hopkins81.com

Over the years, I have found myself a victim of the bright and flashy, lighted machines known to those in the trade as "fruities". You'll find them scattered throughout just about every watering hole in the land and I myself have on more occasions than I care to admit have wasted a small fortune on them.

From a non-user's perspective, they are often described as a "complete waste of money" and from my track record, this is something I cannot really dispute. There was one thing that always drove me mad; the old "Hi-Lo" section. By this I mean, betting whether the next number out would be higher or lower than the current number. Usually the numbers range from 1-12 but the number of times you loose going high on a 2 or low on an 11 is outrageous! I'm not saying this should never happen, but it shouldn't happen anywhere near as often as it does.

I have often wondered how these wicked machines are allowed to get away with this, but I recently learned that somewhere on every fruity (usually located near the top) is some small print which states "There may be occasions where the player has no actual chance of success" or similar. Now while many may have not seen this small print, surely most people do think that these machines are rigged don't they? So why do so many people including myself play them? Perhaps it's a case of "smoker's syndrome".

Everyone knows smoking is bad for you. There is no shortage of health warnings and yet still people smoke! I do not believe anyone in their right mind would willingly harm themselves. Maybe they're able to block out all the warnings and convince themselves it is safe. Or maybe they just think the warnings don't really apply to them and that they'll get away with it? Speaking from experience, this is just the same thing what when you play fruities. You know it's a fix, but you still play with the thought "there's a slim chance it might not be completely fixed and I might win."

So where is all this leading? Well, I found myself stumbling over the National Lottery web site the other day. On which you'll find all types of instant win games. It just so happens that they offer a "Hi-Lo" type game exactly as I described. The odds are even more in your favour as the numbers range from 1-49. I played it a few times and several games lost going-high-on-a-2-later, I was not happy. But you know what? Even after my losses, I still played again! Bloody fruit machine syndrome!

When it happened again I had had enough. So what did I do? I wrote my own one! My version of this predict-a-ball is completely random and fair. It works as close as I could get it to the real thing (by which I mean putting a load of balls in a bowl and picking them out). I really was quite shocked at just how much of a difference there is. Maybe this was obvious beforehand but after playing my one a few times and seeing the difference between the real version, I never wanted to waste my money again.
You'll really need to play each game a couple of times.

• Play the real one (you can play for fun).
• Then play mine (you need Flash)

See if you notice any difference!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 2nd, 2005 at 5:28 pm by Hopkins and is filed under Geeky. Comments are currently closed.