This student made his own odds with a DIY slot machine

Today’s digital slot machines are anything but “fair”, in the way most of us understand that word. There is strict regulation in most places, but machines can still adjust their probabilities of payment to maintain a specific profit margin. If the machine believes that it has paid too many victories, it will effectively prevent you from winning. That is quite irritating when you think about it, so Hugo White built his own slot machine to control the probabilities.

This is a very basic slot machine with three wheels. Each has 12 symbols and there are no second complicated screens, payment line variations or none of the other nonsense that you will find in a modern casino. However, it is a digital experience and the machine operates under the control of an Arduino Nano table. That means that white can establish the probabilities programmatically. But for now, it plans to maintain natural probabilities (so that each wheel has a 1:12 probability to land in any particular symbol).

Three step by step Nema 17 rotate those wheels, under the control of the Arduino through a CNC shield with step -by -step controller modules. There is a small speaker and individual direction LED strips WS2812B for additional style. The enclosure and all mechanical parts, apart from the hardware and basic fasteners, were printed in 3D.

The highlight of this project is the management of the currency. It has personalized mechanisms to accept and dispense coins. It will only take 50 cents (detected by a photo sensor) and, during a payment, push those coins using a servoacted shelf mechanism.

Unfortunately, White informs that there are still errors in the code that is struggling to solve. He would like some help with that, so get in touch with him if he is willing to give a hand.