- Armory And Machine Skill Slots Machines
- Armory And Machine 2 Wiki
- Armory And Machine Skill Slots Machine
- Armory And Machine Tips
Every time I ask Alexa to open the slot machine skill, she comes back and responds with, “sorry, I’m having trouble accessing your slot machine scale right now. Please try again a little later. “ This girl really needs to be fixed. It’s really annoying especially if you are in the middle of a tournament and the skill.
Slot machines have been entirely based on luck for decades. Unlike blackjack or poker, they don’t offer any control over the results.
However, a new breed of skill-based slots has begun to enter casinos. These games do provide the chance to control results to a degree.
Casinos aren’t necessarily offering skill-based slot machines willingly. Instead, they see a new trend on the horizon that could leave them obsolete if slots aren’t modified.
I’m going to discuss this new trend along why it’s forcing casinos to offer new types of slot machines. But first, I’ll cover more on how skill-based and traditional slots differ.
What Do Skill-Based Slot Machines Offer that Regular Slots Don’t?
A regular slot machine works as follows:
- You make a bet
- You spin the reels
- The random number generator (RNG) comes up with a combination
- Your results are displayed on the reels
You can see that the RNG decides the spin’s fate.
Some gamblers appreciate the complete randomness of slots. They don’t like overthinking every decision and would rather take a pure gamble.
Skill-based slot machines offer something different than this traditional setup. They feature bonus rounds that involve a high degree of skill.
Scientific Game’s Space Invaders is a perfect example of these games. This slot is based on a 1978 arcade machine that was later adapted to the Atari system.
Here’s how this slot machine’s bonus round works:
- You trigger the bonus with three or more scatter symbols
- You can choose between free spins and a skill-based round
- The latter brings up a second screen that’s filled with alien invaders
- You control a small spacecraft at the bottom and shoot at the advancing aliens
The base game still plays like any normal slot. You spin the reels and await a random result.
However, the key difference is in how the bonus works. You improve your chances of winning money by becoming more skilled at the bonus round.
Millennials Aren’t Playing Regular Slot Machines
The main reason why casinos are trialing skill-based slots is that millennials aren’t playing the traditional machines.
This generation, which was born between 1981 and 1996, visits casino resorts for the bars, nightclubs, and amenities. They’ve even shown some affinity for table games like blackjack and mini-baccarat.
However, millennials just don’t play slot machines like previous generations. They’re not impressed by the fancy graphics and features of the average modern slot.
This group has grown up during a technology boom that’s seen online gaming and smartphone use spread like wildfire. Millennials can simply pull out their phone and play a wide variety of games — gambling or otherwise.
In contrast to Baby Boomers and Generation X, they didn’t grow up visiting casinos just to gamble. Therefore, millennials don’t experience the same nostalgia that older gamblers do on slot machines.
The average millennial sees slots in land-based casinos as more relics than anything. But casinos are hoping to change this trend by injecting skill into the equation.
Gambling venues in both Las Vegas and Atlantic City have rolled out this new class of slots. They hope that the combination of skill-based bonuses, cool features, and good graphics is enough to attract young players.
Getting Skill-Based Casino Games Right Is Difficult
Skill-based gaming is still in its early stages. But so far, the results have been marginal at best.
The gaming world has been offering these slots since 2015. Neither millennials nor older gamblers are flocking to these machines.
One problem is a lack of awareness. Most players don’t realize that certain slots in Vegas and AC casinos feature skill.
Another potential problem is that developers just haven’t found the right combination to draw more gamblers.
Bonuses only account for around 3-5% of total return to player (RTP). This might not be a large enough degree of control for millennials, who are used to playing skill-based video and mobile games.
One more challenge for developers is figuring out the right type of bonuses. They’re going with old arcade games for now, which is a step in the right direction.
The idea is to use simple skill-based games that don’t turn off casual gamblers. After all, a 70-year-old grandma doesn’t want to play a slot where the bonus is patterned after Call of Duty.
But herein lies another dilemma: if the goal is to attract millennials, then why focus on arcade games from the 70s and 80s?
Uncertain Future with Skill-Based Slots
Aside from all the challenges I just highlighted above, casinos and developers must also deal with a high degree of uncertainty.
In the end, they could just be wasting their time by testing out skill-based slot machines. Nothing guarantees that these games will draw young adults.
Skill-based gaming sounds like a great idea in theory. Giving players the ability to decide their own fortunes is appealing.
Tournament.com, for example, found out the hard way that there are problems associated with such gaming.
They introduced an online betting platform for Half Life and Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) in 2007. Players could gamble on their team’s success on Tournament.com.
This idea sounds amazing in theory. Competitive gamers could win money by playing the games they love.
However, successful gamers would purposely play badly to lower their rating. They could then compete against lower-rated players and guarantee themselves more winnings.
Casinos don’t face the exact same set of trials as a video game betting site. But they too must worry about if the gambling world is ready for a new concept.
What Will the Future of Slot Machines Look Like?
The same skill-based slots that we see today may or may not ultimately win players over. In this case, what will the future of slot machines be?
Obviously, I can only speculate on the matter. But future slots will likely be closer to both social gaming and console/computer games.
Social games like Angry Birds, Candy Crush, and Plants vs. Zombies have become highly popular over the years. These games walk the fine line between being both entertaining and easy enough for the average person.
Many millennials would appreciate a more-hardcore gaming experience in casinos. After all, a good CS:GO player won’t get much stimulation from shooting Atari aliens that move at a snail’s pace.
Therefore, complex video games could make their way onto casino floors. Players would gamble on their abilities in games similar to CS:GO, Call of Duty, and Halo.
GameCo is already experimenting in this category with Danger Arena. This first-person shooter involves betting on your ability to blast armored soldiers.
