Second, truly random things are really hard to find. But there are two problems with that.įirst, if they were truly random, then the house would not get its cut of the gambler's money. Ideally, the symbols should appear in a totally random order. Now it's important for the 'house' that the gambler cannot predict when a winning sequence like this will appear. An unbroken row of say, five cherries, and you could get the maximum payout. When you hit play on a pokie, the symbols start spinning and depending on the pattern that forms when they stop, you might get a payout.
The Russian cheats who won millions on US poker machines weren't riding a lucky streak - they used the maths behind the seemingly random play of poker machines to really shorten the odds in their favour. It also means that while you may have a win here or there, the longer you play, the more likely you are to lose. That means that averaged over a long time, the pokies will pay out 87 per cent of the money put in. In Australia, that payout is set at 87 per cent or higher. Each year, we lose around $10 billion.Īnd that's not bad luck - all poker machines are designed to only pay out a certain amount of the money put in. In 2014, Russian criminals turned the tables on American casinos when they worked out how to beat the poker machines - thanks to Vladimir Putin and mathematics.Īustralians are big players of the pokies - and like all dedicated players, we're big losers.
