- New Konami Fortune Cup Racing Slot Machine Looked Crowded World
- New Konami Fortune Cup Racing Slot Machine Looked Crowded Today
- New Konami Fortune Cup Racing Slot Machine Looked Crowded Now
- New Konami Fortune Cup Racing Slot Machine Looked Crowded Across
Casino horse racing games have had a strange existence over the years. The games are popular, but only with a small segment of casino guests. Sigma Derby has achieved cult status, but there are only two machines still operating in Nevada casinos. You can still find the popular mechanical horse racing game at The D in downtown Las Vegas and MGM Grand on the Vegas Strip. The game is beloved but not quite as popular as Wheel of Fortune slot machines.
According to Konami, Fortune Cup is killing it in Vietnam and Cambodia, where people love horse racing and have welcomed the game to casino floors. It isn’t doing bad in North America, either. But Konami says the players who are flocking to Fortune Cup are, like me, players who don’t usually play slot machines. That makes some sense. At last week’s G2E Asia conference, Konami exhibited a large number of slot machines as well as the multi-terminal gaming machine “Fortune Cup,” which simulates horse racing. This large and eye-catching machine, released last year, has already been installed by Wynn Macau and Wynn Palace, as well as some casinos in Southeast Asia.
Konami Gaming is hoping to bring the cult status of Sigma Derby into more casinos with the release of a new mechanical horse racing game. Fortune Cup is a mechanical horse racing game for the 21st century. Following months of success being tested on the Las Vegas Strip at The Venetian and MGM Grand under Nevada’s New Innovation Beta program Fortune Cup is now live at the casino all around Las Vegas and will be released across North America.
New Konami Fortune Cup Racing Slot Machine Looked Crowded World
Where to play Fortune Cup in Nevada
Fortune Cup is located in Las Vegas at the following casinos:
Vegas Strip:
- MGM Grand
- The Venetian
Off-Strip:
- The Orleans
- Red Rock Casino
Bellagio, Cosmopolitan, New York New York, and The D in downtown Las Vegas plan to install Fortune Cup before the end of February.
Fortune cup is a 21st-century game
Fortune Cup features a nine-foot-wide mechanical track with eight horses that travel freely and independently across the course. The horses flow smoothly around the track. There are 10 betting stations around each game. Unlike the 1980’s horse racing game, Sigma Derby, Fortune Cup has a track announcer and a giant video screen so passers-by can hear and see the action on the track if the seats are occupied.
The new horse racing game allows players to place bets on touchscreen stations that offer race statistics, horse odds, mystery progressive jackpots, and a variety of betting options including win, place, and quinella.
Fortune Cup also offers players USB chargers for mobile devices. The games also include card readers so that casino players club cards at each station. The touchscreens are dynamic and can even show the race if the game and giant screen above the track aren’t convenient.
Playing Fortune Cup
Since there are more betting options than older horse racing games, playing Fortune Cup might seem a bit confusing at first. Thankfully, the screens at each betting station are intuitive and offer help if needed.
Each Fortune Cup race lasts about 40 seconds. There are 40 seconds in between each race. This allows players can relax while the horses set up for the next race. This short break allows players to study the odds screen if that’s even helpful.
Gameplay is very smooth. What Fortune Cup makes up for with technology it loses in kitsch. The vintage Sigma Derby horse racing game is fun in part because of its age. It’s not possible to recreate the novelty of playing a casino game for a physical quarter. The bouncing horse movements can’t be recreated either. However, Fortune Cup offers more of everything that horse racing fans should enjoy in a casino game.
According to the Wizard of Odds, Fortune Cup has a return-to-player percentage between 81 percent and 84 percent depending on location and wagers made. This is a bad return and worse than penny slots in most casinos. That said, Fortune Cup isn’t a game for advantage gamblers. It’s simply a fun way to spend a few bucks in a casino if you’re looking for something different to play.
On This Page
Introduction
New Konami Fortune Cup Racing Slot Machine Looked Crowded Today
Fortune Cup is a very nicely done horse racing game by Konami. It has many of the features of the beloved Derby game by Sigma. The excitement is the same, but the Komani brings the game up to modern standards.
Rules
Each race is run with eight horses. Up to eight players can place bets on betting screens. The following bets are available:
- Win — This is a simple bet that wins if the chosen horse comes in first place.
- Place — This bet wins if the chosen horse comes in first or second place.
- Quinella — For this bet, the player chooses two horses. The betting stations show all 28 combinations of two horses out of eight. The bet wins if those two horses come in first and second, in either order.
There are also three progressive jackpots to the game. As I understand it, sometimes, after betting closes, a horse will be picked at random. If that horse wins the race, then players will win one of the progressive jackpots. I have no idea how often it hits, average win amounts, or how much it contributes to the return of the game. I'm not sure if betting on the given horse is required, or if and how jackpots are shared among players.
Analysis
This analysis was based on the units at the Venetian and Red Rock in Las Vegas. The way I analyze games like this, and futures bets in sports betting, is to assume the probability of any bet winning is inversely proportional to what it pays. In other words, every bet of a given type of bet has the same return or house edge. For Win and Quinella bet this is easily done as follows:
- Take the inverse of the win for all possible outcomes.
- Take the sum from step 1.
- The expected return of the game is the inverse from step 2.
For place bets, I did the same thing except divide the sum from step two by two, because two horses place in each race.
That said, I took down all the bets for three races. Based on these three races, the average returns are as follows:
Derby 2017
| Bet | Venetian | Red Rock |
|---|---|---|
| Win | 83.75% | 81.92% |
| Place | 84.27% | 81.84% |
| Quinella | 84.00% | 81.98% |
New Konami Fortune Cup Racing Slot Machine Looked Crowded Now
What I think is actually going on is the game is set to a target return of 84% at the Venetian and 82% at the Red Rock. However, with only eight horses and wanting to keep the wins to one decimal place, they missed those targets by up to 0.5% on any given race.
New Konami Fortune Cup Racing Slot Machine Looked Crowded Across
While any return in the low 80's is not a good bet, mathematically speaking, there is only one race about every two minutes, so it is a slow and fun way to play. On an hourly basis, the average expected loss per hour, assuming the same amount bet per play, would be much greater playing reeled slots or video keno than Derby.
Finally, this analysis does not consider the value of the progressive jackpots. If forced, based on industry norms, I would say the value of the jackpots is roughly about 2%.
Video
Here is a typical race from the unit as the Venetian.
Written by:Michael Shackleford