[ExI] gaming reports

Gregory Jones spike66 at att.net
Thu Jul 1 03:39:08 UTC 2010



--- On Wed, 6/30/10, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
 
>...In fact slot machines are not gambling devices, in the sense of playing odds, they are cash collection machines. Each slot is actually a stripped down computer with a cable link back to the corporate command and control center... 
 
 
Do pardon my heavy postivity today, resulting from this very interesting and important discussion.
 
My friend from my early working days was a mechanical technican who had a second job or profitable hobby of refurbishing antique roulette wheels and slot machines.  This was in the early 80s when video slots were on the way in, but many customers specifically insisted on the old mechanical devices.  This is a fascinating world, full of illusions.
 
For instance, I fully contest an earlier comment I saw on here that a skilled croupier could hit a particular number more often than nominal.  I agree that some croupiers claim they can do that, but I do disagree.  This is what I meant by the comment gambling is full of illusions, many of which are intentional.  When refurbishing a roulette wheel that may have been in constant use for twenty or more years, the first step is to remove the track that the ball goes around, called the race, which is the inner part of the stationary part called the bowl.  The race is placed on a specialized lathe and turned to exacting specifications, then polished, and checked for coplanarity and roundness, etc.  But the trueness of the race is an illusion, for if the race is out of true, it does not have any impact on how the game comes out.  A true race just makes the ball go around in a regular and even orbit that looks right.
 
The wheel is then balanced, the bearings replaced, the runout drag set and so forth.  But again this is an illusion, for if the wheel is not balanced correctly, it still doesn't really affect the outcome of the game.  It just makes it look right, because you don't want the wheel to wobble or stop counter-rotating before the ball drops off the race.  If it did either of these things, the game wouldn't look right, but it would still not favor any one particular number over any other.
 
The critical factor in a roulette wheel in making it a fair game is one you might not think of, even after reading this far.  Do you want to think it over before reading the next paragraph?  If so, I will ramble on a bit more and add verbiage so you can look away before reading the next paragraph, and yakkity yak and bla bla, and here is the really critical factor:
 
The critical factor in making a roulette wheel a fair game is in the length of the partitions between the numbers, which are called frets.  The frets must be even in length to make the game fair.  If they are not, the game will look fine, but will not be fair.  If the other things are wrong the game will look funny but will still be fair.
 
Like the 1100 game discussed previously, the world of gambling is full of illusions.  Profits are driven by the gambling public's misunderstanding of actual processes.
 
spike
 
 
 

 

 
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