Dear Mark, On the weekends, do casinos make adjustments on their video poker machines to make more money?
Sam K. Do you mean do casinos take a screwdriver to their slots on the weekends to tighten them up? No way. It is not cost effective for the casino to continually alter the payouts on their machines. To alter the percentage return in their favor on a video game, the casino must, by law, make a hardware change. You do this by swapping out an internal component, the ROM portion of the microprocessor chip. ROM, or read only memory, is a chip the slot manufacturer provides the casino. This is the chip that tells the video poker machine to pay 9 coins for a full house, 6 coins for a flush. Additionally, they would have to physically change the glass payout schedule on their machines. What you could see is a seasonal wholesale change to improve their theoretical hold by making all 9/6 machines to 8/5 bandits. By changing to all 8/5 machines, the house holds an additional 3% edge on each and every machine. Dear Mark, Is there a way that the casino can program a video poker machine so that a r
