Understanding the differences between these two types of games

• Class 2 And Class 3 Slot Machines Near Me
• Class 2 And Class 3 Slot Machines Walmart
• Class 2 And Class 3 Slot Machines Pictures
• Class 2 And Class 3 Slot Machines

In addition, since slot machines by description are devices with coin slots and hoppers in which winning coins are dropped—and to be Class II, a bingo game could not share the characteristics of a slot machine, which was classified as a Class III device—tribes developed cashless systems and sold those to the public as better than the coin-in, coin-out experience.

1. Introduction to Oregon Slot Machine Casino Gambling in 2020. Oregon slot machine casino gambling consists of nine tribal casinos and many bars, taverns and pari-mutuel wagering sites with video lottery terminal (VLT) style slot machines. There is a theoretical payout limit for non-tribal VLTs but none for video slot machines at the tribal casinos.
2. On the contrary to the Class II slot machines, Class III machines can make you a big winner. To sum it up, Class II slot machines are played among some players simultaneously who battle for a single prize, while Class III machines can be played by lots of different people at different times and they all seek for the payout from a single machine.
3. If you play slots in two or more different states, you may have played on two different kinds of slot machines. These are called Class II and Class III slots. Though you won't be able to tell the difference in these machines with a cursory glance, there are important distinctions between the two.
4. These machines contain Random Number Generators (RNG) and determine the results of their spins and bonus rounds completely on their own. Tribal casinos could offer bingo, but slots are where the real money is. They looked for a way to turn a bingo drawing into a slot machine. The result is the Class II slot machine.

By Henry Tamburin

I’ve received a lot of questions about video poker machines in casinos on Native American reservations. To get the answers on how these machines work, I interviewed Jim Coleman, Senior Product Manager at IGT (a company that manufactures the majority of video poker machines for Class III casinos).

Before I begin, let me give you a brief history lesson on how Class I, II, and III gaming came about. The federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act established the three classes in 1988, which defined what Indian tribes in a given jurisdiction can and can’t offer in their casinos. “Class I gaming” is defined as “traditional Indian gaming and social gaming for minimal prizes.” Since Class I doesn’t involve commercial gambling, I’ll ignore it for this article. “Class II gaming” means the game of chance commonly known as bingo, whether or not electronic, computer, or other technologic aids are used in connection therewith, including, if played in the same location, pull-tabs, lotto, punch boards, tip jars and other games similar to bingo, as well as various non-house-banked card games (but for this article, we’ll ignore these other types).

“Class III gaming” is full-scale gambling (e.g., Las Vegas or Atlantic City), including table games (blackjack, craps, etc.), slots, and video poker. Tribes must negotiate compacts with the states to conduct Class III gaming; otherwise, they are limited to Class II gaming, providing bingo is offered in other forms or venues in that state.

The following table summarizes the major differences between a Class II and Class III video poker machine. I’ll explain the information in each row in more detail so you can fully understand the differences.

How the Outcome is Determined

A Class III video poker machine has a Random Number Generator (RNG) software program that randomly selects cards from a virtual 52-card deck (assuming no wild cards). When you press the deal button, the RNG selects five cards at random, which is the initial five cards that you see on your screen. The RNG continues to shuffle the remaining 47-card deck until you decide which cards you want to hold. When you hit the draw button, the shuffling stops and the replacement cards are selected from the top of the shuffled 47 cards. By law, each card has to have the same probability of being selected on the deal and draw; therefore, the probability of selecting any card is the same as it would be if you randomly drew cards from a freshly shuffled deck of cards. The probability of getting a winning hand by this random selection process is well known (e.g., the probability of getting a royal flush is roughly once in 40,000 hands).

A video poker hand in a Class II video poker machine is not the result of an RNG outcome at the terminal level. Instead, the machine is connected to a central computer server whose function is to draw bingo balls (randomly as with an RNG.) The result of the bingo game is a “game-ending pattern.” This is a pattern of numbers on a bingo card, such as five-in-row, four corners, round robin, etc., that ends the bingo game with a winning result and a prize. There is a specific timeframe (e.g., 20 milliseconds) in which a player who hits the start button on a bingo machine with a poker entertaining display (i.e., the deal button on his video poker machine) is entered into an electronic bingo game for that common ball draw. Each player has their own bingo card, which they can see on the interface of their player terminal (see photo of display below). The player that has the winning bingo pattern will win a monetary prize.

