Slot Machines at Miami International Airport? My field trip ... by gimleteye

They can't be serious is answered by, yes they can. I'm talking about the Miami Dade County Commission and the movement to get state permission to install slot machines at Miami International Airport. Oh I know it's a "long shot": Miami Today has been riding this horse, but I prefer to get right to the point and say: why not? But not just MIA. Let's have slots at every commercial airport in Florida, with certain requirements. For instance, require TSA waiting lines to be formed from banks of slot machines on the way to security check points and banks of slots in every jetway.

What is my reasoning? Everyone knows slot machines are the most profitable game in the casino. The profits go to the house. The house is our government, and our government is broke because we gambled on growth at any cost. The pit bulls are experts at making sure our money is gambled away so there's no trace of where it went. They turned Florida's built landscape into a crap table. They turned our water supply into a roulette wheel. I did a field trip last Friday afternoon to the slot machines. The Flagler Dog Track has been converted by the Havenicks, its owners, to Magic City Gaming. The Havenick's operation looks like a cross between a bowling lane and a turnpike rest area food court.

The parking lot for the Flagler Dog Track slots on Friday afternoon was pretty much full. To me, it seemed full of clunkers that should have been traded in when the Feds were paying cash, but maybe the deal wasn't good enough or the title was all screwed up with the ex-wife, so the owners took the phantom money they would have gotten from the cash for clunkers and spent it on real slots instead. I'd like to write there was a whiff of desperation, but it was just a windy Friday. The economy is horrendous. Families are relying on families to get by; jobs are scarce; but the ATM's are working and on Friday afternoon, what better place to turn before another weekend of uncertainty than gambling? Plus, if you have a lot of undeclared cash, who can argue with giving it away to the needy? Not me: I have my limits.

The Miami Dade County Commission, lead by an unreformable majority and its permanent incumbency, has proven they have no limits. From the dais they will do anything. They will say the craziest things. Like Javier Souto claiming to be for the environment because he picks up litter in his Westchester district while at the same time voting to move the Urban Development Boundary. They will vote to build a billion dollar sports stadium under terms so unfavorable to the taxpayer and so in favor of the sports team owners there is no comparison in the United States. They will allow development and rock mining into historic Everglades, maybe an off road vehicle park in the middle of the Everglades Jetport, and they will stare the worst economic crisis in a century straight in the face and say, not my fault. Not any part of it. Not the mis-spent money. Not the ghost suburbs that should never have been built. Not the fealty to lobbyists and the magic numbers of the Magic City Growth Machine. People have the right to do whatever they want, including throwing their money into the Havenick's bank account whether by greyhound or slot machine.


Anyhow, my field trip ended with a grand loss of $4.90 plus $.10 I left on the table. I felt elated when I reached the fresh air. I went to my old clunker and put the windows down. Another fine winter on the way. My good cheer lasted all the way out the parking lot until I realized how much vacant and empty real estate is in the area. Strip malls filled with for rent signs. Blocks for sale. Anyhow, in the not too distant future this area will grow again; filled with consumers and new cars and stores selling what people want from all the earnings generated from people investing in the slots. You would have to be crazy not to think this bright future is right around the corner. Right at Miami International Airport.




Anyhow: here's what Wikipedia says about slot machines in the reality-based world:


