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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Fri Mar 10, 2017 19:00 
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I read all of that.

Not sure why


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Fri Mar 10, 2017 19:40 
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DavPaz wrote:
I read all of that.

Not sure why

I didn't, if that helps

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Mar 20, 2017 14:46 
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Popped out for some lunch and pinball with Mrs Hearthly at the local cafe/arcade. Considering how much practice I've put into Star Wars in the emulator, seemed silly not to have a punt at the real thing.

£20 in, £70 out :)

Also the Roller Coaster did the maximum £28.80 Nemesis.

So there is such a thing as a free lunch. (And then some.)



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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Mar 20, 2017 15:27 
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Bloody hell I was playing roller coaster in the 90s. Is that still a thing?

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Mar 20, 2017 15:32 
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Cavey wrote:
Bloody hell I was playing roller coaster in the 90s. Is that still a thing?


The machine next to it on the left is an 80s Barcrest Smash & Grab :)

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Mar 20, 2017 15:43 
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Heh!

Man, that all seems like so long ago now. Congrats on your win. :)

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Mar 20, 2017 15:48 
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Must be hard to get the new ones over on the boat...


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Mar 20, 2017 16:36 
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DavPaz wrote:
Must be hard to get the new ones over on the boat...


New fruit machines are shockingly bad. Opinions vary widely as to when the last time they had any actual 'amusement' value was, but everyone agrees they're fucking shit now and have been for a long time. (Their official designation is AWPs, which stands for 'Amusement With Prizes'.)

Very old men like Cavey ( :p ) would probably go back to the glory days of £3 token jackpots and suchlike in the 80s, personally I think there was still some actual fun to be had in the £15 and £25 jackpot days, but the £35, £70 and now £100 jackpot machines are all basically vile. Unless you've got some sort of cheat/method/emptier etc (as I do in that Star Wars video above and as per the method explained a few posts ago), there's no reason whatsoever to go anywhere near them.

Roller Coaster on 20p play, £10 jackpot (as pictured there) is a great machine, genuinely entertaining and with a few true skill features that are all capable of paying the jackpot or indeed several times the value of the jackpot. (The 'NEMESIS' feature famously likes to go for £28.80, which is what you can see in that picture.)

So basically, I'm really quite glad that I still have access to some of these older machines, which are playable as actual games.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Mar 20, 2017 16:47 
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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Mar 20, 2017 17:43 
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I always found 'Gladiators' to be the most entertaining, particularly the sound samples they used for it, like 'Calling All the Heroes' when collecting.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Mar 20, 2017 21:10 
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devilman wrote:
I always found 'Gladiators' to be the most entertaining, particularly the sound samples they used for it, like 'Calling All the Heroes' when collecting.


Yeah Maygay were the masters of the sample package, how many artists can you spot in the samples for Gladiators alone :)

Faith No More, Queen, It Bites (Calling All The Heroes), EMF, and others I believe.

I really liked the samples on Noel's House Party too, with that incredibly boppy pop track on the feature board, was it a Kylie Minogue tune? (EDIT - just found it, it was 'Real McCoy' with the track 'Runaway' - sample is at 58s in the video below.)





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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sat Apr 01, 2017 14:55 
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GAMBLOR.

These are turning into a nicely profitable pair of machines, they must be getting a reasonable amount of play too as Star Wars takes a fair chunk of cash to recover from being trapped, and the big Nemesis features on Roller Coaster tend to be spaced out a fair bit too.

Star Wars I've absolutely played to destruction in the emulator so I really do know it inside out now.



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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sat May 27, 2017 20:07 
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This probably fits here better than B&B

https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/sta ... 9902290944




https://www.wired.com/2017/02/russians- ... al_twitter

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Russians Engineer a Brilliant Slot Machine Cheat—And Casinos Have No Fix


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun May 28, 2017 9:16 
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That's a modern reworking of a scam that was perpetrated back in the 90s (think it was the 90s anyway, I've got a really good article about it as a PDF somewhere).

