How Do Coin Pusher Machines Make Money

Coin-Pusher Games (like Flip-It)

Original: 2002 • Updated: Baronial, 2018

"Only wanted to thank you lot for writing the Flip-it analysis.
(I teach game pattern at MIT and handed it out in grade.)" — Jon

Introduction

This game goes by various names, simply the concept is the same: A auto has two trays completely filled with coins. The upper tray slides dorsum and forth and the bottom tray is fixed. You lot insert a money, which drops onto one of the trays, and if you're lucky information technology'll become pushed into the stack of coins, causing one or more to spill over the border and exist returned to you.

The game takes quarters, dollars, or tokens, depending on the flavor of the machine. Video arcades sometimes pay out in tickets rather than actual coins.

In some flavors of the game the coins simply drop onto the tray. In the ones I used to see in Vegas, the coins were flipped up onto the tray by a spinner. That version of the game was called, appropriately enough, "Flip-It". Sadly, I oasis't seen the game in Vegas in many years.

How the operator gets its profit

The operator makes its money from the coins that spill over on the farthermost left or right edges, which become sucked into the auto instead of being returned to the player. This fact is non obvious, because the holes on the edges are hidden behind or underneath signage. Without knowing this, I've heard people opine that they figure the operator opens the machine at dark and scoops some of the coins off the trays. That'due south non how information technology works. The profit comes from the (hidden) holes on the edges.

Although it'south obvious how the operator profits once you find the edge holes, I did confirm anyway with staff at the Four Queens casino that they don't open upward the machine at night to scoop out the coins.

Equilibrium

If you lot play the game long plenty—and information technology doesn't take long—yous'll notice that the auto always returns to an equilibrium. That is, the coins don't stack always higher and higher. The average number of coins in the machine is pretty abiding. The auto tin get temporarily overloaded with "actress" coins, and so after a big payout it might have a deficit of coins, but with more play pretty presently it'll be returning to its happy remainder.

Each car has its own personality, and has a different average money depth. That might be two coins deep on one machine and five coins on some other.

Information technology doesn't take long to encounter this issue. My experience is that on most machines you could observe it with fewer than fourscore plays (due east.k., $20 worth of 25¢ coins).

Basic Strategy

The machines let you choose whether yous want your coin to drib in the left, eye, or right of the machine. Since you don't become coins that spill into the holes on the edges, the starting time part of basic strategy is to simply play the center, minimizing the number of coins that go to the edges.

If your automobile allows you to choose where your coin drops, then the second part of basic strategy is to time the drib so that your money falls onto a naked space on the tray, behind all the other coins, so your money pushes into the mass of coins. If your coin falls onto the top of the stack, it won't assistance push the coins towards the edge. The Flip-It games don't give you lot much of a choice every bit to where your money drops. However, as we'll see later, these games are better for coin-counting reward play.

The House Edge

Different machines carry different house edges, and seem to be in the range of 10-33%. Some games don't let you precisely control where the coins land. Games that send your coins to the edges sometimes will accept a higher house edge than those which don't. Also, some games are simply engineered so that more coins get pushed into the side holes than other games. Finally, trickery could increase the business firm edge even more...

Some operators put big prizes on top of the coins, like unabridged rolls of coins, which are e'er right near the edge, enticing you lot to play because they seem piece of cake to win. The truth is that those prizes are unwinnable. The border of the tray is hard to see because information technology's covered by coins, just if you look advisedly you can come across that it'southward slightly angled upwards. When the rolls of quarters get pushed up towards the edge, they'll simply ringlet back down the hill about an inch, farther away from the edge. In my mind, the presence of the coin rolls is fraudulently, criminally deceptive.

It might be worse than that the coin rolls are unwinnable. I suspect that the weight of the coin rolls causes more than of the coins to spill over to the sides. Concluding night at a movie theater I played $20 and got back $13.l. The machine seemed to be in equilibrium, so that would make the house border a whopping 32.5%.

I estimated the house edge on the dollar auto at the 4 Queens to be about 11.one%. This was based on 405 coins in, 360 coins out, taking virtually an hour of play, and using Bones Strategy. On whatsoever other casino game, 405 rounds would be pitifully small and not at all statistically meaning, only quarter pushers are dissimilar. A few hundred rounds easily cycles most of the coins in the automobile, and it's very articulate from playing fifty-fifty 15 minutes that the machine seeks its own level.

