After consulting the magical random number generator, I have discovered the winner of last week’s contest. Congratulations are in order for Sdlaxin43, who will be receiving a RichardSolo 1800 Battery Backup. For those of you that didn’t win, fear not! We’ve got more giveaways in the works, so stay tuned.

[ RichardSolo ]

With the 171st comment (selected from 190 eligible comments using Random.org’s True Random Number Generator), CrunchGear reader Peter Van Loan takes home the grand prize from this weekend’s pump-action salt and pepper grinder giveaway with “i love salt! give them to me, please!!!!” That’s five total exclamation points!!!!!

Vat19.com will be sending the salt and pepper grinders to Peter shortly. Thanks for playing, everyone. Keep an eye out for more contests in the future.

Most of the photos sent in to us were traditional office environments. Jung Hoon K. was the only person to submit a photo of an airport lounge (Incheon Airport), and Stephen W. sent us a lovely photo of his daughter riding her bike. Matt H. had the least computer-related photo submission:

Matt O. had the busiest “office” of all the submissions:

And finally, Jeremy C. had the most entertaining submission:

“Kohler makes the best seat,” observes Jeremy. So true.

Thanks to everyone who submitted. We love seeing where you all “work”. Stay tuned for more contests!

My random number generator actually put me on a non-extreme one so I rolled up and my mouse landed on this lucky guy. Thing is, he’s not responding to my emails. Consider this public warning, James! Get back to me or tomorrow I’ll have to pick another winner! I’d like this thing to be in someone’s hands by Christmas. Thanks for getting back to me, James! Congrats!

Be sure to keep an eye out for our other giveaways, there’s lots more stuff to be won this holiday season!

Greetings, everyone. Our little contest for one of three Tekken art books ended today at noon EST. So, presenting our winners!

Kyle

Paul G

Mario

I ran the comments though random.org’s random number generator and your comments showed up.

So if the winners could e-mail me their address at nicholas at crunchgear dot com I’ll have the art book mailed out this week.

Godspeed, everyone!

Remember a few days ago when I hinted at some exciting Tekken news? No? Well, today I can reveal what I was talking about: thanks to the fine folks at Namco Bandai (its publicists, to be exact) we now have three Tekken art books to give away. You can win one! This will be a very easy contest, believe me.

What do you have to do to win the art book? Just leave a comment right here in this post. I’m running this contest, so I’m not going to make you do anything ridiculous. The contest will run through the weekend, and I’ll announce the winners on Monday.

So to recap:

• You can win one of three Tekken art books. That means three people will win. Each book contains drawings, sketches, etc. of the game’s characters. You know, an art book.

• Leave a comment IN THIS POST to be considered. I’ll run the comments through a random number generator on Monday (comment number one is 1, comment number two is 2, etc.) to select the winners. Presumably we’ll have more than three entrants.

• The contest runs till Monday, November 16 at noon EST.

• You need to be a U.S. resident. I’m not paying $8 million dollars to ship this stuff to Manila or Curitiba. Sorry.

I hope I’ve made this clear.

Good luck~!

            Roulette is one of the most popular games in the entire casino, and as such, it is becoming more popular for people to find ways to play the game at home in one way or another. There are any number of reasons why people prefer to play a game like roulette at home. First, not everyone lives in a city or an area which has an actual casino where they can go and play roulette in person. Secondly, some people don’t enjoy going to a casino even if they have easy access to one. For some people, the glitz and glamour of the casino is the most exciting thing in the world, but for others, they are noisy and overcrowded, so if they enjoy the games they play at the casino they have to find ways to enjoy them at home instead.

            One of the more popular ways of doing this is getting some roulette software and playing roulette at one of the popular online casinos. There are a lot of great online casinos which can be a lot of fun to play at, however, be careful when doing so. Be sure you’re playing at a reputable site. A good way to check is to ensure that the roulette game you are playing uses a RNG or random number generator. To prove this, they companies should post their winning percentages or other numbers which prove that their system is honest.

