Wheel of Fortune observation

Yesterday I sat for a while collecting my steam again after a shoe from hell. In so doing, I watched the Wheel of Fortune slots being played by a number of players. I clearly noticed that when the wheel gets spun, it never lands on any of the larger payouts, at least while I have watched it. This is not the first time I watched it either.

There is nothing on any of those machines that would disclaim or disclose to the player that the wheel is not random even though one would assume from its appearance, especially given it is much like the one shown on TV. The one on TV is random. But in casinos, they are not. How come the gaming commission allows this kind of unscrupulous and unfair behavior to exist?

It is my belief that any game with a wheel, the wheel must spin randomly, otherwise it should be considered illegal.

The contest is not the wheel, it is in a computer chip. As soon as you push the 'spin" button the result is instantly decided. The Wheel of Fortune bonus wheel (and the acutal slot reels themselves) are merely visual displays of that result that has been determined by the RNG and the virtual reels. The wheel could simply be a digital display instead, but instead is an analog type display that thematically matches the game and the wheel on the TV show. Think about it this way, the wheel on the TV show has a much greater diameter and consequently many more slots...imagine the slot machines bonus wheel as a small visual representation of hidden much larger virtual wheel with many, perhaps a hundred or so more possible results. The virtual reel is completely random, it's just much larger than the one on top of the machine.

For example, a Super Times Pay Video Poker Machine on average hits a bonus multipler every 14.5 hands dealt. The Bonus Multipler ranges from 2x,3x,4x,5x,8x, and 10x. All of these are not random as they are selected by a virtual reel which consists of 40 slots of which there are nine 2x, nine 3x, nine 4x, nine 5x, two 8x, and two 10x.

This means that the 2x thru 5x payoffs are each 4.5x more likely to occur than an 8x or 10x payoff.

Although you may have implied this...

You can have a wheel with 4 things on it (divided into just 4 sections for an example), where each of the 4 secions has some unique thing on it, like a cherry, a star, a lightning bolt and a $5000 chip. You might conclude there is a one in four chance of getting one of those. But with a "virtual wheel" it might be that the cherry is programmed to come up 50% of the time, the star 25%, the lightning bolt 24% and the $5000 chip only 1%. Yet that is still perfectly random according to the definition of random. Just not uniformly distributed. But gaming laws seem to not care about that. When we see a big 6 wheel spin, we assume every slot has equal probability but in slots, that is not necessarily true...

I think its dishonest, but apparently perfectly legal...

Note also that on machines with virtual reels, when the player has a losing spin, the reels are manipulated to look like the player "just missed" a big payout. This has been ruled as legal by the NGC and others , but is intentionally deceptive.

Whenever there are a given number of positions/slots on a wheel all appearing to be the same in size, they should all have the same odds of hitting, ie. roulette and big six.

"Them that has the gold makes the rules." In this case the casinos "have the gold"...

If a Real Estate transaction was conducted under the same deceitfulness or false pretence, it would provide major grounds for a lawsuit and revocation of a Sales Licensees license.

I hear that the bonus in STP Video Poker is once every 15 hands on average.

It's just the landscape we have to deal with, it seems. As the saying goes, "follow the money"...

In this case, from the casino to the state / county / city governments via taxes. Why would a state legislature pass laws that might result in less income from taxes? Why would they pass laws that would be favorable to the players, when they want to see the casinos take all our money and give the state a percentage?

Etc...