Both of your questions are answered above.

ANY bet or combination of bets has a house edge of 2.7%.

When ten people are all playing all sorts of bets on one table, the combined house edge is 2.7% of the total.

I'm not wasting any more time explaining this.
If you can't see it, or don't agree, I don't care.

I care, but everyone seems to be arguing about percentages and house edge, rather than the issue that was raised about how these machines always find a number you don't have covered and often hit the same number 4 times in a row, again when you don't have them covered.

If anyone can shed any light on how these machines really work then i'm all ears.........

One thing for certain is that they are definitely NOT random!

"A roulette wheel has neither a memory nor a conscience"

Its a complete no brainer.....if they are straight you cant beat them anyway and if you believe they are**then what the f@ck are you doing playing them in the first place.

all casino games are designed to MAKE MONEY FOR THE OPERATOR.

like bertie says, whether they are rigged or not you still lose.

the sooner the rest of you realise this, the better.

Betfair and/or bookies do not need to rig their games in order for you to lose.

Just my contribution, as an ex casino GM and current casino consultant (and a betting shop manager - but before the days of FOBTs).

House edge on roulette is always 2.7% (or 1.35% on even chances) as stated, I can't be bothered to do the maths to straighten out the double even chance bet, but I'm more interested in the fruit machine part.

Genuine pub fruit machines have, in the past (I think they're phasing them out, they don't have them anywhere else in the world) have "targeted" percentages, so waiting for them to get filled up by losing players and then playing them will work to an extent - the key being that if you hit the jackpot the next spin is less likely to be a jackpot.

Everywhere else in the world, you have true random machines, that work just like a roulette wheel only with lots more different payouts. The 94% payout stated on shop version is (I think) just the long term payout on that machine - if you were to take a large random sample of money in vs money out, it would tend towards 94%, not because the machine would target 94%, just from the law of large numbers (exactly as coin tosses tend towards 50% heads the more tosses you toss). A jackpot one spin is exactly as likely following a jackpot on the previous spin.

There would appear to be a lot of tossing going on in this thread.

I know this has been said a million times before, but why risk 1000 plus licenses plus the online business just to accelerate the inevitable exhaustion of punters who will play to extinction in any case ?

Besides, if you're a pro punter, why are you playing negative expectation games ?

I have made a couple of posts on this matter before - however, I have just caught up with posts from the last couple of weeks.

I could write for the next hour on this topic, and equally, like a couple of the regular posters on here have been saying, it is very easy to say: Negative expectation = expect to lose, so don't complain they are fixed.

This thread is supposed to be on bookies FOBTs - a lot of the posts have meandered off at a tangent about the actual odds of roulette.

Here's a couple of my views:

Why would bookies risk fixing them when they could lose their licences, or when they can win anyway even if they are not fixed?

Ask yourself the same question about - let's see: How about ITV phone in votes??? Why and how did they get themselves in such a mess that they got a massive fine, - after all if they had "played by the rules" they would have made loadsa cash anyway.

Similarly with big firms accused and found guilty of "price fixing"?

surely people are not so naive as to think that the BIG 4 bookies are so "whiter than white" that they wouldn't consider something?

Here's my next point: when FOBTS were first introduced, casinos kicked up a fuss, and as a result, if memory serves me correct, bookies were told to stop advertsiing their machines as "roulette" - or something along those lines. There was certainly as issue at the time.

This is the crux of this point: bookies will wriggle out of any problems by pointing people towards the small print which basically says the roulette wheel is just "graphics" - so dispelling the theory that a player is actually playing "roulette" -

as one poster on here said, he has never played fobts, but has watched people play exactly the same way as he plays in a casino - and never seen anyone win more than 1500, whereas, betting to the same/similar stakes, wins of 5k+ are fairly regular in a casino.

As various people have said, it is the "streak" element of fobts that is difficult to handle.

In a casino, let's say you were playing your favourite 17 numbers. So your chances of a win are just under 50% - I'm sure over a period of months of going to your fav casino and doing this bet, you can think of times where you have had a massive run of luck and your numbers have maybe hit 8 times on the bounce, or maybe something like 15 times in 18 spins. Play on a fobt and does this happen? Has it ever happened?

My experience (yes, I know I shouldn't play them) is that after the machine gives you a good number, invariably, the next spin will take it back (yes - so why don't we press collect if we "know" the next number will be a loser - this is NOT THE POINT) - how they are made random is the arguement;

From my experiences of playing at quiet times, the % edge against me at times feels like about 30% rather than 3%. I'm sure the betting shop manager on here who despises these addictive machines can probably agree with me on this point.

This is a major point to the arguement; regardless of small print, the bookies advertise FOBTs as "roulette" - it's still by far the most popular game on the machines despite all their new additions. - therefore people should expect "random" to mean as it does in a casino -

it should not mean - "you're the only sucker in the country playing our machines at the moment - therefore you are far more likely to lose!!!" - and that is the case if it is based on "money" - being advertised as "roulette" - and playing like a fruit machine (ie: if it's empty, it will not pay out!!!) is just plain WRONG - and this arguement on this thread is valid - please don't reply by saying "don't play them" - I kindof agree with that statement actually - but only if it was applied universally - if EVERYONE stopped playing them - and EVERYONE stopped having bets on virtual racing etc. - then maybe we could reclaim our bookmakers as they were before......

Finally - I've mentioned regulation before - I haven't really go an answer - WHO REGULATES FOBTS?? Or are bookies self regulating regarding them?

these are the most horrible things ever invented ive just watched a mate put 400 in ,it lasted all of 15 mins,.. robbing basta rds

It's interesting to read these types of thing and everyone's different point. In my opinion there are specific machines that certainly are not random.

