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To the untrained eye, every slot machine looks the same. But did you know there’s a huge difference between class ii vs class iii slot machines?
Speaking of casinos, (land-based or online), there are two types of slot machines they feature; Class III and Class II. The two slots machines operate differently. The Class II slot machines are common in slots parlors. They are attached to Native American Casinos or horse racing tracks.
Almost every country in the world regulates some form of slot machines. They are offered to the adult public within licensed land-based casinos, online casinos, taverns, clubs, airports and/or charitable gaming facilities. While they all tend to look the same, there may be some very distinct, almost imperceptible differences between them. It all depending on whether they are Class II orClass III slot machines.
The legal delineation between class ii vs class iii slot machines is a purposeful one. They gives regulators more control over what types of games – and exactly how much winnings – players have access to. The decision to place one type or another in various facilities is often determined by the type of license an operator possesses, and the laws of the jurisdiction.
In many cases, especially throughout Canada, only full-scale casinos are permitted to host class iii slot machines. These are the kind found in major gambling destinations like Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Macau. Charitable gaming facilities, like the 30+ provincially regulated bingo halls across Ontario, are restricted to class ii slot machines.
Class II vs Class III Slot Machines
The easiest way to describe the difference between class ii and class iii slot machines is to compare the traditional class iii variety – those found in Vegas – to a scratch off lottery ticket. When a lottery agency prints tickets, they know exactly which ones are winners, and exactly how much profit they’re going to make once they are all sold.
That’s how class ii slot machines work. They are programmed like instant win lottery tickets. Every spin is predetermined as a winner or loser, and every winning spin’s value is already programmed into the machine.
Class iii slot machines are built on the foundation of a Random Number Generator (RNG). Patented in 1984 by Norwegian mathematician Inge Telnaes, the RNG is capable of giving a slot machine complete and utter unpredictability, while giving manufacturers control over the probability of outcomes.
Before Telnaes invented the first virtual reels with RNG technology, a slots’ payout percentage was based entirely on the number of reels, and the number of symbols on each reel. If a 3 reel game had 8 symbols per reel, there would be exactly (8x8x8) 512 possible combinations, meaning it would pay its jackpot, on average, 1 in every 512 spins.
Slot Machine Classes By the Law Books
Any educated gambler would prefer to play class iii slot machines. Their odds of hitting a large jackpot are always higher. The RNG ensures that a jackpot can pay out at any given moment, not when the machine decides it’s time. But in many jurisdictions, the availability of class ii and class iii slot machines is determined by local and/or federal law.
The classifications of slot machines was first introduced by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, which defines class ii vs class ii slot machines. Note that Class I gaming refers to traditional Indian gaming based on a tribe’s cultural ceremonies and/or celebrations, thus has no bearing on any type of slot machines.
IGRA Definition of Class II Slot Machines
The term ‘‘class II gaming’’ means—
(i) the game of chance commonly known as bingo…pull-tabs, lotto, punch boards, tip jars, instant bingo, and other games similar to bingo…
The definition explicitly excludes:
“…electronic or electromechanical facsimiles of any game of chance or slot machines of any kind”.
IGRA Definition of Class III Slot Machines
The term ‘‘class III gaming’’ means all forms of gaming that are not class I gaming or class II gaming.
Knowing the Difference Between Classes
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A I said before, class ii and class iii slot machines look exactly the same. They use the exact same style of reels and graphics, and present the same types of features. A mere glance at the game screen, and you’d never know one from the other.
The easiest way to tell the difference between class ii vs class iii slot machines is to look at the signage in the gaming facility. By law, only class iii slot machines can actually be called “slot machines”. All class ii games will be referred to by another name.
Common names for class ii slot machines include Video Lottery Terminals (VLTs) and Bingo Liners (machines programmed to pay out like a bingo card game). In Ontario, they are called TapTix machines (because it’s like tapping a button to play a scratch off ticket).
Whatever name they may go by, if the casino or gaming facility doesn’t call them “slot machines”, they are not real class iii slot machines.
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Many gambling enthusiasts in the United States are at least vaguely familiar with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, US law Pub.L. 100–497, 25 U.S.C. § 2701.
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Passed in 1988, this federal law established how Indian (Native American) gaming would be managed and regulated. The act included definitions for 3 types or classes of gambling games. They are usually referred to as:
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- Class I games
- Class II games
- Class III games
Congress passed the law to help Native American tribes and nations improve their economic status after more than a century of oppression and exclusion in mainstream US society. Many Native American groups wanted to build land-based casinos, which would not only attract tourists but create jobs.
There was considerable resistance to this movement in many states, most of which did not allow gambling of any kind. To help resolve the conflicts and provide some clarity between treaties, state law, and federal law, the US government established a framework that eliminated some barriers to Native American investment in gambling industries. The law also provided some regulatory limits to respect state laws.
The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act introduced some confusion into the worldwide lexicon of gambling games because the distinctions are only observed within US jurisdictions. Other nations regulate gambling with different definitions.