In addition, other patterns may award interim prizes for the corresponding bingo patterns. For example, the game of Jacks or Better has nine winning patterns (corresponding to the nine winning hands in Jacks or Better). If the winning bingo pattern results in a prize for the bingo game of, say 10 credits, then the player will end up with a poker hand that is presented as two pair on the entertaining display (which is the payout for two pair with max credits wagered).

A key point: Class II player terminals using a video poker entertaining display must involve player participation in an electronic bingo game. Therefore, you must be playing bingo against one (or more) players. You could be playing against other players playing on a video poker entertaining display or even other terminals with varying entertaining displays such as spinning reels (i.e., slot machine).

It really doesn’t matter what the player interface terminal is that will display the results of a bingo game (for video poker, it’s cards on a screen; for other entertaining displays, such as a slot machine, it’s spinning reels). If you happen to be the only player in a location, you can’t play (if you try, a message will appear on your screen, stating “waiting for more players”). However, in some gaming jurisdictions, Class II machines in one location could be linked to another Class II bingo server in another location, so it’s possible you could be playing a game of bingo against a player in a different location using a common ball draw.

Odds

In a Class II terminal using a video poker player interface, the odds of getting a winning hand are determined by the odds of the bingo pattern. Mathematicians at IGT can calculate the odds for millions of different bingo patterns on a bingo card. Therefore, theoretically, they can choose a bingo pattern that mimics the odds of getting any winning hand from a RNG in a Class III machine.

For a Class III video poker machine, the odds of selecting the winning hands from a 52-card deck can be accurately calculated. If you multiply the odds times the payout for each winning hand and sum the results, you can compute the Expected Return (ER) for the game. The ER for different video poker games and pay tables is readily available.

Playing Strategy

If you are playing a video poker machine where the cards are randomly selected by the RNG (e.g., Class III), the skill of the player can influence the outcome.

In a Class II terminal using a video poker interface, playing skill is futile because the result of your hand is already predetermined by the pattern of the winning bingo game. Therefore, deciding what cards to hold prior to hitting the draw button does nothing to improve your chances of winning. For the game of bingo, the result of the bingo game is a certain prize (i.e., payout), and you must get that prize in your video poker entertaining display outcome even if you make a “bonehead play.” For example, suppose you are dealt the following hand:

Let’s say the result of the bingo pattern is a prize of 4000 credits, which translates to a typical royal flush in video poker. However, on the draw, if you decide (knowingly or unknowingly) to hold all the cards instead of going for the royal flush, fear not. A genie will appear on the IGT entertaining display and change the 9 of spades to a 10 of clubs, giving you a royal flush hand and corresponding 4000-coin payout. (The latter payout was determined as the winning outcome of the bingo game.)

Some folks might think the “Genie” feature on Class II video poker machines is good for novice players because it will correct a playing mistake and show them the optimum strategy (i.e., the winning hand created by the “Genie”). Personally, I think this is an expensive way to learn the playing strategy for a video poker game. (It’s better to learn the playing strategy at home on your computer using video poker training software, and then bring a strategy card with you when you play a Class III version.)

Expected Return

Players can look at the Pay Table for any Class III video poker game and know what the ER is for the game (there is plenty of information available that lists the ER for different video poker games). However, on a Class II machine, you have no idea what the ER is for the game (that’s because the results are predetermined based on the game of bingo).

In addition, keep this point in mind. In many states, traditional casinos must report their return percentages to state gaming agencies and this information is often reported to the public. Since Native American tribes are a sovereign nation, their casinos are not subject to state regulation or public reporting of the return percentages on their machines.

Is it a Class II or III Machine?

You’ll know if the video poker machine you are about to play is a Class II machine if you see a display of a bingo card (such as the one below) on your video poker machine.

The Bottom Line

Class II video poker machines are bingo games that give players an entertaining display of video poker that they can relate to. There is no skill involved in playing them and the return on the game is unknown to players. Play these machines for entertainment. Class III video poker machines are a skill-based casino game where the skill of the player can influence the outcome. With a Class III video poker machine, it’s relatively easy to determine the ER of the game.

