In nearly all slot games that allow you to stop the reels, there is no skill or timing involved on your part. The random number generator has already determined your outcome when you hit the button to spin the reels, and you’re going to get the same result regardless of whether you stop the reels early, or let them halt in their own time.

1. What Does The Service Button Mean On A Slot Machine Machines
2. What Does The Service Button Mean On A Slot Machine Jackpots
3. What Does The Service Button Mean On A Slot Machines

A slot machine is an electro-mechanical gambling machine utilizing randomized numbers to provide probable results. How a slot machine work is both more complicated and interesting than you would think. The machine features a payout table, reels, winning paylines, a credit meter, and arm or spin button.

The payout table shows the player what each of the combinations is worth when three, four or five identical symbols appear on a single payline. Classic slots feature a single payline while video slot offers multiple payline or calling winning lines across the reels, so with most slots options are given on how many payline you want to wager on. Each of the paylines is equal to one bet, so by selection a one-coin bet across five paylines it will equate to betting of 0.05, should the coin denomination value equal 0.01.

What Does The Service Button Mean On A Slot Machine Machines

The credit meter keeps track of the number of credits the player has, also referred to as the player’s bankroll and subtract bets, while it also adds winnings. The main reason why the credit meter in most cases shows credits instead of money or cash amounts is that for the player, losing credits are not as traumatic as losing money.

The spin button should only be used once you have selected the number of paylines as well as the coin denomination and number of coins per payline, once the spin button is selected, the button locks the setting, and select a series of random numbers, while the reels spin.

The RNG is responsible for ensuring that the result of every spin is fair and random number generated. The RNG generates thousands of numbers per second and RNGs are also assisted via the use a method that gathers thermal noise and transforms that into electrical signals to assist in generating the numbers as computers on their own are only able to generate pseudo-random numbers.

Reels are basically for the show since by the time they start spinning the slot machine already has the outcome of the spin. The reason for reels being added for visual purposes only is that the spinning and reels coming to a halt in sequence builds suspense and excitement for the player, while it also keeps gamblers interested. Each of the reels usually offers 20 to 30 stops, which are the symbol spaces on the reel.

Each slot machine also has an EPROM, this is the erasable programmable with a read-only memory, which regulates the weighting of the machine, it ensures the desired payout percentage is reached.

Slot machines are created and designed in such a way that they are tamper-proof to player and casinos. In land-based casinos, the slot screen and cabinets act as the Faraday cage that disperses ground electrical signals and disperses electricity, which prevents electrical signals from outside the cabinet to interfere with the mechanical processes of the slot machine. The screen is coated in an electrically conductive chemical, it is connected to the metal cabinet to enable conductivity between the screen and the machine.

The EPROM of slot machines are tested and programmed in the factory before it is placed inside the machine, each is fitted with an evident sticker securing it. The chip is reprogrammable by using an ultraviolet light and therefore it would need removal from the machine to be reprogrammed and this process is only allowable when a gaming authority is present. The slot reels are fitted with sensors sensitive enough to detect any extra movements so anyone attempting to change the reels manually will cause an error to the display and any winning on the LCD screen will be annulled as the display instantly turns to display errors.

Readers ask if quick reflexes are the key to winning

By John Grochowski

I keep a list of questions that I’m most often asked about slot machines. You could probably tick off some of them: “Are games programmed to go cold after a big win?” “Do you get less payback when you use your rewards card?” And the big one, “Can you tell me how to win?”

Those have been standards ever since I started writing about casinos and casino games 20 years ago. But recently, another question has been shooting up the charts. I have it all the way up at No. 2 on the readers’ hit parade:

“I’ve noticed on a lot of video slot games that if I hit the button a second time while the reels are spinning, they stop right away. I was wondering if I could use this to my advantage. If I see the bonus triggers or the jackpot symbols at the top, should I quickly hit the button again and try to stop the reels?”

What Does The Service Button Mean On A Slot Machine Jackpots

I had that thought myself the first time I accidentally double-hit a button and saw the reels click to an immediate halt. Could this be an answer to the chart-topping question, “how to win on the slots?”

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. In nearly all slot games that allow you to stop the reels, there is no skill or timing involved on your part. The random number generator has already determined your outcome when you hit the button to spin the reels, and you’re going to get the same result regardless of whether you stop the reels early, or let them halt in their own time.

When you play a slot machine, the game isn’t actually being played out on the reels, whether it uses “real” reels or video reels. It’s being played internally, on the game’s random number generator. The reels are just a player-friendly interface, and are told where to stop by the RNG. If there’s a malfunction and the reel display doesn’t match the numbers generated, it’s the RNG that counts. Large jackpots can be denied—and have been denied—if a check shows the random numbers on the internal computer chip don’t match the winning symbols on the reels.

But this is extremely rare. The engineering is good enough that almost all the time, the RNG and reel display are going to match up. This doesn’t change if you double-hit the bet button. If the RNG has spit out a random number that tells the first reel to stop on a single bar, 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.

There are rare exceptions. When I’ve answered similar questions in the past, I’ve mentioned IGT’s Reel Edge games. In their original incarnation, Reel Edge games enabled players to touch and stop the reels one at a time. There was actual skill involved. Your timing in stopping the reels determined the outcome. The reels spun very, very fast, so it was going take a keen eye and sharp reflexes to get better than random results, but it was possible.

What Does The Service Button Mean On A Slot Machines

I gave it a try, and found my reflexes just weren’t fast enough to generate more than my normal share of winners. In the original three-reel Blood Life game, I identified a green 7 as the easiest symbol to pick out as it whizzed by. I touched each reel individually as I saw a green 7 reach the top of the slot window, and managed to stop 7s on all three reels. Alas, I failed to land them all on the same payline. Some younger folks with quicker reactions may have been able to do better.

I don’t know if any of the first generation of Reel Edge games remain on casino floors. They were never widespread, and I don’t get lists from casinos or manufacturers telling me what games are available in any given casino. The new generation of Reel Edge puts the skill-based portions of the games in the bonus events.

Blood Life’s updated video incarnation, Blood Life Legends, allows you to test your skill with a joystick to guide a bat through the ups, downs, twists and turns of a cave as you try to collect gems for bonuses. There is actual skill involved, but it’s not the reel-stopping experience readers have been asking about.

On most slot games, even in the bonus events you’re getting an illusion of skill rather than actual skill. And when it comes to stopping the reels, it’s the random number generator, not your reflexes, that determines the results.

What about my readers’ other top questions?

To answer another—no, games are not programmed to go cold after big wins. Results remain as random as humans can program a computer to be. As long as the RNG keeps doing its thing, any big jackpot, any hot streak, and any cold streak eventually fade away into statistical insignificance, and the machine comes very close to its expected payback percentage.

No, you don’t get less payback when you use your rewards card. The player rewards system doesn’t interact with the RNG.

And no, with rare exceptions, there is no way to beat the slots except by being in the right place at the right time. There have been opportunities for small profit on games with banked bonuses such as the old WMS game Piggy Bankin’, where the sharpies would start to play only when there were enough coins in the bank to give the player an edge.

Such games are not common. Just as with stopping the reels early, your results are up to chance and the RNG.