On Flip-It games, I found that quarters tended to flip to the sides more often than dollars because they're lighter and their trajectory is all over the map. I fabricated a rough estimate that y'all could easily lose almost as much on quarters equally on dollars, merely because of all the extra quarters that go to the sides.

The Magician told me that Stanford Wong calculated the house border on the game to exist about ten%, since the holes on the edges contain about 10% of the total spill area width. That's a reasonable hypothesis, and indeed, in my testing I got xi.1% on a particular game which was pretty close, simply another game I tested suggested the edge is a lot closer to 32.5%, maybe because the rolls of quarters could be encouraging coins to go into the side holes.

Volatility

Machines that gravitate towards shallow stacks take depression volatility. You lot volition hit frequently, but get but a few coins when you practice. Machines that stack high will have greater volatility: You won't go payouts as frequently, simply when you do, they'll be larger. The long run expected return is the aforementioned. The machine with the least volatility that I establish was the dollar auto at 4 Queens, which preferred to exist about merely 2 coins deep. The four-deep dollar motorcar at Stratosphere was much more volatile.

Baskets

Some versions of the Flip Information technology game feature pocket-sized baskets at the very meridian of the game, and if your coin flips all the way up at that place and into a basket, you win the number of coins listed on the basket (commonly 10, twenty, 50, or 100 coins). On some of the dollar machines, the 50-signal baskets movement continuously back and forth, left to right, for added excitement. If you hit one of these baskets, there's a bonus round where slot motorcar reels on the very top of the game spin, and various combinations pay diverse numbers of coins, with the top jackpot being $2500 or $9999. This jackpot is often listed in an LED marquee to make information technology expect like it'due south a progressive jackpot, but it'south really but a fixed jackpot beingness advertised with a marquee.

The baskets are nearly worthless. In thousands of Flip-It easily, I striking a basket perhaps three times, each time the lowest-payout basket. As further proof, in the vi weeks I was in Vegas, nobody hit a fifty-indicate basket at the Iv Queens dollar machine to get a reel spin. I know this because for the entire 6 weeks, the reels were stuck on the verbal same combination. (And that was a losing combination to boot, that paid out zero coins for its bonus circular.) The machines entice you to play the sides by putting the higher-betoken baskets on the sides. Don't fall for it. You won't hitting the baskets, and your coins going to the sides of the machine won't go returned to you lot when they spill. Notation that although I believe baskets to exist near worthless, you're more than likely to hit them on quarter machines than on dollar machines, because the quarters are lighter and flip up higher.

Coin Counting

Blackjack players tin can move across their basic strategy and count cards, giving them an advantage over the business firm. Flip-Information technology players tin can likewise move across their basic strategy and count coins, so the odds are in their favor. The concept is simple: Play just when the auto is primed (holding more than coins than average), and then that coins are more probable to spill than stack. I believe this works only with the Flip-It games where you don't have much of a choice as to where your coin drops. On the games where you can choose to driblet your coin onto a naked area of the tray, presumably almost players will do so, so the coins won't stack very high. But in Flip-It games where your money is flipped by spinners onto the trays, many of those coins are going to stack on meridian of other coins. It's the imbalance of high stacks which you'll exist hunting.

I tested my theory by playing a trial of 558 coins over several days, playing merely when I thought the automobile was primed, and I wound upward ahead ix coins. This is a ane.half-dozen% reward, which is more than you tin can go from counting cards at blackjack. (Blackjack is still more than assisting, obviously, because yous can bet more than than a dollar at a time, and considering profitable decks occur more than frequently than profitable Flip-Information technology shelves.) At ane indicate in a split up trial, my reward was 83% after playing simply 24 coins.

Had I played more conservatively (playing only when the machine looked extra good), I'g confident that I could have accomplished greater than a 101.6% return. Only the return is non the ultimate indicator of how much coin you make. What you lot ultimately walk abroad with is a office of your advantage multiplied by your action (how much money you put into the machine). Playing 500 coins conservatively with a 4% advantage yields the same turn a profit as playing grand coins more aggressively with only a 2% advantage ($20, either way).

