Noises off Edinburgh festival 2012. A similar slot in a Comedy festival venue will incur a guarantee cost of around £2,500, based on a 60/40 box office split. There are sensible rebuttals.
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No other segment of the gaming industry has benefited more from the technology revolution than the slot machine. Once considered the ugly stepdaughter placed on the gaming floor to appease the spouses of table players, the slot machine has been transformed into the fairy princess of the gaming world. With her, she has brought a dowry of riches no one would have imagined for the casino and a few lucky players as well. Over twenty years ago the slot machine accounted for 30 percent of the casinos' profits. Today it accounts for about 70 percent. Computer technology and the ability to play with little to no gambling knowledge makes it possible to offer life-changing jackpots big enough to turn a pauper into a king.
However, the fact that it doesn't take much gambling knowledge to play means that most people don't understand the inner working of the slots -- which makes it easy to explain a loss or a win with some false logic. Like any other 'wives tales' these are passed from person to person until they become gospel. Most of these myths and misconceptions are harmless but they can add to your frustration and take away some of the enjoyment of your casino visit. Let’s take a look at a few of the most popular myths and the truth behind them.
Myth #1
Someone hit a jackpot on the machine you just left -- so you would have won that jackpot if you kept playing.
This is probably one of the most common notions about slot machine gambling -- but it's patently false. The slot machines have a computer chip inside that runs the Random Number Generator (RNG). The RNG is continuously cycling through numbers even when the machine is not being played. These numbers correspond to the stops on the wheel that display the winning or losing symbols that you see when the reels stop. When you hit the spin button or pull the handle, the RNG picks the combination at that given microsecond. If you had stayed at the machine, it is highly unlikely that you would have stopped the RNG at the exact nano-second to display that same combination of numbers. In the time it takes to talk with a friend or sip your drink the RNG has cycled through thousands of combinations.
Myth #2
You can tell the odds of winning by counting the symbols on each wheel.
Actually, you can't. The RNG generates a number for each spin. There can be hundreds of virtual stops on each wheel even though you only see a few symbols. For example, you may see 20 symbols on each wheel of a three-reel machine. You figure 20 x 20 x 20 = 8,000 combinations and your chance of hitting the jackpot is 1 in 8000. In reality, the computer chip may program 256 stops for each wheel which makes the odds 256 x 256 x 256 =16,777,216 combinations. Being able to generate millions of combinations is the reason that slots can offer large paybacks.
Myth #3
Casinos can loosen or tighten the slot machines with the flip of a switch.
In actuality, the slot machines have a computer chip in them that determines the payback percentage. These are preset at the factory. In order for a casino to change the payback, they would have to change the chip. In most jurisdictions, there is paperwork that has to be filled and submitted to the Casino Control Commission for each machine if the chip is changed. It's time-consuming and the chips are very expensive. For this reason, it is more economical to decide on the payback percentages before purchasing the machines and having the factory ship them with the proper chip.
Myth #4
A machine that has not been paying out is due to hit.
There is no way to determine if a machine is due to hit. Each spin is a random occurrence and has no bearing on what has happened previously. Don't ever play more than you should because of this misconception -- it will be devastating to your bankroll if you do.
Myth #5
The temperature of the coins played will affect the way a machine pays.
Unfortunately, the machine is not affected by temperature. It doesn't matter if you play hot, cold, old or new coins. The coin slot is a mechanical device and has no feeling.
Myth #6
If you use your slot club card the machine will pay back less.
This may well be the most damaging myth of them all. There is no link between the card reader and the RNG, but by not using your player's card you are denying yourself valuable comps and sometimes cash back from the casino.
In all its turbulent absurdity, the greatest accomplishment of Newton Community Theatre’s production of “Noises Off” is convincing the audience to not only embrace the rampant lunacy but to believe a scenario in which the melodrama behind the scenes is more interesting than the make-believe spectacle enacted onstage.
The crew of “Noises Off” is upfront with its intentions to please theatergoers through laughter and not by some kind of hidden message or philosophical understanding, even going so far as to include those exact words in the program. There’s nothing to “get,” and the quicker audiences are at accepting that the better the show becomes.
A self-described play-within-a-play, “Noises Off” follows the working lives of a traveling theater troupe as they struggle to maintain level heads, memorize their lines and not kill each other while performing a sardined-packed sex farce called “Nothing On.” A rehearsal, a backstage view of the play itself and the final night catastrophe are depicted in three separate acts, each one becoming more unhinged.
Simply put, the goings on for the “Nothing On” crew is a director’s worst nightmare. Conor Fudge, who stars as the show’s director Lloyd Dallas, captures that frustration wonderfully as he fumes around the stage with a permanently red face, veins protruding from his forehead, fighting his instincts to strangle his actors until they’re blue.
Standard story tropes are thrown out the window, squashed to oblivion and spit on for good measure. Character conflicts, although acknowledged, are never really resolved. They are not meant to. Pregnancy is but a punchline; stymied affairs are a means for characters to lash out violently; ambiguous relationships exist to only cause jealousy. All for the sake of laughs. And, luckily, there is plenty to be had with “Noises Off.”
Physical comedy is often to difficult to grasp, but the cast of “Noises Off” was able to control it well through fairly consistent timing, although there were instances where the action was choppy, particularly during a scene when different characters were snagging away an axe in the second act. Dialogue was quick and snappy, which unfortunately made it all the more noticeable when actors tripped over their own words, cutting the fluidity.
In spite of that, actors’ reactions were well-defined and frequently enticed uproarious laughs from the crowd. “Noise Off’s” backstage-view second act was the high point of the farce, primarily consisting of screwball physical comedy and very little dialogue outside of the muted “Nothing On” performance.
In between exits and entrances of the “Nothing On” show, characters argued with exaggerated movements and emotion. Apart from some minor hiccups, the cast was moving like a well-oiled machine. Most impressive were the small details. While a main conflict unfolded between two or three or four characters, the remaining cast interacted with the stage and kept in line with their part.
Amy McGhghy, who plays an egotistical actress named Brooke Ashton, was a standout in this regard, finding any kind of reflective service to look at herself and check her hair and makeup in one scene, and then performing a weird meditation to calm her nerves the next.
The nearly deaf alcoholic Selsdon Mowbray, played by Mike McKenna, would drift around the stage seeking a whiskey or champagne bottle — any kind of alcohol he could get his hands on — and then hide the liquor before anyone else saw. Jeff Carter, who plays the stammering actor Garry Lejeune, probably got the best workout out of the bunch running up and down stairs, hopping up and down two flights with his shoelaces tied together and then falling down stairs with great effect.
It's Like A Slot Machine In There Noises Off Youtube
Praise should also be given to set designer Kent Leckband, who created a transformative and tangible set piece. On one side was the set for “Nothing On” and the other was the backstage area. Actors and crew assembled the massive, three-piece structure in between acts. It was a pivotal element of the show, allowing the actors to bound around and play rough with the set.
There is a delightful and downright contagious goofiness to “Noises Off” that can be credited to solid timing and pitch perfect exaggerations from the small cast. The set lends itself well to the onstage antics, allowing the audience to envelop themselves in the drama of others much like a soap opera or reality TV show.
If only reality was this interesting.
Contact Christopher Braunschweig at cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com