Conclusion
The slots world is always evolving. Once three-reel games played on mechanical drums, these machines have transformed to reflect modern gaming better.
Nevertheless, they still aren’t catching on with younger gamblers. Millennials would rather visit a casino nightclub or spa than sit on a slot machine.
The good news is that these same visitors are still spending money. The bad news is that they’re not playing the casinos’ cash cows.
The industry fully realizes that they’ll be in trouble if they don’t find something that appeals to millennials. Skill-based slot machines are the first step in figuring out what young adults want.
The jury is out on whether these games are a success. They’ve only been available in casinos for a few years and haven’t been major hits thus far.
Developers may need to tweak the subject matter for the bonuses. Their early efforts include arcade adaptations that mainly appeal to older gamblers.
Both social and complex video gaming would very likely be popular among millennials. The fact is that gambling on games like Candy Crush and Halo hits closer to home with young players.
Again, these efforts are still in the early stages. But it’ll be interesting to see the end product of what finally does attract millennial gamblers.
By John Grochowski
Slot machines are the easiest games to play in casinos, but sometimes players are faced with reel dilemmas.
If you’re an eagle-eyed player who can spot winning combinations in a microsecond, will putting a quick stop to your reel spin improve your chance of winning?
And what about games with no reels at all, such as the skill-based games from GameCo? Should we really call them slot machines?
It seems the reels themselves sometimes prompt questions from players, and emails about both topics popped up recently.
Let’s take the second question first.
To older players who make up a sizable portion of the slot-playing public, some of the new skill-based slots seem more like something you’d have on your PlayStation than casino games.
One example is GameCo’s Danger Arena, a first-person shooter in which you’re asked to gun down robots as you navigate the aisles and obstacles in a warehouse. Your payback depends on the numberof robots you shoot.
Most skill-based slots at this point leave the skill elements to bonus events, as in Konami’s Frogger or IGT’s Tulley’s Treasure hunt.
Armory And Machine Skill Slots Machines
But GameCo and other companies breaking into the slot industry are eliminating reel play altogether and making the skill portion the main game.
Is that a slot machine? It is as long as players embrace the games and terminology. After all, the meaning of “slot machine” has evolved over nearly 140 years.
In the original sense, virtually no games are really slot machines anymore. They don’t have coin heads, so there is no slot to drop in coins to activate machines. A few older machines with coinheads remain in play at some locations, but mostly, we buy in with paper currency or tickets.
The term “slot machine” has been around since the 1880s. It originally referred to any coin-operated device. If you dropped coins into a machine and got a chocolate bar, you were buying yourcandy from a slot machine.
That changed in the 1900s, and slot machine came to mean specifically coin-operated gambling devices. The term has persisted through the elimination of coin slots, and it’s almost certain topersist through the changes on modern gambling devices.
And now, let’s go back and answer the first question.
As for the stopping the reels as soon as you see a winner on the screen, that not only does not help you win, it actually can hasten your losses.
A reader checked in early in the fall to say she’d just noticed that on many video slot machines, if you hit the spin button again while the reels are in motion, they will stop. The first timeshe tried it, she got a bonus event, and that encouraged her to try it again.
After that, her results were mixed, just as with any other method of play, but it left her wondering if a player who practiced, practiced and practiced could be come adept enough to stop thereels when winning combinations appeared.
Armory And Machine 2 Wiki
Others have had similar thoughts, and a number of years ago I wrote about a player who accidentally double-hit the spin button and saw the reels stop quickly.
Unfortunately for players, stopping the reels early doesn't change your results on 99.99999 percent of slot machines. That’s just shy of 100 percent because International Game Technology usedsomething similar in the early skill-based game Blood Life. It was a three-reel game and the skill was in stopping the reels. Each would spin until you touched the glass in front of the reels,and skilled player could get better outcomes.
That’s not the case on games in casinos today. Stopping the reels early does not change results, but what it can do is lead to faster play with more spins hour. That can be a realbudget-breaker.
When you play video slots, the random number generator has already determined your outcome by the time the reels are spinning, and you’re going to get the same result regardless of whether youstop the reels early or let them halt in their own time.
Randomly generated numbers are mapped to potential results, and that map tells the reels where to stop. If the RNG has spit out a random number that tells the first reel to stop on a singlebar, then you’re going to get a single bar — regardless of whether you hit the button a second time for a quick stop or just let them take their own sweet time.
Armory And Machine Skill Slots Machine
By bringing the reels to a quick stop, you're immediately in position to bet again. The amount of time it normally takes the reels to spin is cut out of the equation. If you keep stopping thereels, you spin many more times per hour.
What does that do to your bankroll?
Let's say you bet 40 cents per spin at 500 spins per hour on a penny slot that has a average 90 percent return to players. You can play more than 500 spins per hour without quick stops, but 500is a nice, steady pace that lets you watch your wins and stop to sip your drink.
Armory And Machine Tips
At that pace, your average hourly risk is $200 with an average loss of $20.
What if you increase that pace to 1,000 spins per hour? Then total wagers increase to $400 and average loss to $40.
And what if you quick stop spin after spin, focusing intently on slot play and increasing your pace to 2,000 spins per hour? Your wrist would get tired, you might get a little headachy withsome eyestrain, but your bet total would rise to $800 with an average loss of $80.
In the wagering world, speed favors whoever has the mathematical edge. In blackjack, faster games are better for advantage players including card counters, but worse for less-skilled players.
On the slots, you can't change the house edge. Quick-stopping the reels doesn't help you, but it does help the house.
So really, there’s no reel dilemma. Unless you’re just in a hurry to win or lose and then move on, let the reels stop in their own sweet time.