The “One-armed Bandit,” as the modern slot machine is now known, is without a doubt the most brazen, flagrant device ever produced to swindle the general public. From its very concept, this contrivance was geared to one purpose, that of acquiring the customer’s money and at the same time providing ironclad protection for the owner.
The Modern Machine
The One-armed Bandit today has three wheels bearing the symbols long familiar to the deluded American public: Cherries, Oranges, Plums, Bells, Bars - and last but not least - Lemons.
Contrary to a somewhat common error, Lemons do not appear on all three wheels. It is impossible to hit three Lemons. The same applies to Cherries. Both these fruits are found on two wheels only; Cherries on the first and second; Lemons on the first and third. It is also possible to win even when a Lemon shows, a piece of information which may surprise some readers.
Here’s what happens when the player drops his nickel and shakes hands with the One-armed Bandit:
A pull of the lever, the wheels spin and finally come to a jolty stop in one, two, three fashion, showing any of a great variety of combinations - three symbols in a row. The payoff combinations are as follows:
Two Cherries with Bar, Orange or Plum .. 3 coins
Two Cherries with Bell or Lemon 5 coins
Three Oranges 10 coins
Three Plums 14 coins
Three Bells 18 coins
Three Bars Jackpot plus 20 coins
These payoffs vary, some machines giving 2, 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 instead of the figures named. Such machines presumably yield more “hits” to compensate for the smaller “payoffs.” But nothing should be presumed where these machines are concerned and the only persons actually compensated in the long run are the operators.
The coins land in a return slot at the bottom of the machine and this pocket is also large enough to receive the Jackpot when the Bars are hit.
The Jackpot
The Jackpot is visible through non-breakable glass at the front of the machine and, when filled, it contains about 80 coins, though this, too, can vary with different makes. For round figures, you may hit as high as $5 on a nickel machine, $10 on a dime machine, $25 on a quarter machine, $50 on a half dollar machine and $100 on a silver dollar machine. These totals, of course, include the 20 coins that the Bars deliver as their own hit.
Jackpots were added to the original Bar payoff and they are “fed” by coins put in by the players. This was a bad feature, originally, because players ignored the machine after a Jackpot was hit, as they could see that it had been emptied. This produced the quandary: Who would fill the Jackpot if the players wouldn’t?
The answer was solved by dividing the Jackpot into two compartments, the Jackpot and the Reserve Jackpot. After a Jackpot is hit, the next coin played automatically causes the Reserve to dump into the Jackpot.
A beginner who has never hit a Jackpot often thinks it includes the Reserve, as a bar of metal on the front of the machine hides the division between the two compartments. But when he sees he gets only the lower half when three Bars hit, he is soon initiated into that phase of the thing.
Naturally, the dropping of the Reserve gives the next Jackpot a good start and while some players are leery, thinking they haven’t much chance of another Jackpot hitting soon, others are glad to see a machine that has hit at all and therefore are happy to play it.
Play Until You Lose
The habitual slot machine player has only one system. That is, to pour his coins into the machine until they are all gone. The lure of the Jackpot simply adds to the futile, incessant craving in which the player goes wild every time he hits for ten or more but never counts the cash that he feeds into the machine.
Players beware - there are very few ways these machines can be beaten.
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Making money is not easy, but the prospect of having a one snap go for a big fortune is hard to resist. The lottery offers this to us, the chance to make tons of money just by buying a ticket and picking some numbers. The chances are slim, but many people do take that risk because it is cheap and affordable. Think about the prospect of winning millions by only spending a dollar or more.
Making money in the lottery is hard and based on luck and chance. But there is always a way in increasing those chances, and increasing the amount you win if you get the lucky chance to hit the numbers. Remember that even if it is all about luck, statistics still play a major role in lottery.