To count a auto accurately, you must first know how many coins deep that machine gravitates towards, which I'll refer to as the motorcar'southward "level". You lot could find this out by playing the machine for xv-30 minutes, or you could back-count the machine past but watching someone else play. Once you know the machine's level, you can use a simple +/- count. Count only coins in the middle, not on the sides:

-1	Every space and level where the stack is less than the level. For example, if this is a 3-deep car, and in that location's a spot that'southward only 2 levels deep, there's one coin missing, so that'southward -1. If there's a spot that's only one level deep, and then that's -ii. Count every deficient spot this way.
-1	Every half-coin infinite and level where at that place's well-nigh a half-coin hole. The coins are non pressed together snugly, and you can run into directly through to the shelf. When this happens and gap is about the size of one-half a coin in foursquare inches, count -1 for each level. Let's say you accept a 3-level car with four half-coin gaps. You have iv ten -three = -12.
+1	Every space and level where the stack is greater than the level. For example, if this is a three-deep machine, and so count every coin on the 4th level as +1.
+ane	Every coin that is teetering over the ledge by at least 1/3 coin.

Add these all up and you have a rough idea of your advantage, or lack thereof. When you have a positive count, play the machine. If the auto is negative, don't play. If the machine is positive, and you play, and you win, count the machine again. If information technology's still positive, yous can go on playing. Dissimilar blackjack, the pit bosses don't care if you dorsum-count and Wong in when the count gets high, but yous can't Wong in whenever y'all like, since just ane person tin can play the car at a time. You'll just have to hope that the person playing the automobile earlier you lot leaves when you want them to.

I had an interesting experience at the 4 Queens. I had been playing the machine for a while, and had relinquished it to a young woman who was watching me and was eager to play. I waited for her to stop, and then she turned the machine over to me (in near the same condition as I'd left it). She continued to sentry me although she was ostensibly done playing. Soon I had a major hitting for a bunch of coins, which instantly made the machine seriously negative. But as she jealously watched me get that large hit, she asked anxiously, "Tin I play now?" I was only as well happy to plow the negative machine back over to her at her request, so she could prime information technology for me once again. Some might think I was taking reward of her, just remember, she asked me to let her play.

The summary, though, is that although you can play Flip-It at an advantage, you lot can't make a living at it, unless you lot can live on a few dollars a day.

Casino Player

In the Dec. 2001 issue of Casino Player, the executive editor ran an article about how she lost $240 playing quarter Flip-It. It was hard for me to believe that someone could be and then bad at Flip-It every bit to lose $240 playing for quarters. That's a loss of 960 coins! Y'all'd have to play at least 2 hours straight and lose every money to lose that much coin! I suspect that the editor made up the numbers for her story, and/or fudged other details.

Further, I was challenged by the editor'south assertion that "You only can't win on this machine." I had always suspected that with proper play, Flip-Information technology could actually exist played at an reward—in other words, profitably. That's why I gear up out to show that I could win at Flip It. And I did.

[Update: Casino Player invited me to write a cover story for them in 2005, which I happily did. It was non most Flip It.]

Miscellaneous

Unfortunately, Flip It doesn't accept slot gild cards. It should, considering that the firm edge (≥ten%) is at least equally high every bit the edge on a typical slot machine.

Nearly Flip It machines accept a sticker that says "Game is over 35 seconds subsequently last coin is played. Coins spilled subsequently this time will not be returned to the player." Then if a batch of coins is teetering on the brink and well-nigh to spill, and you're waiting and watching while it takes a while for them to actually driblet, you might not go them. Simply don't worry, 35 seconds is longer than information technology seems. I timed it and plant that information technology took 20 strokes of a pusher arm to equal 35 seconds, then while waiting for coins to fall, I only made certain that I didn't go longer than 15 strokes earlier I played my side by side coin.

I now know more about Flip-It than any person ever should. I'm not sure which was the bigger waste of my limited time on this planet: Trying to beat out an insignificant casino game for an insignificant amount of coin, or writing a lengthy article about it. Either mode, this probably explains why I don't get many dates. [Update, nine years afterwards: I'k married at present.]

Run into also how to play:

Baccarat

Blackjack

Craps

Roulette

Slot Machines

Video Poker

Exercise gambling with play coin

Earlier you throw downward your difficult-earned cash in a casino, PRACTICE Commencement! Learn the games with play money where it doesn't price you anything if y'all lose. Seriously.

You can play Bovada's games (below) correct away without registering for an account. Most every other online casino makes you lot requite up your electronic mail accost only to play the fake-coin games — ugh. That's the main reason Bovada is the simply online casino that gets advertizing space on my site. (When you run into the registration box, you lot can abolish it and continue to the game without registering.)

Source: https://easy.vegas/games/flipit

Posted by: apontewhistract.blogspot.com