Ask the Slot Expert: Is the progress meter on Buffalo Ultimate Stampede "broken"?

Question: You quoted my letter about dream card and ultimate X, I felt so honored!

Since then I have come across Powerhouse and Super Times Pay Super Stacks, both of which have done some nice things and frustrated me for not doing anything.

My question is about the Buffalo with the green bonus meter, I think it's called Buffalo Ultimate Stampede. I go by one of these and if the meter is close, I bet $2 and hit the bonus usually for about $100 to $350.

In Magic the Gathering we call something broken when it seems illogically powerful compared to the rest of the game. I am wondering how the casinos can provide this machine. I think you mentioned it once in the discussion about whether a bonus is about to hit based on the graphics. It is not necessarily in this example because when I see a meter almost full someone gave up on it, and the one time I kept playing the bonus triggered a few spins later.

But the cool thing is if it doesn't trigger for whatever random signal, you do still get it if you get 6 blocks. I think is better than the hold and spins in that way, and better than some other Buffalo with hold and spin but you need 8 of them to offset the way it is 4 by 5 instead of the usual 3 by 5.

My other question is: Does the slot designer understand that almost every time I get the bonus I leave to let someone else get that meter close to full?

Overall I guess I am worried that the casinos will get rid of these as being too generous. It seems to me you could try 75 cent bets until the meter is close then bet 5 or 8 dollars and get a hand pay!

I haven't tried that because I am risk averse, but only once playing these did I wait very long for the bonus and put another 100 in and then got it. Broken, in a good way! I like it!

Thanks for the columns, keep up the good work.

Answer: Thanks for the kind words.

I played a bit of Deuces Wild Powerhouse a while back. One quirk I liked is that the card combo that triggered the gimmick many times wasn't the combo you would hold. For example, when dealt a Straight Flush with three deuces, I would only hold the three deuces. I would then have extra hands to get the fourth deuce.

I am not much of a fan for most video poker gimmicks, but there is a type that I do like and I have a favorite. I'll reveal my favorite gimmick in a future column.

Right now I'm obsessed with watching Olympics coverage.

It used to be so easy to watch everything Olympics before cable TV. I don't recall whether ABC had daytime coverage on weekdays in addition to the prime time program. I'm pretty sure there was daytime coverage on weekends. In any case, there was less than 24 hours of coverage each day and one could watch it all.

Today on Las Vegas DirecTV, in addition to NBC, there's coverage on USA, two special Olympics channels (three really, but I don't count the SD channel that mirrors the first special channel), E!, sometimes CNBC, and sometimes the Golf channel. Only USA is 24 hours. The two special channels have 13 hours of new programming and 11 hours of encore (at least that's what the guide says). Even though I was in DVR cleanup mode the last month, I didn't free up enough space to record a day's worth of coverage. I start my morning be deleting some of the coverage I don't want to watch. (You have to record everything because the program descriptions don't always match the content.)

Each Olympics, I'm amazed at how well many athletes speak English. I suppose that shouldn't really be surprising because there is much more utility in being able to understand some English.

I'm also always amazed at how American interviewers don't recalibrate the English in their questions for non-native speakers. Speak more slowly and don't use idioms.

Did you see the men's volleyball game between USA and Brazil? It seemed like the U.S. commentators were at a table in a bar, chatting amongst themselves, and only occasionally making a comment about the volleyball game playing on one of the big screens. There was even a piece about one of the player's tattoos that was run with the game in an inset on the left portion of the screen. We missed two points while learning about the tattoos.

I just saw the women's team play Poland. Same inane babbling among the commentators. This isn't radio, guys. You don't have to be afraid of dead air. You can be quiet and then call the play. I don't know if NBC made changes to the indoor volleyball commentators, but they never bothered me before.

Finally turning to Buffalo Ultimate Stampede, I discussed it and other games with progress meters in Always win at slots. In the column, I described a YouTube video I found in which the creators claimed to have found the secret to winning at Buffalo Ultimate Stampede (BUS).

Their secret was the tactic you mentioned. Play minimum coin to fill the meter, then switch to full coin and get the big payday.

Slot designers have two methods to invalidate this tactic.

First, the progress meter on BUS is BS (Buffalo Shit?). The progress meter does not indicate how close you are to triggering the bonus. You may have noticed that the meter does not necessarily increase with each symbol that should increase it. If you played the machine when the meter wasn't close to full, you'd see that sometimes a symbol fills the meter and triggers the bonus anyway.

The help screen for the game will have some scintillating text like "the meter is for entertainment purposes only." The meter is not broken, in Magic the Gathering sense. It's irrelevant, in every sense.

There are some games in which the progress meter or some other feature is relevant. On Ocean Magic, you can see whether a Wild bubble will move onto the screen on the next spin. The bubbles move up the rows from spin to spin, so a player could leave a machine with multiple bubbles on the screen. Looking at the bubble situation on machines is an advantage play technique for Ocean Magic and Ocean Magic Grand.

I used to enjoy playing Magic of the Nile. (I still would if I could find the machine again.) There are three progress obelisks on the screen, one for each bonus feature (random wilds, expanding reels, multiplier wilds). When the appropriate symbol lands on the screen, another segment of the corresponding obelisk is lit. When the obelisk is completely lit, the bonus is triggered.

What did the designers do to prevent players from filling the obelisks at minimum coin and switching to max for the bonus?

The machines maintain a separate progress count for each bet level. You can fill the meters at a low bet, but when you switch bets you'll get the progress where it was for the last player who bet that much.

The designers know that you and other players may leave a machine after getting the bonus. Some players will leave a machine after any good hit. You seem to be able to find machines with nearly full meters, so there must be enough players who will play the machine without a nearly full meter.

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.