I've been counting some numbers on the slot machine.

I was out of credits earlier today and discovered you can still spin the slot wheels - you don't get anything regardless of your result (no credits for stars, cards don't reveal, no free cards) but it meant I could spin a bunch without paying and get some probabilities to know if it was worth playing.

I span 200 times and found that each wheel appears to have a 10% chance of the "best" result (a star for the first four, the "Free" result for the last assuming you're betting 5 credits). Further, the probabilities seemed independent - certainly I got as many 1* and 2* results as I'd have expected with independent 10% chances on each. I didn't get any 3* results but over 200 spins with those probabilities, the chance of getting a 3* result is about 50/50, so no big surprise.

It all looked very fair, and examining the results a little more makes sense for it as a gambling "The House Must Win" result (the credit rewards mean you get on average back about 0.8 credits for every 1 credit you put in - although those numbers are dependant on being lucky/persistent enough to get the 3* and 4* rewards eventually; if you never roll those you only get a reward back of 0.5 for every 1 in).

And as I said before, the FREE result on the final wheel came up about 1 in 10 times too. Counting the cards I 'won' over my 200 test spins, I would have got 76 new cards if I'd been playing for real. Given the number of credits also won as an offset to the cost, that came to spending a net 475 credits on 76 cards - an average of 6.75 credits per card. Yes, the cards are randomly picked, but that's a pretty good price nonetheless!

So I bought some more credits and started playing.

The good news: the stars seem to stay fair: about 1 in 10, seemingly independent.

The bad news: the discount wheel strongly appears to have different probabilities when you have actual money to spend.

I have just spun (and recorded my results) for 70 consecutive spins with actual credits - and I haven't rolled a single instance of free cards. If the 10% probability I found while spinning tests were still in effect, the chances of my luck being that bad is 0.18%. Not 18% - 0.18%.

Which is a bit of a bummer - not to mention *****. I'm surprised the wheels would be programmed to change probabilities in the edge case of not having credits.

It's possible that there's something else going on - when you bet with 0 credits available, the page automatically goes to the Add Credits page but the wheels keep spinning until you go back to the Slot Machine page. If you tab away when spinning normally, the last dial also spins until you tab back. Maybe the probability of that last dial landing on Free also gets affected somehow by the different times it spins for?

Or maybe I'm just that unlucky. Ah well.

Small update: I'm now at 128 spins and still haven't got a single "Free" on the wheel. On the other hand, I just got a second 3-star spin in the space of 11 rolls, which has taken me back to nearly as many credits as I started the paid-part of this experiment with, and that's after buying 31 cards across the spins as well so...either someone saw my comment above and tipped the odds in my favour, or I'm definitely not "just that unlucky".

one more update - I ended up ***** through my won credits on further spins.

After 200 spins with credits:
I got a total of 70 stars (out of 800 opportunities) compared to the 75 in my 'free' trials. Close enough, and far more rewarding with two triples rather than spread out! These definitely seem to be about 1/10 and fair spins.

I didn't get a single instance of "Free" on the discount wheel across all 200 attempts. Not 1. The odds of that, if it actually had a 1/10 chance of occuring on any given spin, is less than 1 in 1.4 billion. Calculating the other way, for a 50-50 odds of not getting a single "Free" in 200 spins, means the probability of a single spin getting "Free" is close to 1/300. Not quite what I was expecting, given the trial run.

So there's something weird about the odds here...but on the other hand, my star rolls meant I still bought 52 cards from the reels for the initial outlay of 500 credits, so it's worked out for me pretty well despite that.

@SStrelli welcome to iStripper - I joined originally for the girls myself 😉 Interesting you've focused on the gambling for your first posts. I was quite surprised when I found that part of the site.
There have been many threads over the last year where many, including me, have posted results of games. Not many in such detail, but yes they are in the jungle of threads somewhere. Hope you are at least getting cards you like. With the Slot Machine you do at least have some choice (you buy those that come up or you don't) - other games you just win random cards.
Good luck with it all 👍

@SStrelli welcome to iStripper - I joined originally for the girls myself 😉

Hah :D I also joined for the performances, I just guess I have more to say about probabilities than I do about the shows - or at least more that I want to share publically!

And I am enjoying the cards, thanks :)

I know it has been said several times, but there's only one winner at the end : istripper itself.
Sometimes you think you're the winner , but if you look at your spendings and winnings, most of the times you are the loser. You will get a lot of unwanted cards.
Positive for me is that I discovered some models by gambling and also got some jokers for a SEC from a model I really want.
Therefore I won't play anymore games unless I need some jokers again for some SEC, but that's not the case so far.

@SStrelli welcome to iStripper - I joined originally for the girls myself 😉
Hah :D I also joined for the performances, I just guess I have more to say about probabilities than I do about the shows - or at least more that I want to share publically!

And I am enjoying the cards, thanks :)

I hear ya! The math geek in me loves recording and breaking done my gambling results. It doubles up the fun of playing the games, hahaha.

Gambling never works out for me.

I have yet to gotten the "Free" cards win in the slot machine. But have gotten the 70% off sometimes. I wonder how the slot machine works for thos who do or nearly have every single card.