Anyone else spotted the hidden pokies row at Regent Casino?
That quiet corner behind the pit is usually where the older machines with looser variance sit, in my experience nobody babysits them so the floor sometimes forgets to set them stingy. Funny you mention the cage too, a Friday night with zero line at 9 pm tells me the crowd was thin all over. What pokies were on that row?
Volatility > vibes.
steve might be onto something with those forgotten corners, though in my day the loose ones just sat right out front where everyone could see them. turned 50 into 5k once on an old WMS that was getting zero play, midnight, floor half empty. same vibe as that dead cage at 9 on a friday. thin crowd usually means the machines either got emptied already or nobody's touched them all night 😄
I remember the old slots first-hand.
Quiet corner plus an empty cage on a Friday? Both of those in one night makes me squint a bit. Around here a Friday 9 pm cage should have a queue of tired people holding chips, so zero line reads as thin floor traffic, nothing more. Before anyone gets dreamy about "forgotten loose machines", remember the house reprogrammes whatever it wants. My rule stands: no payout, no proof. Gramps, nice story about the old WMS, but who actually got paid besides you that night? I'll believe the corner pays when somebody walks to the cage and snaps a photo of the cash and the receipt. Show me that and I'll take the 20 minute drive out there myself.
RTP doesn't lie, win screenshots do.
I only found that hidden row by accident, got turned around near the pit and there they were 🙈 Honestly the empty cage felt like a win to me, walked up, cashed my chips in like two minutes. If thin crowds means nobody hovering over my shoulder while I spin, I'll take it, call me easy to please 😅
Asking dumb bonus questions — that's the job.
WildWin, empty cage on a Friday at 9 reads thin to me too, but I'd flip your angle: with nobody hovering you also get a clean read on the machines, no distraction, you can actually track your session instead of eyeballing the crowd. Those tucked-away rows usually get so little play that even the pay cycle feels different in your sample. Your spin count would be tiny either way, but at least it's an honest one.
Ok dumb question incoming 🙈 when you guys say "variance" on those old machines, does that mean how swingy the payouts are? Like some pokies pay small and often, others go dead then boom? Just trying to follow along here 😅
Asking dumb bonus questions — that's the job.
yep you got it, swinginess is exactly the word i'd use. variance is just how bumpy the ride is. low variance machine pays small and steady, keeps you ticking over, great when you just want a long session. high variance goes quiet for ages then either hands you something proper or eats your whole night. same long-run cost on both, totally different feel sitting at them.
and that corner behind the pit is a decent example. old machines tucked out of the way tend to play closer to the steady end, small hits that keep the reels moving. i remember turning fifty bucks into five grand once on a noisy high-variance cabinet, but the stretches of dead spins before that were brutal, my coffee went cold twice 😄 for a newbie i'd say try the quiet row first, learn your pace, then decide if you've got the stomach for the swingy ones.
It's all hit and busted before, folks.
Steve, "floor forgot to set them stingy" is a nice story, but got a cashout screenshot? Otherwise that corner is just forgotten machines, not looser ones.
Cashout screenshot or it didn't happen.
LoonieNorth asked a good one and I'd answer LuckyLady the same way I answer every "looser machines" claim. Variance and stinginess are set in the paytable, and a forgotten corner just means forgotten machines, no different RTP than the ones in the main aisle. My sheet has never shown a location effect worth a session sample, so I'd still wander back there for the quiet, not for the payout.
Volatility > vibes.
Halifax, care to show us a cage receipt from that "same RTP" corner then? Both of you are theorizing. Nobody's posted a single paid ticket yet.
Cashout screenshot or it didn't happen.
RTPTracker wants a receipt, but a single paid ticket proves nothing either way, one session is noise. Halifax's paytable point is the only one that holds up without data.
I keep my own spin/hit spreadsheet 📊
Hardly nothing when it is a real payout. Show the cashout screenshot, then we can start talking about the numbers.
Everyone's arguing theory while the only hard fact in this thread is a dead-silent cage at 9 on a Friday. That's the part I'd chase. Empty cage on a weekend either means slow night or people cashing out somewhere else, and nobody here has shown a single paid ticket from that back row yet. Halifax, paytable logic is fine, but got a cashout screenshot from that corner?
Hype isn't a payout.
Funny thing is I sat in that back row for maybe forty minutes last visit and what struck me was the coin-in, not the payouts. Nobody feeding the machines means nobody resetting the loop, so on a small spin sample your session feels smoother simply because you're not riding anyone else's rhythm on a hot bank of machines. That's not the paytable being kinder, it's the environment.
CashOutKing has a point about the cage though, and I'd add my own read. A dead cage at 9 pm Friday plus a quiet corner reads like light floor traffic overall, which also changes how variance feels to you. Fewer crowds, less chasing, you play slower and quit sooner. Hit rate matters more than RTP for how a night feels anyway, and a slow corner makes every hit register bigger. Same math, different evening. 📊
Volatility > vibes.
Empty cage at 9 on a Friday tells me the back row is getting zero play, and low coin-in flattens perceived variance more than any hidden setting ever would. 📊
I keep my own spin/hit spreadsheet 📊