Hi Ricky:

Why would the casino need to "set" the percentage payback if the manufacturer could do this and build it into the machine? I don't see the "need" for the casino to do this.

In Ontario ... an official from the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission needs to be on-hand when an EPROM in a machine. The Programmable Read Only Memory needs to be changed for payback percentage or for a code update.

Perhaps someone could confirm this --- but I didn't think payback percentage was something that could be changed through a simple setting. This was programmed right on the chip -- and the chip would need to be reprogrammed in order to change this.

However ... 4am is consistant with the time they would check the "coin in / coin out" --- which could account for why the payout percentage was so variable. As time goes on ... those numbers would drift toward the preset programming (10 million spins -- and they will all be within one decimal place of each other).

To me ... it just wouldn't make sense to have 5 machines of the same type -- all set with different payout expectations. I don't understand the motivation for this --- one would think -- more people would pay out the machine that pays out the most --- which would, carrying forward on this logic, lose the casino more money in the long run.

/\/\/\/\ the Shamus /\/\/\/\