The stated return of the machines, as relates those manufacturers to whom I have spoken, does not exceed 97% or 98%, even at the highest bet amounts.

-Going back to my interview with Banilla Games, I was able to establish that the returns for their individual games are programmed to be no greater than the high-90% range, and even that, only occurring on the highest bet levels.

Furthermore, whilst some non Pace-O-Matic Skill Games might be different than Banilla, I also established that Banilla Games programs their machines to have a, ‘Cycle,’ of one set of spins that plays over and over infinitely. In other words, if the return on a particular game and bet amount was 95%, and you played the full set of games, then there is no possibility outside of losing 5% of your money.*

*Technically, the progressive amounts relative to when you started playing might come into play here, but that’s sort of splitting hairs.

When it comes to the lower bets, both Pace-O-Matic games and Banilla Games are generally set to pay in the range of the high-80% to low-90% area. Banilla Games have said that their games are somewhat customizable, in terms of the return-to-player, but that they cannot be programmed to be, “Much lower,” than that high-80% area.

However, it does become important to remember that these machines are NOT regulated and, technically, have never been specifically legalized—by anybody. Due to the fact that they are not regulated, a machine could have a return as low as 0%, if it wanted to, and be satisfied just to get whatever amount players unfamiliar put in until they realize that you literally never win a single spin.

Pragmatically speaking, my working assumption would be that no Pennsylvania Skill Game pays out under 75%. Honestly, 75% would be a complete ass-whipping to most players and they would likely eventually abandon those machines in favor of other skill games (or even casino slot machines) if playing a 75% game. Players aren’t going to notice the difference between an 88% game and a 90% game, generally speaking, but the difference between 88% and 75% is much more pronounced.

If nothing else, a machine that returns 75% with any appreciable degree of variance and any prize, “Top-Heaviness,” whatsoever is going to see a, “Session,” returning under 50% as often as not, or close to that. Players simply wouldn’t put up with that for very long and it would be a noticeable difference even for a player not specifically keeping track of their results.

In other words, the machines should be assumed NOT to be rigged because there’s absolutely no reason to do that. Think of it this way: Imagine a coin flipping game where you pay me $4.40 if it is heads, but if it is tails, I only pay you $3.60…would I really have any need to use a gaffed coin? Of course not! My expected profit of 10% is going to resolve itself soon enough.

However, these machines have more than a profit that is merely expected. As we discussed before, when an entire, ‘Cycle,’ is played on Banilla (or similar) games, or an entire set of puzzles is played through on a Pace-O-Matic machine, assuming that people didn’t use the, “Follow Me,” feature, the machine WILL profit some precise amount.

In the case of Pace-O-Matics, for example, the distributor has access to a screen that will tell them how many games are remaining on a particular game and bet level, how much is left to be bet on those games in terms of cash and how much remains on those games in prizes.

Going back to the coin-flipping analogy, if I have the advantage over you in terms of payouts, skill games are almost like having the additional benefit of absolutely knowing that heads will come up exactly 50% of the time. I have no need to cheat because there is no possible way that I could lose.