One of the "Hottest Attractions in Las Vegas" is an S+ ???

[tjkeller]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/vegas-gamblers-keep-vigil-on-aging-slot-machine-they-expect-to-pay-off-millions-205149860.html?soc_src=copy




LAS VEGAS—Forget Britney Spears and Cirque du Soleil. For many gamblers, the hottest attraction in Sin City is an outdated three-reel slot machine that hasn't produced a jackpot in nearly two decades.

It is called the Lion's Share, and in this city with no shortage of losing bets, the 20-year-old slot has attracted a legion of ever-hopeful devotees on the floor of the MGM Grand, the Strip's second-biggest casino.

The machine's miserly track record may, paradoxically, make it the rarest of all Vegas treats: A decent bet. A generation of players has already lost money on it, helping more than double the progressive jackpot to an improbable $2.3 million.


"You see the sharks swimming around, scoping you out," said Washington state resident Lief Anderson. The 64-year-old is a second-generation Lion's Share player: He took over the family quest from his late father 10 years ago.

According to long-established slot etiquette, the seat is first-come, first-serve, and the player can stick around until he is exhausted or out of money—or both. On a $3 maximum bet (the machine takes $1 and $2 bets, too) a player can earn up to $10,000 without hitting the jackpot, and small hits can keep someone in his vinyl seat for many hours.

At 23, Justin Paulus is barely older than the machine is, but the engineer is so committed to taking his shot that he fell asleep at it repeatedly during a six-hour overnight session last spring.

"Security kept coming over to wake me up, but they didn't say I had to leave. So I'd wake up, press a button, and then fall asleep again," said Mr. Paulus, of Chandler, Ariz. "I just have this feeling it's going to hit soon."

On a recent weekday morning, Karen Kuefler, 50, was dragging on a cigarette as she sat at the slot, instructed by her husband not to let anyone else cut in. "If he could sleep with this machine, he would," the Calgary resident said of her husband.


Her husband, Ken, a 51-year-old boilermaker, said he brings up to $5,000 each trip for the machine, and won't put a cent in any other machine. "It's become a meeting spot for us," he said. "We have friends we've made just from waiting at the machine."

Even by the standards of slot enthusiasts—known to be an obsessive and superstitious lot—the Lion's Share has a devoted following. The machine has its own Twitter account, Facebook profile, fan websites and message boards. Each sight of one lion, which pays $6 on a $3 bet, is considered breaking news. The machine is the oldest three-reeled slot in the property and has the highest level of "occupancy," or daily time played, of all 1,900 of the casino's machines, said Justin Andrews, the MGM's executive director of slots.

A turn at its seat, located just outside the casino's Grand Wok and Sushi Bar, can inspire strange behavior. Some players will only pull the old-fashioned lever on its right side, some hit the "spin" button with their feet, and others execute elaborate choreographed rituals before every play.

"I'm not normally like this, but with this machine, I talk to it. Whenever a lion comes up, I rub it. I know it's strange, but the machine has this juju about it," said Siubhan Pabst, 34, of San Jose, Calif.

This past summer, she lined up two lion icons in a row, then barely missed the third. She won $10,000. "I was sitting there at the machine frozen in shock for 20 minutes," she recalled. "After, I was on this crazy high for two days."

A year and a half ago, Mr. Andrews moved the machine a few hundred feet as part of a renovation; he said the reaction from players was panic.

When the 5,044-room MGM Grand, owned by MGM Resorts International, opened in 1993, there were about 50 Lion's Shares, a nod to the MGM movie studio's mascot. Now, there is only one left.

To the untrained eye there is little to advertise this last surviving machine's appeal save for a modest blinking sign displaying the latest jackpot total. Once you find the Lion's Share, you will more likely than not have to wait for someone like Don Krell, a Palm Springs, Calif., snowbird who was settled in comfortably for a long turn last week. "I'll sit here for three days for a chance to take this thing home," said Mr. Krell, 62.