Increasing your chances does not involve suppositions practices; it is all about knowing the statistics of lottery and making use of it to your advantage. Straight to the point with one ticket combination of numbers has 1 in 13,983,816 chance of winning. As you can see that is the reason why it is not easy at all trying to win in a lottery but there are ways to increase your chances of winning.
One of the ways is to play less often but play the same number of tickets overall. Which means if you increase your bets in a single draw the better your chances of winning compared to betting a religiously per draw with one bet.
One of the most obvious ways to increase your chances is to buy more tickets, its clear that when you buy two tickets you simply double your chance of winning. So in nearly1 in more than 13 million, it would improve to a much better 2 in 13 million which is actually also equal to 1 in 7 million. Now with the internet you are able to buy lottery tickets from all of the big lottos around the world. You are no longer limited to just getting your regional or national lottery. So spreading out your bets over the various different lotteries from around the world and buying multiple tickets will increase your chance of winning and winning more often.
Never forget that you could still win even if you only get some of the numbers in the winning combination. So your chances still improve with this system even though the amount of the prizes may differ. It is much easier to win several small amounts then one large jackpot.
Hunter Crowell is a researcher, avid money maker, and creator of Lotto System, a web page setup to help lotto players earn cash.
http://www.make-money-explained.info/lottery.html
Poker tournaments are all about one thing, winning. However to win you need to survive, there is no point having 50% of the chips for the entire tournament only to get knocked out in forth place just outside the paying places. To increase your chances of surviving until the end there are a number of tips and strategies you should learn and follow.
In this scenario we will be playing in a 10 player sit and go tournament.
Firstly and perhaps most importantly is knowing your odds and above all how these change depending upon the number of players still in the hand. If you have two aces against one other opponent then you have over 80% chance of winning the hand. With these odds it is always worth betting and betting hard.
These good odds can change dramatically when you add more players into the hand. With three players your odds could lower to around a 60% chance of winning. Add in a forth player and your odds of winning could drop to just above 50%. Okay so you still have a much better chance of winning than the other players but remember in the early stages it is about survival. You could go all in but to do so gives you a 50% chance of going out of the tournament at this early stage. There are a number of poker odds calculators around on the Internet so study them and work through a number of scenarios.
Surviving to the paying positions is perhaps more important than having a larger stack. As you get to the last four players the style of game play changes dramatically. At this point the player with the highest stack will usually call more hands then they should. The player with the lowest stack will usually get called more hands then they normally would. Players with average hands might call the player with the lowest stack in order to knock them out.
Following the example above, the odds of winning the hand for the player with the smallest stack are significantly reduced. However it also means that should they win their small stack can quadruple in size in one hand. If they survive a couple of hands like this then they could quickly become one of the leading players. Additionally the player with the largest stack could quickly lose his stack if he calls too many hands. Patience is the key here, again work out the odds and only call the hands that you should.
In tournaments the style of play changes depending upon the number of players remaining. To enhance your chances of surviving learn about these stages and create strategies to guide you through these all the way to the bank.
Matthew Smith has been playing poker online for many years with great success and now offers his expert advice to help new players succeed with Free Online Poker Game.
The newcomer to racing often is surprised not only to find it is considered a sport but also that it is supervised more meticulously than any other sport. In fact, racing rules are probably more stringent than the regulations governing any other sport.
This quest for honesty does not stem entirely from the tracks spirit of good will and good fellowship toward the little $2 bettor. A track these days is a gold mine and with millions at stake, operators, indeed, would be foolish to wink at any dealings that might kill the goose that is laying the golden eggs.
Before the horse steps out of his stall on race day, he is subjected to more examinations than a 60-year-old man applying for a $200,000 life insurance policy. The track officials want to be sure not only that he is himself and not a horse of another color but also that he has had nothing stronger for breakfast than water and oats. Paddock judges again inspect the horse before the race to make certain he is the same horse described on his social security card.