But as the internet became a worldwide communications network in the 1990s and 2000s, most of the content published about gambling dealt with US law and casinos. Although non-US casinos have to observe their own laws and regulations, players who research gambling law on the internet must be careful to distinguish between USA gambling definitions and other gambling definitions.
What Are the 3 Classes of Gambling Games?
Class I gambling includes all traditional Native American gambling games, most of which are only used for ceremonial purposes or in the contexts of cultural-specific celebrations and ceremonies. These games, which are only available at small stakes, are completely regulated by the Native American tribes and nations.
Class II gambling includes all variations of bingo games, player-vs-player card games like poker (where the house does not play a hand in the game), tip jars, pull-tab games, punch card games, and anything similar. Some people mistakenly include lottery games in this category, but the law clearly excludes state-run lotteries and similar games from Class II.
Class III gambling consists of everything that is not included under Class I gambling or Class II gambling. That means the lottery games you play are Class III gambling games. Slot games, roulette, dice games, and card games like blackjack where the house is also a player all fall under the Class III gambling games category.
So How Can There Be Class II Slot Machine Games?
If you’ve ever visited a Native American casino–like the Winstar Casino in Oklahoma, you’ve almost certainly played some Class II slot machine games. They look much like traditional slot machine games. They have 3 to 5reels with symbols on them, they pay jackpots, and they do everything else you expect of a slot game.
And yet, they are not slot machine games.
A clever company in Franklin, TN, known as Video Gaming Technologies, or VGT, developed electronic bingo games for Native American casinos that use the results of those bingo games to emulate slot game action.
In other words, the slot machine cabinets contain two screens, one that displays the results of the bingo game and one that displays the results of the simulated slot game. This dual visualization of the gambling game takes advantage of the fact that at the core of all gambling games is a simple principle:
You’re making a wager on an unknown outcome. What the Class II slot games do is take the result of the bingo game to determine what happens in the slot game.
What’s cool about this approach is that VGT was able to add bonus games to the bingo games that work like slot machine bonus games. They’ve developed a huge selection of bingo games that play like slot games. VGT is so successful they were acquired by Aristocrat Leisure Limited in 2014, although the former VGT still operates as an independent subsidiary company of Aristocrat.
How Do Class III Slot Machine Games Work?
The key to the hybridization of bingo and slot machine games is the Random Number Generator. Mathematicians have been developing algorithms to calculate unpredictable numbers for hundreds of years. For a detailed look at the concept, read “How Do Random Number Generators Work?” on Jackpots Online. Although the RNG does not produce a truly random number, in typical circumstances the number is random enough. Even so, slot game designers use random numbers in multiple ways.
Before I continue, I should mention that US law requires slot game designers to work by different rules from other countries’ slot games. In the United Kingdom, for example, the outcome of a slot game is determined by a single random number. In the United States, the outcome of the Class III slot game is determined by several random numbers.
To begin with, an electronic slot machine or online slot game uses a software concept called an array to represent each reel. Computer arrays work like rows of boxes, where each box holds one piece of information. The arrays for slot reels may have anywhere from 22 to 256 slots. Each slot in the array holds a symbol marker that tells the slot machine game what to display on the screen.
Slot game designers use special algorithms to decide how often each type of symbol should appear in each slot array. The frequency of the symbol’s use in the array and the size of the array determine how likely or unlikely it is for any single spin of the slot game reels to create one or more winning combinations. The game’s software may award prizes for one or more winning combinations at a time, depending on how many pay lines the game offers.
The random number generator produces a new number every few milliseconds. The number is placed in a temporary memory location called a register. The slot game software grabs the latest random number from the register and uses that to determine what happens next. For example, a 5 reel slot game needs 5 random numbers to pick how many slot positions will be spun on each reel before the reels stop in new locations. If the slot game awards random prizes like progressive jackpots, these are determined by additional random numbers.
How Class II Slot Machine Games Differ from Class III Slot Machine Games
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What VGT did was create bingo game software that determines the actual prizes awarded to players.
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But to make the bingo games look like slot games, they used the bingo game’s random results as if they are the random numbers that Class III slot games use.
To ensure that the slot game winning combinations match the bingo game prize values the VGT games work more like slot games in the United Kingdom. The game determines what prize was won and then creates a short video simulation of the slots landing on that winning combination.
Conclusion
How do class II slot machines work?
Either way, the slot games award prizes on a random basis. You could say that US gaming laws are paranoid in that Class III slot game software is required to closely emulate the physical spinning of slot reels. In fact, physical slot reel games have been displaying results of these virtual, in-memory array games for more than 20 years. So even when you see physical reels spinning, their stop positions have already been determined within microseconds of your pressing SPIN.
The Class II slot gaming experience is a fun gaming experience.
But the bingo game is displayed on a small screen, because VGT’s designers have found that players don’t enjoy looking at bingo patterns as much as they enjoy looking at 3 to 5 reels spinning and stopping on various symbols.
For the player, what matters is that they’re gambling for real money on an unpredictable outcome–and they can enjoy an entertaining evening with friends or loved ones.