            Roulette, slots and more are available through these suites of online gaming software. Poker and blackjack are other popular games to play on the internet, but with any of these games it is important to use some discretion and make sure that you are playing at a popular site.

            If playing online or on a computer isn’t really for you, then you could purchase a roulette set to play some exciting home games with your very own roulette wheel. For many people, this is one of the most fun ways to try and enjoy the game as they can invite their friends over and all play together. Roulette is a social game with everyone enjoying playing, which is why that it is more fun to get a set and have a group of people over together to enjoy the game instead of just playing on the internet on their own.  Sets come in a variety of sizes and price ranges depending on what size you can accommodate in your home.

1. Someone hit a jackpot on the machine you just left; you would have gotten that jackpot if you kept playing. The RNG in all online slot machines is constantly calculating numbers whether the machine is being played or not, it never stops. When you press the spin button, the slot machine picks the combination at that exact given time from the RNG. If you had continued playing the slot machine, it is unlikely that you would have stopped the RNG at the ask microsecond to display that exact same combination of numbers, as the person who won. Both you and the other player would have effectively had to hit play at the exact same time that’s within 1/1000 of a second. The odds of this happening are greater than winning the jackpot. In conclusion, don’t feel bad about the player who hit the jackpot after you, it was pure lady luck and nothing more!

2. You can calculate the odds of winning by counting the symbols on each wheel. T he slot machine you are playing may have 15 symbols on each reel and by counting the symbols you would get odds of winning at 1:3,375 (15x15x15).  However, what you are missing is the virtual stops on the reel. Next time you are playing pay attention to where the symbols stop, you will notice that the symbols stop at varying positions.  These are referred to as virtual stops and there can be 100 or more per reel.  This means that at 100 stops per reel the odds of winning the jackpot is 1:1,000,000 (100x100x100) which is more in line with reality.  At odds of 1:3,375 The casino would be bankrupt in no time.

3. Casinos can transfer percentage payouts just like in land based casinos, online casinos can not just change the payout of a slot machine at a whim. Each slot machine is painstakingly programmed to have a certain payout.  The programming in most online casinos is done by a third party who leases or sells their online casino package to the operator who changes the graphics and create the atmosphere but has no control over the actually functionality of the slot machines.  These third party companies are usually public companies and they are not going to risk their profits for anyone.

4. Online Slot Machines That Have Not Paid Out For While – The Jackpot Is Next! Each spin of some online slot machine is random and is unrelated to the previous spin.  The length of time a slot is played without successful has no influence on whether it is going to payout.  Any slot machine can go months or years without paying its top jackpot.  It maintains the programmed payoff percentage simply by paying smaller wins.  Free game downloads are available at Bear River Casino, Beating Roulette or Beat Slot Machines.

An online casino does not have the ability to simulate this. Sure, they can manipulate the random number generator, but there’s still no way to accurately simulate table action. Having programmed, I know that a random number generator is not all that random. Worse, if the computer simply “picks a number”, it is not even a proper setup to being with. Let’s keep looking at Craps. Does the casino have a random number generator that simply picks a number between one and twelve? If so, all the numbers have an even shot at coming out, which is against true probability. Perhaps they list out all probable combinations and then the computer selects one. This would be a little more accurate, probability wise, but it still lacks the real randomness of live action—and weird events are more likely to ensue.

What I’m about to tell you is true and happens more frequently that one would imagine. A tester recently played at an online casino (online casino craps) to monitor number frequency in the field. Within the span of just 150 rolls, the computer rolled 11 non- field numbers in a row and then followed it up a handful of rolls later by rolling 12 non-field numbers in a row. What’s the big deal you ask? Well, first, the field has a 44.5% chance of winning on every roll and second; the probability of throwing 11 non-field rolls in a row is .0015%. The probability of throwing 12 non-field numbers in a row is .0008%. These events should happen once every 667 rolls and once every 1176 rolls respectively, yet both where seen within a handful of rolls from each other within the 150 rolls monitored.

Try computer blackjack and Deuces Wild Poker while you’re at it!