It's all down to weak RNGs (or rather, pseudo RNGs as that's all computers can do) and using shitty seed values - which makes the 'random' behaviour of the games predictable.

The guys who pulled off the scam back in the 90s made millions out of it.

I'll see if I can find the PDF as it's a fascinating and very detailed read, goes into far more technical depth than I've seen anywhere about the latest scam.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 21:33 
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Victoria Coren on FOBTS

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A stupid gamble on evil machines


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... l-machines


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 21:45 
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I read that article earlier too. It seems a cop out not to clamp down on them for tax reasons. As a compulsive gambler, any money that I don't gamble with goes on other stuff instead. I don't exactly have the squirelling saver mentality. I'm just glad I never got into FOBTs, as I'm bad enough with fruit machines (although 44 days without now, so steady progress there)

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 23:42 
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devilman wrote:
I don't exactly have the squirelling saver mentality.

You should be very pleased about that.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Wed Aug 23, 2017 18:56 
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devilman wrote:
I read that article earlier too. It seems a cop out not to clamp down on them for tax reasons. As a compulsive gambler, any money that I don't gamble with goes on other stuff instead. I don't exactly have the squirelling saver mentality. I'm just glad I never got into FOBTs, as I'm bad enough with fruit machines (although 44 days without now, so steady progress there)


Hammond is only saying what he wants to happen, there is a plan to have a statement in October?

Also cross party support for some change as well.

Think there should be change as the whole situation with FOBT is born from loopholes in prize vs stake that was closed retrospectively by the government, who for some reason allowed these machines into bookies at the same time, the change in the stake to £1 max lasted all of 9 months before it was £2 again.

I've also never understood why you can see the same slot game in an arcade and bookies and the bookie can have £50 spins and the arcade can't.

Bookies take their FOBT money from those who can least afford it.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sat Aug 26, 2017 9:26 
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Reasonable bank in the pub last night. I now video all big banks being collected on machines made my Betcom/G-Squared as they're fucking notorious for payout mech errors and every time they're rebooted in an error state they mysteriously 'lose' £10 from the bank total, or sometimes the entire bank.

I had a short pay of £153 (!) from the G-Squared fruit machine they had in the bar at the hotel we stayed at last month, and it took several phone calls and emails with the supplier of the machine to get the full amount back, who said the short pay was £119 initially, which they then modified to £135 and finally accepted was £153 after I spoke directly with their 'Business Development Manager'. (It wasn't that I was particularly bothered about the final £18 as such, so much as the principle of the matter.)

TBH I'm not even sure they 'accepted' that the short pay was £153, I think they might have just given me the final £18 to make me shut up and go away, as I do have an unlimited and utterly tireless ability to go on and on about things, as you may have noticed.

Anyway, it occurred to me afterwards that if I'd had a video of the short pay, the whole matter would have been sorted out a lot quicker, so I now video all big bank collections from machines running on this hardware. On this occasion however, the machine paid without incident. (It's a fucking ballache because it takes notes but pays out in coins (the newer mechs pay out in notes too), so I went straight to the bar to change this lot into notes.)

EXTRA NOTE - If you're ever on the IOM and drinking in a brewery pub, watch out for the 'house' vodka called (and I shit you not), 'Moonshine'. You can get a double shot of it (it only comes in doubles) for the same price as a single shot of Smirnoff. It is quite easy to drink a lot of it when mixed with Red Bull and next thing you know you're a bit pissed and need to eat ALL THE CHINESE FOOD to survive.



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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sat Aug 26, 2017 9:35 
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How much did you put in to get that?

I'm in quite a positive frame of mind with the gambling lately, so I can watch videos like that without getting tempted. Occasionally I'll just play this online, no registration required version of Thunderstruck II just to take the edge off, but once you take the money element away, you can focus on how poor it plays for most of the time, so it helps to kill any urge to find an online casino I'm not already self-excluded from. :)

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sat Aug 26, 2017 10:10 
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devilman wrote:
How much did you put in to get that?