They don’t want Speedy Jim to flash across the finish line at good odds when the horse actually entered was old Hoof Beats. Since no way has been found as yet to take a horse’s hoof prints, the tracks have done the next best thing - they have tattooed the horse’s identification into his lips so that even the most absent-minded owner now has no excuse for trying to palm off one horse as another creature.
Men and cameras are trained on the horses constantly until they are back in the barn again. Patrol judges keep lonely vigils around the track to see that every horse and rider conducts himself as becomes the sport of kings and two-dollar bettors. Placing judges are given mechanical help through cameras that photograph the finish. And saliva and urine tests after the race betray if by chance the horse stopped along the back stretch and got his second wind from a drugstore.
Hope burns just as high in the chests of the boys who like to look for short cuts as it does in the two-buck bettor. With such tremendous sums at stake, now and then something not recommended by Hoyle does slip past. But only in the movies do shadowy characters meet behind the stables to fix a race. At a real track, trying to fix a race would involve dealing with so many owners, trainers, jockeys, stable hands, track officials and others that the fixers would need the key to Fort Knox to pay off. And then they might find that the party most concerned - the horse - failed to run according to script.
For the thoroughbred is just about the most temperamental bit of flesh on earth. A race horse is subject to more whims and moods than a big businessman with an ulcer and shattered nerves. When an owner has “one of those days” he can stay in bed and wait for the sun to come up again. The horse, with no choice about whether he races or not, is apt to make his protest by sulking or by running a dull or erratic race.
If the horse should rise and shine on race day, filled with the zest of good living, he may change his mind at the post. The saddle girth may be too tight or too loose. The jockey may sit too far up on the horse or he may not sit up far enough. The horse may shy slightly just as the starting gates open and that may cost him so many yardages he can never make it up.
Once the horse flashes first across the finish line, he still can lose. He may have bumped or crowded other horses and thus be disqualified. His jockey may have committed an unsportsmanlike act and again, the horse’s number is taken down.
Thus you can see that the sport of kings is subject to so many rules and regulations, the participants just have to stay honest.
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Without a doubt, one of the most fun games at the casino is Blackjack. Giving you the opportunity to play for hours on a limited cash flow if played properly, it’s no wonder that casinos often feature more Blackjack tables than any other game. In this article, we’ll help you to tighten up your game to ensure that you get the best results you can when taking a trip to the tables.
- No matter how tempting it may be, regardless of what the dealer is holding, never split a pair of tens. This doesn’t only apply to the ten card; any card with a value of ten, from the actual ten up to kings should not be split. A 20 is simply too strong of a hand to take a risk on when it comes to splitting.
- If you have a pair of aces or a pair of eights, you should split, regardless of what cards the dealer is showing. Splitting aces can result in two blackjacks, which would multiply your funds, and 16 is a tough hand to play. For that reason, whenever you get a pair of eights, split them; there is a good chance that you’ll end up getting 18 on at least one of the hands, as opposed to playing off the 16, which is a fool’s bet.
- Insurance is for suckers, unless you’re counting cards. The odds work against the player when betting on insurance, and for that reason, few people ever choose to take the bet.
- If your hand is between 13 and 16, hope isn’t lost, as long as the dealer has a 6 or lower showing. In this situation, you should stay, because the dealer is likely to bust, as are you if you try to hit. While it may be torturous to sit on such a low hand, more often then not, it pays off when the dealer busts.
- If the dealer’s shown card is a ten, you should continue to hit your hand until it totals 17 or above. If you stay on any less than 17, you run a significant chance of losing, as you should always assume that the dealer’s down-card is a ten, which is the most commonly occurring card in Blackjack.
- If the dealer’s up-card is a 4, a 5, or a 6, you should stand on a hard 12. A hard 12 means that you do not have an ace that you can use as an eleven or a one.
Follow these tips, and you’ll find that your blackjack winning potential can go through the roof!
Jonathon Hardcastle writes articles on many topics including Recreation, Cooking, and Boating