Payout percentage
Slot machines are typically programmed to pay out as winnings 82–98% of the money that is wagered by players. This is known as the "theoretical payout percentage" or RTP, "return to player". The minimum theoretical payout percentage varies among jurisdictions and is typically established by law or regulation. For example, the minimum payout in Nevada is 75%, and in New Jersey, 83%. The winning patterns on slot machines—the amounts they pay and the frequencies of those pay-outs—are carefully selected to yield a certain fraction of the money played to the "house" (the operator of the slot machine), while returning the rest to the players during play. Suppose that a certain slot machine costs $1 per spin. It can be calculated that over a sufficiently long period, such as 1,000,000 spins, that the machine will return an average of $950,000 to its players, who have inserted $1,000,000 during that time. In this (simplified) example, the slot machine is said to pay out 95%. The operator keeps the remaining $50,000. Within some EGM-development organizations this concept is referred to simply as "par". "Par" also manifests itself to gamblers as promotional techniques: "Our 'Loose Slots' have a 93% pay-back! Play now!" It is worth noting that the "Loose Slots" actually may describe a very few anonymous machines in a particular bank of EGMs.
A slot machine's theoretical payout percentage is set at the factory when the software is written. Changing the payout percentage after a slot machine has been placed on the gaming floor requires a physical swap of the software or firmware, which is usually stored on an EPROM but may be loaded onto non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) or even stored on CD-ROM or DVD, depending on the capabilities of the machine and the applicable regulations. Based on current technology, this is a time-consuming process and as such is done infrequently. In certain jurisdictions, such as New Jersey, the EPROM has a tamper-evident seal and can only be changed in the presence of Gaming Control Board officials. Other jurisdictions, including Nevada, randomly audit slot machines to ensure that they contain only approved software.
The return to player is not the only statistic that is of interest. The probabilities of every payout on the pay table is also critical. For example, consider a hypothetical slot machine with a dozen different values on the pay table. However, the probabilities of getting all the payouts are zero except the largest one. If the payout is 4,000 times the input amount, and it happens every 4,000 times on average, the return to player is exactly 100%, but the game would be dull to play. Also, most people would not win anything, and having entries on the paytable that have a return of zero would be deceptive. As these individual probabilities are closely guarded secrets, it is possible that the advertised machines with high return to player simply increase the probabilities of these jackpots. The casino could legally place machines of a similar style payout and advertise that some machines have 100% return to player. The added advantage is that these large jackpots increase the excitement of the other players.
The table of probabilities for a specific machine is called the Paytable and Reel Strips sheet, or PARS. The Wizard of Odds revealed the PARS for one commercial slot machine, an original International Gaming Technology Red White and Blue machine. This game, in its original form, is obsolete, so these specific probabilities do not apply. He only published the odds after a fan of his sent him some information provided on a slot machine that was posted on a machine in the Netherlands. The psychology of the machine design is quickly revealed. There are 13 possible payouts ranging from 1:1 to 2,400:1. The 1:1 payout comes every 8 plays. The 5:1 payout comes every 33 plays, whereas the 2:1 payout comes every 600 plays. Most players assume the likelihood increases proportionate to the payout. The one mid-size payout that is designed to give the player a thrill is the 80:1 payout. It is programmed to occur an average of once every 219 plays. The 80:1 payout is high enough to create excitement, but not high enough that it makes it likely that the player will take his winnings and abandon the game. More than likely the player began the game with at least 80 times his bet (for instance there are 80 quarters in $20). In contrast the 150:1 payout occurs only on average of once every 6,241 plays. The highest payout of 2,400:1 occurs only on average of once every 643=262,144 plays since the machine has 64 virtual stops. The player who continues to feed the machine is likely to have several mid-size payouts, but unlikely to have a large payout. He quits after he is bored or has exhausted his bankroll. [13]
Despite the fact that they are confidential, occasionally a PARS sheet is posted on a website. They have limited value to the player, because usually a machine will have 8 to 12 different possible programs with varying payouts. In addition, slight variations of each machine (i.e. with double jackpots or five times play) are always being developed. The casino operator can choose which EPROM chip to install in any particular machine to select the payout desired. The result is that there is not really such a thing as a high payback type of machine, since every machine potentially has multiple settings. From October 2001-February 2002, columnist Michael Shackleford obtained PAR sheets for five different nickel machines; four IGT games Austin Powers, Fortune Cookie, Leopard Spots and Wheel of Fortune and one game manufactured by WMS; Reel 'em In. Without revealing the proprietary information, he developed a program that would allow him to determine with usually less than a dozen plays on each machine which EPROM chip was installed. Then he did a survey of over 400 machines in 70 different casinos in Las Vegas. He averaged the data, and assigned an average payback percentage to the machines in each casino. The resultant list was widely publicized for marketing purposes (especially by the Palms casino which had the top ranking).[14]
One reason that the slot machine is so profitable to a casino is that the player must play the high house edge and high payout wagers along with the low house edge and low payout wagers. In a more traditional wagering game like craps, the player knows that certain wagers have almost a 50/50 chances of winning or losing, but they only pay a limited multiple of the original bet (usually no higher than three times). Other bets have a higher house edge, but the player is rewarded with a bigger win (up to thirty times in craps). The player can choose what kind of wager he wants to make. A slot machine does not afford such an opportunity. Theoretically, the operator could make these probabilities available, or allow the player to choose which one so that the player is free to make a choice. However, no operator has ever enacted this strategy. Different machines have different maximum payouts, but without knowing the odds of getting the jackpot, there is no rational way to differentiate.
In many markets where central monitoring and control systems are used to link machines for auditing and security purposes, usually in wide area networks of multiple venues and thousands of machines, player return must usually be changed from a central computer rather than at each machine. A range of percentages is set in the game software and selected remotely.
In 2006, the Nevada Gaming Commission began working with Las Vegas casinos on technology that would allow the casino's slot manager to change the game, the odds, and the payouts remotely. The change cannot be done instantaneously, but only after the selected machine has been idle for at least four minutes. After the change is made, the machine must be locked to new players for four minutes and display an on-screen message informing potential players that a change is being made.[15]