A mere £164 :roll:

Those things are a total punt really, you just force them out for a red top feature which will do either £100 or £150 (they're capped at £150, and if you take the top feature when red it'll always do £150 if it goes past £100).

There are millions of them which are effectively all clones of each other, and they all play the same.

This one has a forced win square on the entry trail which is a ballache as it can (and does) use it to knock itself back, and they have anti-force code so they'll hold on when past due as well.

That said they're reasonable earners overall, last time it did £150 for £80 in so that was £70 profit. When they're getting forced all the time (as happens across) they become quite dangerous, but this one doesn't get pushed out that often so it'll generally cave for about £60-£120 in, and it's reasonably generous with the £150 frequency.

Last night was a bit of an outlier, and indeed is the most it's ever cost me.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sat Aug 26, 2017 17:09 
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In fact there are a couple of these machines emulated, albeit on the older £70 jackpot (the currently released version of the emulator is explictly designed not to run £100 jackpot AWP ROMs as they are considered current and commercially viable).

However, all these machines are effectively the same, and indeed this machine style was introduced right back in the £25 jackpot days (albeit at the arse end of the era), and has persisted through the £35, £70, and now £100 jackpot.

One thing they have got rid of for the £100 variants however is the £5 block, which was already faintly ridiculous on a £70 jackpot machine, and clearly beyond the pale for £100 jackpot machines.

The attached machine does have the old £5 block, and when it's dead it'll never offer more than £4 by any means, which is why it has £2 and £2 + repeat chance, and £4 and £4 + repeat chance as cash shot squares for example, to drag things out a bit without obviously blocking like a bastard.

As with all of this style of machine, the real trick is keeping forced wins down to a minimum, as these are the mechanism by which the machine knocks itself back and flattens down the profile.

Despite the 'busy' appearance of this machine, the only thing you're really interested in is the BANK JOB feature, and specifically when it's red, as this will pay £70, £140 or rarely even £210.

Attached is the emulator and layout, as well as pics of the real machine and layout. The tiddly little pic is a machine called 'Jackpots That Rock N Roll' which (AFAIK) was the first of this style of machine released on a £25 jackpot over a decade ago.

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bjg4gpicclass.JPG

Attachment:
jackersrockers.JPG


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Oct 22, 2017 10:07 
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Really good YouTube channel here showing all sorts of cheats/emptiers/tips on old fruit machines.

I know many of them already as a lot of this stuff dropped out of the woodwork over the years once the fruit machine emulation scene became a thing, but it's still interesting to watch them being done. There are also quite a few I didn't know about, such as all the setups on Spartacash/Duff Beer Guide.

It helps that the guy doing the videos is quite a chilled out Scotsman with a relaxed and watchable presenting style, who was clearly around back in the day as a pro player.

Some of them are so magnificently bent that the mind boggles, shit like Super Charged and Fairground which could only be explained by deliberate coding. (It's conceivable they were left in by accident as some sort of remnant of debug code, but it seems unlikely. In Fairground's case for example, the Coconut Shy trick only appeared for the £8 rechip and doesn't work on the £6 original.)

I remember very clearly getting wildly annoyed with fruit machines back in the early 90s, wondering how on earth machines with such small jackpots (£4.80, then £6, then £8, and so on, over the years) could so ruthlessly gouge such large amounts of money out of me, and the answer is the average player never had a fucking chance - because the whole thing was totally rigged to the benefit of a small band of pro players, and everyone else got fucked. (Something which has remained the case right up to the very latest £100 jackpot fruit machines, or that Star Wars in a local arcade on £70 jackpot that I hit a few times, until the owner gave up on it and removed it from the arcade.)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfQ-33 ... mQumoa-K4g



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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Oct 22, 2017 13:41 
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I guess I’m done being angry about all this; these days I just thank my lucky stars to have even come through it all in one piece, and alive to tell the tale. Fruit machines nearly destroyed my life.

