5 I'll give you $1. if you land on 4 or 5 I'll give you $0, if you land on 6 I'll give you $3.50. This is a total of $5.50. If you were to pay a dollar to roll the die, out of the total combinations (6) you have a possiblity to win (at most) $5.50. If you take (5.5/6) x 100 you will see this is a total of 91.6 repeating percent. We could roll the die 6 times and you might have $0, or you might get $21 ($3.5x6). If we played this game 1 million times though, the probability won't be 91.6666666667 percent but it will be really close.
The slot machines have to past a test of 10,000,000 spins and be within an acceptable threshold of the PAR. I believe the threshold for Indiana is 0.05%; I know this is the case for telling the State's slot machine inventory system (that's not an accurate phrase but the best I could come up with), but not sure if that's the threshold for doing the testing.