Mr. Krell was referring to a long-held belief among Lion's Share fanatics that whoever hits the jackpot will be given the machine as a souvenir. Several players said their slot hosts—MGM employees whose job it is to entice players to gamble—had assured them it was true.


Mr. Andrews said he couldn't guarantee the casino will give away the machine after someone hits the jackpot.

The Lion's Share hasn't just sparked decadeslong passion, but its share of superstitions, too. Some players say they suspect it will never pay off.

Michael Shackleford, a professional actuary and self-styled "Wizard of Odds," said he finds the game "fishy." Last month while taking notes on the machine, he said he got up briefly and returned to find that a casino employee had temporarily turned it off.

The typical reason for a casino to reboot a slot is to manually rejigger its odds, Mr. Shackleford said. MGM officials said the machine's odds have never been changed.

Greg Gemignani, an attorney specializing in gaming issues for Lionel Sawyer & Collins in Las Vegas, said the past 15 years have surely lowered the machine's house edge, as gamblers have the same shot of hitting a much higher jackpot than before.

"For your dollar, the return is going to be much better now than when it started," Mr. Gemignani said. Players don't have to win the jackpot to go home with more than they started.

If and when the jackpot hits, there will be one happy winner, and likely no small amount of consternation. Ms. Pabst, who feels she came an inch from winning the jackpot, said she is now on edge every time someone posts in one of the online discussions devoted to the Lion's Share.

"Every time you get an email notification you're like oh s—. Did somebody win?" she said.

[StatFreak]

Okay, I suppose I could start by making a sarcastic comment about my need to rush to the machine and lose all my money...

But I'm more concerned about Mr. Shackleford's comment:

...he said he got up briefly and returned to find that a casino employee had temporarily turned it off. The typical reason for a casino to reboot a slot is to manually rejigger its odds, Mr. Shackleford said.

I must disagree and politely suggest to Mr. Shackleford  that he is mistaken. Simply turning an S+ off and on does nothing whatsoever. True, the RNG won't be running while the machine is off, but that won't make any statistical difference. It will start up where it left off when the machine is restarted and runs through tens of thousands of numbers per second. In addition, it's the player's actions that determine which numbers are selected -- and that non-digital, real-time, completely human event is what guarantees the machine selects truly random numbers.

The only action that might make a difference would be if they put a clear chip in there and reset the machine. Again, I disagree with this view as well, although it is contested. And oddly, most who believe that clearing a machine makes a difference believe (erroneously, from everything I have been able to determine) that it will increase the odds of hitting the jackpot, not the other way around.

[knagl]

The Wiz was really mis-quoted in the article.  Here's what he actually said, from this page on his site:

Also, once when I wanted to play it a slot attendant said they were going to shut it down for service. A typical reason, but not the only one, to shut a machine down, is to change the EPROM chip.

He made that statement primarily to disclaim that it was possible his analysis was flawed IF they had indeed changed chips between his trials.

[jay]

The game changer will be the dreaded error 12 when the 3,6v battery gives up the ghost and the soft reset clearing the 61 will ensue.
 
 

[StatFreak]

The Wiz was really mis-quoted in the article.  Here's what he actually said, from this page on his site:

Also, once when I wanted to play it a slot attendant said they were going to shut it down for service. A typical reason, but not the only one, to shut a machine down, is to change the EPROM chip.

He made that statement primarily to disclaim that it was possible his analysis was flawed IF they had indeed changed chips between his trials.

That makes sense. Mr. Shackleford rarely makes statements that I would disagree with. I should have known that the author mis-quoted what he said.

Thanks for getting to the bottom of it, knagl. 

[knagl]

As a follow-up to this thread, the jackpot on the IGT S+ "Lion's Share" machine at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas was finally hit on August 23, 2014.  Discussion of that here:

http://newlifegames.com/nlg/index.php?topic=3093.0