Years later I could never comprehend how the fruit machine programmers, manufacturers etc could be allowed to get away with it all; if I ran a bent raffle I’d be prosecuted? In that case I might fleece a few hundred quid from a few hundred people, but back in the day and to a certain extent even now, fruit machines were ubiquitous and people shoveled millions through them every week, up and down the land. I know for a fact that two 5p play machines made £70k profit a year in the sleepy old working mans club in Weston I used to occasionally frequent back in the early 90s.

I just think no one actually cares, frankly; the view seems to be “oh well, if you’re stupid enough to pump money into a box with flashing lights and not think it’s a con, you deserve all that’s coming to you”. I don’t agree of course but now old and cynical, seems to be the way of things. As in everything there are winners and losers, and life ain’t fair.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Oct 22, 2017 17:18 
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Indeed! As has been previously documented by ourselves and many others back in the day at Fruit Forums and other haunts, there's something unusually pernicious about the way fruit machines managed to get under our skins and just make us want to play them and play them.

It wasn't just the illusion of player control, it was that there was actual player control, at least to an extent, even for numpties like us. So if you could hit a skill stop or a reel skill, or understood how certain features worked, you felt that your ability was affecting your ability to win (or lose.....), and the knowledge that the machines were compensated (i.e. they'd always pay out something eventually) made them ever more enticing.

(I remember a very long thread at Fruit Forums ('The real price of fruit machines' or something like that) where tens upon tens of people chronicled their own misfortune with fruit machines, the stories were remarkably similar in many regards, and what struck me is that none of us were idiots, in fact a common factor seemed to be that we were a pretty smart bunch of young chaps, who somehow had been sucked into this incredibly destructive vortex of addiction. As I recall none of us were much interested in any other form of gambling, even other slot machines which were random as opposed to compensated, there was something unique about AWPs and their nature that sucker-punched us all.)

Of course what none of us knew at the time is that we were onto the ultimate losing gamble, because through a dreadful combination of incompetence and corruption the fruit machine manufacturers were selling fundamentally broken machines, and a relatively small band of professional players were making out like bandits (usually two-armed), whilst the rest of us lined their pockets.

Fruit machines very nearly finished me off, I remember being left feeling suicidal on more than occasion, losing friendships, relationships, fucking up jobs, my degree (twice...), being left with piles of debt and my entire life basically being a fucking bomb site for many years. Yes the drink and drugs didn't help but I honestly think they were a by-product of the fruit machine addiction.

So yes, in the final analysis, like you Cavey, I'm just grateful to have emerged on the other side in (mostly!) one piece :)


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Oct 22, 2017 17:57 
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Archive of a thread from fifteen years ago on long-dead forums? No problem.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Sun Oct 22, 2017 20:55 
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I suppose at least with the £500 video slots and online slots, the removal of most interaction bar hitting spin levels the playing field, but only in the sense that everyone loses now.

107 days without slots now though, so building up a nice little run again. However, last time I did this, I remember slipping just after the year mark, so I've got a long way to go yet.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Oct 23, 2017 8:14 
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Quote:
Really good YouTube channel here showing all sorts of cheats/emptiers/tips on old fruit machines.


One of his videos shows the emptier on a 1990's video poker game, I remember it well, the trick works on the machine today via an emulator

You play the machine one credit at a time and aim for the maximum cash pay-out of £3 at the time or the token jackpot of £6

When you get either of these there is a high low card game for a repeat, you collect the win then wait for the machine to cycle through 3 "attract modes"

Then you put another coin in to play the repeat chance and the card is a two so you can't loose

Then you repeat until I guess the machine is empty.

One guy commented that he had this from the outset and made £10,000 across 30 of these around Wales!


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Oct 23, 2017 8:41 
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Well back then these 'methods' could survive for months or years before getting rechipped, sometimes never getting chipped at all. It's pre-internet and email, pre-mobile phones etc, and there were a decent number of pro players making a genuinely good living out of playing fruit machines as a full time job, as folks like me dutifully filled the machines up for them ready to be hammered by them again.

