Fruit Machine Chat

Alright chaps,

Was having a beer with a couple of mates yesterday, and one of them posed the question...When you play Roulette it displays THIS MACHINE IS RANDOM, however it also displays a 97% payout percentage.

How can this be? Its not something I could answer, can any of you shed any light?

Please dont let this turn into another rigged/not rigged debate!

Heh-heh, this is one that has also been covered quite a few times before, but to be fair, I don't think there's a single thread dedicated to it - it has popped up in the Random/Non-Random debates!

Think of it as flipping a coin is totally random, but also 'pays' 50% - it can be either heads or tails. That's the simplest way of explaining it...

Yeah - forgive my poor statistics - but is it not the fact that (not entering the rigged v non rigged debate) you are paid 36/1 whereas in a 'fair' game you'd be paid 37/1?

Therefore in a truly random game house edge gives them 3% (ish)?