Ask the Slot Expert: A better example of the dark side of Quick Hit

Last week I wrote about the dark side of Quick Hit slots and other games with scatter pay symbols. You can land two symbols that are part of a paying combination on a payline and have your payout ruined by a scatter pay symbol landing on that payline. Sometimes there's still a happy ending when you land enough scatter pay symbols to trigger the scatter pay, but most times the spin is a loser.

I gave an example of landing a scatter pay symbol on a payline along with two 7s. You really don't lose out on a payout unless another 7 would have landed in place of the scatter pay. I knew I had a better example, but I couldn't think of it until I played Quick Hit Blitz again to earn enough points for a Thanksgiving pies gift.

The best example for a scatter pay symbol always ruining a paying combination is when it appears along with two wild symbols on a payline. On most machines, any other symbol in place of the scatter pay would have given you a payout. With that scatter pay symbol amid the wilds, you have to hope for a payout from another payline or enough scatter pay symbols for the scatter pay to win something on the spin.

A particularly frustrating outcome I had playing Quick Hit Blitz was getting a screen full of various 7 symbols and a stack of three Quick Hit symbols on the first reel. If I had gotten another 7 or two or three on the first reel, I would have won a nice amount of money. Instead, I had to settle for a push because I didn't get any more Quick Hit symbols to add to the three on the first reel.

As I wrote last week, I played Quick Hit Blitz to earn a sling backpack gift and turned a profit.

I won't tell you how much I lost earning the "free" pies.

A few months ago, I saw a news item about someone who won $100,000 in a Powerball drawing by asking ChatGPT what numbers to play. A few days later, another person won $150,000 playing Powerball using ChatGPT to get the numbers. (Google "chatgpt lottery" to see articles about these AI winners and others.)

Using AI to predict lottery numbers reminds me of how I was going to beat the New York Lottery's keno game. They draw 20 of the 80 numbers in the pool. How can you lose?

I kept track of the numbers drawn. My plan was to buy tickets with the most and least frequently drawn numbers. The most because they seemed to be likelier to be drawn and the least because they're due.

I don't remember how far I got with this project. I do know that I never hit a big Keno jackpot.

Drilling down into the details about these AI lottery winners, I learned that ChatGPT did not analyze the results from past drawings. It just chose numbers at random.

The AI Overview returned by my Google search tells it like it is.

Despite these stories, experts and the lotteries themselves reiterate that the results of all lottery drawings are random and cannot be predicted by AI or any other number-generating tool. Lottery results have no memory, meaning past drawings have zero impact on the probability of future numbers being drawn.

ChatGPT itself confirms this limitation: "Lottery results are completely random, and there's no pattern or algorithm that can reliably forecast future draws. Even professional statisticians can't do better than random guessing".

While using AI can be a fun way to pick numbers if you don't want to choose them manually, it does not improve your odds of winning.

The math nerds with the white shirts and pocket protectors go to great lengths to ensure that lottery drawings are completely random and no number is favored over any other.

Occasionally, though, they design a game that can go positive for the players under certain circumstances, much like a progressive slot machine.

The movie Jerry and Marge Go Large tells the story of a couple who made millions exploiting this quirk of certain state lotteries.

If you would like to see more non-smoking areas on slot floors in Las Vegas, please sign my petition on change.org.

Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert™, at slotexpert@slotexpert.com.

Copyright © John Robison. Slot Expert and Ask the Slot Expert are trademarks of John Robison.

Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert™, at slotexpert@slotexpert.com. Because of the volume of mail I receive, I regret that I can't reply to every question.

Copyright © John Robison. Slot Expert and Ask the Slot Expert are trademarks of John Robison.