I don't bear them any ill will, I'd have done exactly the same in their position, and indeed once I did get some knowledge in the £15/£25 era I made all the money I could, and more recently when I had a wave of good £70 AWPs around I made a fair few thousand pounds out of them. (Even to the extent I was visiting a few machines in Douglas on my lunch breaks.)

I remember Mrs Hearthly telling me to get down to the bank to pay my winnings in, as we had about a grand sat up on a shelf in the kitchen.

That YouTube channel is fascinating, I'm working my way through every single video he has up.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Oct 23, 2017 8:59 
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I read this article about gambling advertising earlier, and this bit stood out -

Quote:
The industry says the adverts have "limited impact" on gambling rates.


I appreciate that I'm more susceptible to this kind of advertising, but in my more vulnerable times, if I was watching a live match on TV and there'd be an ad for a casino I'd not already banned myself from, either during ad breaks or team sponsors, I'd often go looking for their website there and then.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Oct 23, 2017 9:48 
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devilman wrote:
I read this article about gambling advertising earlier, and this bit stood out -

Quote:
The industry says the adverts have "limited impact" on gambling rates.


I appreciate that I'm more susceptible to this kind of advertising, but in my more vulnerable times, if I was watching a live match on TV and there'd be an ad for a casino I'd not already banned myself from, either during ad breaks or team sponsors, I'd often go looking for their website there and then.


I never watch telly but I do occasionally find myself in the pub when the football is on (generally by accident), and the way all the advert breaks are just for casinos and gambling outlets is really quite shocking, it's like you can't have sport without gambling, there's a malign symbiosis there that's rather distasteful.

They're clearly targeting those advertising slots (no pun intended....) for a reason, TBH I don't think they should be allowed to advertise on telly at all, it needs to go the same way as tobacco advertising.

Are they still allowed to advertise alcohol on telly? If so that needs to go as well.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Oct 23, 2017 9:48 
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That is pretty fucking amazing. The betting/casino companies pay top whack for premium advertising slots but then get limited returns from it? HORSE SHIT.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Oct 23, 2017 14:53 
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devilman wrote:

107 days without slots now though, so building up a nice little run again. However, last time I did this, I remember slipping just after the year mark, so I've got a long way to go yet.

This is still massive achievement and I think it's healthy with any addiction that you don't become complacent.

Good work. :)

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Oct 23, 2017 15:03 
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Well done mate.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Oct 23, 2017 19:22 
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Hearthly wrote:
devilman wrote:
I read this article about gambling advertising earlier, and this bit stood out -

Quote:
The industry says the adverts have "limited impact" on gambling rates.


I appreciate that I'm more susceptible to this kind of advertising, but in my more vulnerable times, if I was watching a live match on TV and there'd be an ad for a casino I'd not already banned myself from, either during ad breaks or team sponsors, I'd often go looking for their website there and then.


I never watch telly but I do occasionally find myself in the pub when the football is on (generally by accident), and the way all the advert breaks are just for casinos and gambling outlets is really quite shocking, it's like you can't have sport without gambling, there's a malign symbiosis there that's rather distasteful.

They're clearly targeting those advertising slots (no pun intended....) for a reason, TBH I don't think they should be allowed to advertise on telly at all, it needs to go the same way as tobacco advertising.

Are they still allowed to advertise alcohol on telly? If so that needs to go as well.


Last week my 2 local bookies within 200m of each other all had posters saying "Let’s Talk About Responsible Gambling"

This was a desperate week of shite to try and fend off what the bookies fear will be a clampdown on £50 stake slots among other things

One of the many exciting initiatives of the week was..... " Staff at gambling venues and online sites will continue to be points of contact for their customers on how to gamble responsibly"

Translated to "Our disinterested overworked zero hours staff will continue to watch people load £1000's into the FOBT machines as their area manager has linked their pay to the takings of these machines"

More exciting news on the week here https://sbcnews.co.uk/retail/2017/09/29 ... ling-week/


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Mon Oct 23, 2017 20:26 
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Goddess Jasmine wrote:
devilman wrote:

107 days without slots now though, so building up a nice little run again. However, last time I did this, I remember slipping just after the year mark, so I've got a long way to go yet.