The point about getting the same number on two machines if pressed at the same time is in fact something that happens regularly in the tote bookies around here.

You know when the machines are going to pay and when they are not, just like slot machines. The mug that I am leads me not to stop even though you are going to loss, but the point does go back to the fact they are not random and you will lose consistently if they are not ready to pay the amount your stakes require.

Betfair is by far the worst roulette I have ever encountered and it's there is absolutely no way that it is totally random. I could place every single number on except one and that one number will come out. Is that random?

I have even tried just backing sections, colours on the betfair roulette and for what ever reason it will always lose. So the simple solution to that is to not play it any longer. Yet my when I am at my friends and we play on his account it seems like a normal roulette.

One thing that really does bother me about the betfair roulette if you start using repeat bet it gets to a stage were you lose 100% of the time, regardless of what you stake or what you back.

All in all the solution is simply not to play them, there are very few who actually make profit from the roulette alone and the ones that do most likely will fail on the betfair roulette.

The only one that's "incredibly immature", insofar as their understanding of gambling goes, is you.

So how is your arguement pertinent then ALGLE?

Pertitent to the fact that for years people have been playing poor value gambling machines. Fruit machines were in bookies, taking easy money, with many addicts. They had a fixed payout, but lets face it you couldn't lose 30 (or more) in one spin of the reels could you? Fruities would often actually keep you involved for a few few minutes playing a feature, all for 30p, how long does it take for that roulette wheel to spin?

The bookies have now devised a very quick method of relieving the punter of their cash. Yes of course payout odds effects this, but it isn't the issue. Go and discuss payout percentages with someone who has the gambling red mist decending, you think they are going to want to be educated?

It's obvious the bookies aren't going to produce machines that allow people to constantly win money, but these things are the crack cocaine of gambling. Do you think you are going to stop someone taking crack by explaining that it isn't very good for them. Now you have to get to the deeper and underlying issues why they do it in the first place.

There needs to be more responsibility. These machines are supposed to be for "entertainment", but I don't see many people walking away like they've had a jolly time. The machines need to be set up in a responsible way, which takes account of peoples weaknesses, rather than exploiting them. Go and look at what devastation the Australian pokies have caused, hugely addictive.

I employ a boy who has done most of his wages on these things within 3 days of being paid for the last 3 months. Do you think payout odds mean anything to him. He's addicted! It's effecting his personal life, his work life, and his future. If the bookies are going to do business in this way they have a moral obligation to deal with the fallout.

BTW Algle your aggressive and ignorant response just shows you to be exactly that, aggresive and ignorant.

magpies -

what you say is all well and good, but it's still not pertinent to whatever you think my argument is.

i am not some kind of gaming industry lobbyist, which is what your post seems to imply.

i tell people not to play negative expectation games.
mostly what i do on this forum is post simple maths to dispel dangerous misconceptions about gambling. i provide some balance against a sea of misinformation.

and don't lecture me about how gambling ruins lives. i've seen it all first hand. i've seen one of my closest friends, who never gambled once in his life, get given a casino chip by a friend. he decided to play it, and you can guess where this story ends. i am talking worst case scenario here.

gambling is dangerously addictive, and it does prey on human weakness. it's probably more dangerous than alcohol, and certainly worse than tobacco.

so get off your high horse, and don't shoot the messenger.

Many emotive and eloqouent points been expressed here.
I totally concur with the guy about ADDICTION.
THE TOTAL RUIN, caused to many households, from these monstrosities, is dreadful.

I would just like to know how addictivity is measured, compared to some that do not concur with HM government legislation.

Surely, comparitive levels of addiction, can at least have a subjective solution.

first magpies, and now doves!

just wait while i check this isn't the ornithology forum...

OK, I take back the birdbrain thing.
But I'd still like to know what magpies thought my argument was.

PS
I'm offering 3 to 1 that the left seagull flies away first.

Magpies
I'm afraid to say that people are exploited all day everywhere in the world by all and sundry.
Bookies are no better or worse than most money making business edifices.
The reality is that people have the ultimate responsibility to ensure they do not gamble irresponsibly with money they cannot afford to lose.
No different really to investing in the stock market with no real knowledge or awareness of what you are doing. Are stockbrokers morally required to protect you from your ignorance ?

.

Zigzager.
As has been said many times theses machines are only fixed in the sense that they payout 35-1 on a 36-1 shot. I work in a bookies and we have many losing days and weeks sometimes. Bloke came in oneday put £4 in .After a few minutes i noticed he was up to £300.
I'm thinking how much do you wanna win mate. Gets up to £500 , then over a £1000 and still carries on . Then he starts going down to £400 and I think you;re gonna do the lot,but he gets it back up to over £2000. Anyhow in the end he draws £1800. Comes back the next day puts a score in ,loses , puts another score in and in minutes he's over a grand. Carries on playing and ends up losing a monkey.You can win on them its the way you play em. But in the end they get you .

The fact that you only get payed out evens on a 37/36 shot means that they're fixed anyway, perhaps not in the way that you're suggesting, but what is the house edge if it's not a** You will always lose on roulette in the long run, you can't devise any system to beat it it's meant purely for entertainment

My ex-girlfriend is a compulsive gambler.
Played as many as 3 tables at one time,covering about 2/3rds of the numbers.

Always thought she was so clever when one of her main nos came in.

Tried to explain to her that the game was costing her the amount she had on the winning no.

For every £ she had on the winning no. she was losing a £.

Being paid £35 instead of the £36 she needed to finish level.