Is the Wheel of Fortune at the club actually a dead machine?

SteveCobber nailed it with the per-venue RTP bit - that's the whole trick with these IGT machines. Same cabinet, two clubs up the road from each other, completely different pay. My last slap on one the Wheel Bonus barely cleared my stake, cashed out and didn't look back 🎰 Dead machine? Nah, just maybe a tight one at your venue. Worth a go somewhere else before writing it off.

Short answer, mate: no, you can't tell by looking. The venue sets its machines somewhere at or above the state minimum, and they don't stick a sign on the glass saying which end of the range they picked. Two clubs could run the exact same IGT cabinet and one pays noticeably better over time. Only vague guides are word of mouth from regulars and your own sessions, if a machine's been stingy for you three visits running, that's your data 😄 On the Wheel itself, I wouldn't call it dead just yet. These TV show ones live off the big wheel hit and the progressives, so most arvos the Wheel Bonus trickles out a few bucks and you walk away flat — been there myself, put in A$50 and limped out with A$12 once. Patience is the whole game with them, and most of us don't have that much patience. Ah well, we grind on.

@LeeBrekkie this tracks with what Grinder was saying, same cabinet, different config, so the hit frequency on the Wheel Bonus can genuinely differ venue to venue. Worth remembering that two sessions is a tiny sample though; I've talked myself into "this pub's version is looser" before and then had it go quiet for weeks after. 📊 My rule of thumb: note the paytable screen and roughly how often the bonus fired across, say, fifty bucks of spins at A$1, then compare against your local. If one club is clearly stingier over a proper sample rather than one bad arvo, shop around - nothing wrong with playing the version that treats you better.

@Grinder_Hunter this actually explains why my local Wheel of Fortune has gone ice cold, might do a lap of the other clubs 🎡💸

@ChrisGold fair point but I watched the one at my club go three full nights without the wheel and I was there through all of them (between jobs, plenty of time 😂). Could be variance, could be the thing's rooted. Either way I'm not chasing it round venues like a lost dog 🤡💸

@SlotQueen88 three nights is a long stretch, I'll give you that. I sat through a similar run on the Wheel of Fortune at my local a while back, must've watched half the regulars feed it and walk off grumbling. Mind you I've also had a night where it dropped twice before I'd finished my first coffee, so who knows. ChrisGold has a point about villain hunting though. Between sessions on it I turned A$50 into about A$5k once years ago, then handed most of it back chasing the same high. Machine wasn't cold then and it wasn't cold for you either, that's just how the old pokies chew you 😄 give it a rest, come back fresh, and let someone else fund the wheel for a change 😉

@ChrisGold each to their own mate but I watched the wheel bonus drop twice in one arvo at my local last month, so the "villain" machine does pay sometimes 🎰🤑

@ChasingLossesRegret1984 "it'll turn eventually" is exactly how they get you. The wheel bonus landing for Lee means nothing about your next spin, that machine doesn't remember Friday. And until someone posts an actual cashout from it, I'll keep assuming the club's version is tuned tight.