This is still massive achievement and I think it's healthy with any addiction that you don't become complacent.

Good work. :)


Zardoz wrote:
:this:
Well done mate.


Thank you both. :) It's a shame it took my Dad getting ill to really snap me out of my gambling rut, but he's on the mend and I'm doing ok without the gambling, so it's worked out ok far.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Wed Oct 25, 2017 16:07 
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A general gambling thing, rather than slots, but this story caught my eye. I can't help thinking that if there are differences on the backs of cards and you spot that, it's not really cheating.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Wed Oct 25, 2017 16:16 
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Yes, apologies, but belated congratulations and good wishes from me, too. Awesome work. :)

@Hearthly, sorry to you also mate, I don't wander into this thread that much and I know we've had our political disagreements and what you described was a very long time ago etc., but I was still shocked to the core by your last post, to the extent I shed a tear. I'm so glad you, like me, are free of this, and whilst your life was terribly blighted, as mine was, we're still here, we have our families and it's all a very different ball game. I keep getting asked to review this old machine or that old machine over at The Mecca, and who knows I might still do it for the sake of the nice guys still there, but honestly I don't really have the stomach for it. For when all's said and done, those "classics" and "playable old machines" were actually the very things that nearly destroyed me, and far from being quaint, lovely old things, they were actually evil, hateful, money-stealing devices bent to the fucking core.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Wed Oct 25, 2017 16:28 
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How do you feel about the fully-regulated online casino slots, folks? Things like this:

Image

As far as I'm aware, they can't be emptied so don't have the problem of professionals feeding off the casuals.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Wed Oct 25, 2017 16:33 
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Heh, me and Hearthly have been arguing the toss over this for 15 years minimum. :)

For me, true random machines are clearly fairer. But. The *big* problem - and not by virtue of their randomness - is stake size. You can literally bet £700 *per spin* via your phone, tablet or PC, anywhere there's 3G reception or internet. That's just fecking crazy, and does rather make a nonsense of limiting jackpot sizes on real, physical machines (not that I don't think they should btw, but still)

The traditional "pre determined" UK fruit machine is a bent piece of shit, for the reasons you describe. It's a nasty con-trick; a machine that's been "done" will often be impossible to win on, and the advertised percentage payout (invariably much lower than for a random casino machine) extremely misleading.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Wed Oct 25, 2017 16:58 
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Grim... wrote:
How do you feel about the fully-regulated online casino slots, folks? Things like this:

Image

As far as I'm aware, they can't be emptied so don't have the problem of professionals feeding off the casuals.


It's something I briefly mentioned on the previous page. Although they're fairer, it just means that everyone loses instead. However, for me, I found the online slots way more addictive that physical slots. As Cavey says, you can play them anywhere at any time. Some providers will let you have multiple slots open at once - some of the NetEnt ones you can have four per screen, while
Microgaming's client allowed you to have them in tabs. Playtech's client has them in separate windows, so you could have one per monitor if you wanted.

You can tell a lot of money goes into developing online slots too when you've got stuff like The Dark Knight or Lord of the Rings


lots of bells and whistles to keep you drawn in.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Thu Oct 26, 2017 10:55 
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Something that isn't always obvious with online slots are the reel layouts. With a physical fruit machine, you get the same number of symbols on each reel, but with a video slot, you could vary it and it would be hard to tell. If you look at the original Thunderstruck, reels 1-4 have 30 symbols, but the last one has 44, so you could quite easily pad a reel out with crap if you wanted.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Thu Oct 26, 2017 21:55 
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The thing with random slots is that even though the results may be fair and random, the design of the slots is anything but.

So you get weighted reels, the 'fake reel strips' that slots do during the three scatters spins, 'jackpot thermometers' which the small print says means nothing, pre-determined pick-me bonus rounds that do 'reveals' of what you allegedly missed, and so on.