Acknowledgement: I want to thank Jim Coleman from IGT for the time he spent on several phone conferences with me, and the face-to-face discussion we had at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, explaining how Class II video poker machines work.

————————————————————————————————————-

Henry Tamburin is a blackjack and video poker expert. He is the host of the smartgaming.com website and the editor of the Blackjack Insider newsletter (for a free three-month subscription, visit www.bjinsider.com/free). For a free copy of his Casino Gambling Catalog, which contains books, strategy cards, and software for video poker players, call toll free 1-888-353-3234, or visit the web store at smartgaming.com.

If you’ve ever visited a Native American casino, chances are you’ve seen a Class II slot machine. They’re the games that display a bingo card somewhere on the screen.

So what are Class II slots and how are they different from the slot machines you’d find in Las Vegas?

A Brief History

In 1988 the United States enacted the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), establishing the framework governing Native American gaming laws. The act established 3 classes of gaming:

• Class I: traditional and social games for minimal prizes
• Class II: games of chance based off bingo
• Class III: a catch-all category of games that can’t be considered Class I or II, like slots, roulette, blackjack, etc.

Knowing the hurdles Native American casinos faced to allow Class III slots, gaming companies began developing Class II gaming machines: games that play like regular slots but are technically fancy versions of bingo.

Difference between Class II Games and Regular Slots

Regular (class III) slots use a random number generators (RNG) that generate thousands of random numbers each second. When you hit spin, that RNG locks in the value at that moment. Then the slot assigns reel positions to parts of the random number and evaluates your win (if there is one). We covered this in more detail here.

To be legally considered as such, class II slots have to be based on bingo. This is where class II game developers have been creative, often implementing different approaches. On some, like WMS and Multimedia Games, your machine’s “bingo card” remains constant and the drawn numbers change each time. On others (like VGT), you stay in the same game while your card randomly changes each spin.

The implementation doesn’t especially matter. What matters is that the game has the necessary elements required to be bingo: more than 1 player (class II slots must be networked together) and a set of numbers drawn that must match a pattern to result in a win that ends the game (a game-ending pattern).

The fact is Class II slots still rely on RNG to generate the cards and drawn numbers. It doesn’t matter if the RNG is creating simulated bingo cards/numbers on a class II game or virtual reel positions on a class III slot – the results are still random. Payouts are determined on regular slots by adjusting the reels and likelihood of landing on any position. Payouts on class II slots are defined by specifying the bingo patterns that must be matched and within what number of numbers drawn.

Why NA Casinos Prefer Class II

While many modern NA casinos have a mix of class II and III games, the numbers almost always skew heavily towards class II games. Why?

For one, the IGRA granted tribes the power to self-regulate Class II gaming, whereas tribes have to enter state compacts to offer class III games.

But the big reason NA casinos prefer class II games is that tribes don’t owe taxes on class II revenue like they do on class III games.

Licensed slots and most of the fancy new, popular games aren’t available in class II form, so NA casinos keep a mix. However, slot manufacturers are taking an increased interest in offering Class II games. Aristocrat bought Oklahoma-based bingo game developer VGT and used their technology to start offering some Aristocrat favorites in Class II form.

The Bottom Line on Class II Games

Modern class II games can look, act, sound, and feel like typical class III, Vegas-style slots.

Class 2 And Class 3 Slot Machines Near Me

Class II games are sometimes criticized for their mysterious nature, leading some to believe they can be rigged. They’re networked together as a central server determines the wins.

Class 2 And Class 3 Slot Machines Walmart

Class III slots go through rigorous third-party and government testing to ensure their randomness and resistance to rigging. Class II slots go through some of the same tests, but the self-regulating nature and lack of transparency of NA casinos have historically raised questions about their fairness.

Class 2 And Class 3 Slot Machines Pictures

Though their back-end operates different, both class II and class III games still ultimately rely on RNG. Casinos don’t need to rig the machines because the games’ math is already in their favor. That’s not to say their games’ programmed payout percentage is going to be to your liking, but the notion of some casino worker selectively deciding who’s going to win and lose on class II games is just a myth that doesn’t make sense.

Your Take

Class 2 And Class 3 Slot Machines

Do you love or hate class II slots? Tell us about your experiences in the comments below!