Slot Machines

Date: 5/29/96 at 11:8:37
From: Anonymous
Subject:Probabilities of Casino Games

We are two advanced math students doing a project on the probability 
of slot machines.  How can we find out how to calculate the 
probabilities and mathematical expectations of slot machines? 
Thanks for your help,  
Jamie and Melissa.

Date: 6/21/96 at 10:58:40
From: Doctor Patrick
Subject: Re: Probabilities of Casino Games

Hi!  

Before you can answer this you will need to do a little research on
slot machines. You will need to know how many different images are 
being used to make matches, how many windows there are where these 
images show up to be matched, how many of each type of image there are 
(I bet that there are fewer of the images that pay off big money then 
there are those that only give back what you put in), and what the 
conditions are for winning.

Once you have this information, a good place to start would be to 
figure out the total number of combinations that could come up, and 
then see how many ways each of the winning combinations could be made.  
The total combinations will be the number of images that could come up 
in the first window times the number in the second window times the 
number in the third window....  If there are the same number of 
images in each window then your job will be easier since you could 
use number of images raised to the power of the number of windows.  Do 
you understand why you can do this?

Without knowing how the machines are set up, I'm not sure what to tell 
you about figuring out how many times each winning combination will 
come up.  If you get this information and write back, I'm sure someone 
here will be able to help you.

Good luck,

-Doctor Patrick,  The Math Forum
 Check out our web site!  http://mathforum.org/dr.math/