And that's before you get into those online slots that can genuinely be manipulated. (The Dark Knight Rises slot that devilman's linked to above had a manipulator on it that led to it being hastily updated across the Microgaming estate.)

Add in predatory bonuses, 'pending withdrawal' periods, VIP systems designed to keep players depositing, and all sorts of other nonsense - and the whole online thing is no better or worse than pub fruities IMO.

At least with pub fruities the stakes/prizes are limited, and because they're compensated they'll always cough a decent chunk back in the end and give the player a 'get off' point.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Fri Oct 27, 2017 10:27 
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Interestingly, I had an email the other day from the support desk at Cassava, who run a lot of the online casinos. I'd read something about an issue at 888 and them getting fined or something, but I hadn't used them much, so didn't think too much of it. The email referred to this document about them not properly stopping excluded players from using their sites and them wanting my bank details to pay any potential refunds. Seemed fishy, but I clarified things with them and it turns out they're refunding me £200, which is an unexpected bonus. Obviously it's just my own money back, but I'll take it.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 9:10 
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41814465

12 week consolation starts today on FOBT stakes.

Of course the bookies want no change, they are even asking for a raise in the stake\prizes

Other side wants a reduction in stake. Bookies say " putting a £2 limit on them will mean half of all betting shops will close and 21,000 people will lose their jobs."

Bookies have been using the employment card for a while to justify the number of shops on the high street, they are limited to 4 per site so keep opening shops as they make 50K or so profit per machine.

BACTA who represent all other gaming and amusement, (but not bookies) are also saying the want to see a raise in stake to £2 and a top prize of £150 in pub fruit machines, they feel this will help resolve the general drop in income they have seen over the last 6 years.

My guess is they will leave it all alone with the exception of pulling the £100 stake you can do on roulette, you have to ask at the counter to get this turned on and it doesn't apply to the slots the maximum stake on these is £50.

I would like to see a change in the bookies, they appear to be able to work within slack rules that apply nowhere else, you can see a game in the bookies that offers £50 "mega spins" and the same game in a amusement arcade or Bingo hall doesn't.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 9:33 
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Yes they do keep trotting out the jobs line but there's been some very good research to show that bookies' 'total cost to society' far outstrips any supposed employment benefits. (And that's before you even consider that working in a bookies is apparently a miserable fucking job, as the staff are basically pimps for the FOBTs, the rest of the 'business' is a trivial consideration compared to the FOBTs, hence them opening multiple shops under the same banner per town, just to get the 4 FOBTs in each.)

A bold and brave government would face down the industry and cap them to £2 per play, £500 jackpot, minimum payout 94% on all random games.

They'd keep stakes and prizes the same on AWPs, and mandate a minimum payout of 86%. (Besides which AWPs already have a jackpot of £150, since all Betcoms + clones (which are most machines now) are capped to £150 on the red mega.)

They'd ban all 'kiddy gambling' (£5 jackpot machines) completely.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 9:44 
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Hearthly wrote:
Yes they do keep trotting out the jobs line but there's been some very good research to show that bookies' 'total cost to society' far outstrips any supposed employment benefits. (And that's before you even consider that working in a bookies is apparently a miserable fucking job, as the staff are basically pimps for the FOBTs, the rest of the 'business' is a trivial consideration compared to the FOBTs, hence them opening multiple shops under the same banner per town, just to get the 4 FOBTs in each.)

A bold and brave government would face down the industry and cap them to £2 per play, £500 jackpot, minimum payout 94% on all random games.

They'd keep stakes and prizes the same on AWPs, and mandate a minimum payout of 86%. (Besides which AWPs already have a jackpot of £150, since all Betcoms + clones (which are most machines now) are capped to £150 on the red mega.)

They'd ban all 'kiddy gambling' (£5 jackpot machines) completely.


:this:

The betting companies must know that this business model of just having these shops to have the FOBTs is going to turn sour at some point - they're just cashing in while they can. When your business is propped up by the worst of the addicts, you get no sympathy from me, regardless of the lost tax revenue and jobs stuff they trot out.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 10:25 
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Hearthly wrote:
A bold and brave government would face down the industry and cap them to £2 per play, £500 jackpot, minimum payout 94% on all random games.

They'd keep stakes and prizes the same on AWPs, and mandate a minimum payout of 86%. (Besides which AWPs already have a jackpot of £150, since all Betcoms + clones (which are most machines now) are capped to £150 on the red mega.)

They'd ban all 'kiddy gambling' (£5 jackpot machines) completely.


Hang on, who was it again who massively expanded and liberalised hard gambling in this Country?

Quote:
Gambling liberalisation introduced by the former Labour government was a "mistake" and has ruined people's lives, the party's deputy leader Harriet Harman has admitted.

Harman called for action to reverse measures in the Gambling Act, which allowed the proliferation of betting shops in poor areas, many of them operating high-stakes roulette terminals.

Research conducted for Channel 4's Dispatches suggested that British punters lost more than £1bn last year on the fixed-odds betting terminals (Fobt machines), which allow bets of up to £100 every 30 seconds on touch-screen roulette games.

Fobt machines first appeared in the UK in 2001 and the 2005 act introduced a limit of four for each betting shop in England and Wales.


https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/aug ... law-harman

So then, another great move by Labour, and now it's up to the Tories to sweep up the social fall-out and the mess. Maybe a "bold government" wouldn't have introduced these ubiquitous, monstrous life-wreckers on every street corner in the first place... the hypocrisy of Corbyn/Watson now; it's breath-taking.

Besides which, you're seriously *still* advocating "traditional" (i.e. non-random, totally bent) fruit machines, which even by yours and my bitter experiences rip lives apart, precisely because they are bent and in reality often no chance of winning at all, let alone 86%? What good is 86% if it's mostly being paid out to pro players as 'accounted for' wins? How do you square this with those videos of machines being "done" you posted, just a few days ago?

I was listening to some twat from 'the industry' on R4 this morning, seriously arguing in favour of £100/spin using the old alcohol/'we don't ban vodka because of alcoholics' analogy. Seriously? I had to switch it off. Ban 'em all, and take your shit betting shops with you.

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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 10:58 
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I thought that the original £500 stakes came in with the gaming industry working around some gaps in the law?

The stake was minimum 10p £25 JP so they implemented machines that allowed 20 games at once so £2\£500?

Prior to this there were bingo games in some arcades that paid out £500 in shopping vouchers of your choice and the top prize was a mini car.

The government then had to apply some legislation after the event so to speak.

The biggest issue for me is the bullshit statements that the bookies staff are always there to help problem gambler's, the skills required to pull a player around after he has dumped every penny he has into a FOBT and is loosing the plot are far beyond a minimum wage employee stuck on their own behind a Perspex screen.

Then you have the contradiction that managers and possibly staff wages are based on weekly FOBT takes, in my local bookies there are a couple of guys who are in there all day every day, its clear they can't afford to gamble at the levels they do as they are often upset when losing.

On more than one occasion I've seen them come in and play on low stakes, only to have the manager come out and show them new games on high stakes via free play.

This twat knows they are addicted gamblers and does everything he can to keep them blowing their money.


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 Post subject: Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 11:26 
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Quote:
"My own view is that we should probably get rid of them on the high street. I don't think casino gaming by machine belongs in the high street, I think it belongs in casinos."

Harman told the programme: "If we had known then what we know now [about the clustering of betting shops], we wouldn't have allowed this, because it's not just ruining the high street, it's ruining people's lives.

"I got the most heartrending letters and emails and calls that I've ever had in 30 years of being an MP, just saying 'Please do something about this. It's ruined my life, it's ruined my family, it's really dangerous and the problem is it's getting worse and that's why we need the law to be changed so that something can be done about it'.

"Well, I think we were wrong, we have made a mistake and this result is the consequence and we need to do something about it."

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