Slot machine

Slot and Slots redirect here. These terms can also refer to positions in a player's party.

This article is incomplete. Please feel free to edit this article to add missing information and complete it. Reason: images of slot symbols for HGSS; anime image

A slot machine is a standard game at Game Corners in the Pokémon games, having appeared in every generation up until Generation IV.

Slot symbols and their payouts tend to vary between generations, but the highest single payout is for three same-color sevens. In the first three generations, the maximum payout is 300 coins; in Generation IV, the payout is a progressive jackpot starting at 100 coins.

In the games

Generation I and FireRed and LeafGreen

Slot machines in the first generation and their third generation remakes consist simply of inserting coins and stopping the reels with the A button.

Slot machines can be played for 1, 2, or 3 coins. Playing slot machines for 1 coin allows payouts only on the center line. Playing for 2 coins allows payouts on all three horizontal lines. Playing for 3 coins allows payouts on all three horizontal lines as well as two diagonal lines.

Payouts

Generation I payouts

Series of icons		Payout
R  B	Y
File:Celadon Game Corner 7 RGB.pngFile:Celadon Game Corner 7 RGB.pngFile:Celadon Game Corner 7 RGB.png		300
File:Celadon Game Corner Bar RGB.pngFile:Celadon Game Corner Bar RGB.pngFile:Celadon Game Corner Bar RGB.png		100
File:Celadon Game Corner Rat RGB.pngFile:Celadon Game Corner Rat RGB.pngFile:Celadon Game Corner Rat RGB.png		15
File:Celadon Game Corner Bird RGB.pngFile:Celadon Game Corner Bird RGB.pngFile:Celadon Game Corner Bird RGB.png		15
File:Celadon Game Corner Fish RGB.pngFile:Celadon Game Corner Fish RGB.pngFile:Celadon Game Corner Fish RGB.png		15
File:Celadon Game Corner Cherry RGB.pngFile:Celadon Game Corner Cherry RGB.pngFile:Celadon Game Corner Cherry RGB.png		8

In FireRed and LeafGreen, players can achieve the following payouts, which are calculated starting from the left reel:

Series of icons	Payout
	300
	100
	15
FR or LG	15
FR or LG	8
FR or LG	8
	6
	2

Payouts are cumulative, so if a player lined up three Psyduck in one row and one Berry in a different row, they would receive 17 coins. If a player had a Berry in the top left spot and a Berry right next to it, and they had paid three coins, they would get 8 coins (one Berry going diagonal and two Berries going horizontal).

In FireRed and LeafGreen payouts appear to be decided in a seemingly misleading order: by the time the slots start spinning, the game has already decided the percentage chance of the player winning, but it is only after the third slot is stopped that the game decides if the player is going to win and how much. If the player lines up two 7s but the game decided that the player would not win when the slots began spinning, no amount of replaying the situation out from a save state would have the player get a third 7. Conversely if the game had decided that the player would win with a high probability, returning to the original spinning-slot state would very frequently result in the player winning in most repeated trials, though the actual prize amount will differ.

Generation II

Slot machine

Slot machines in the second generation are similar to the ones from the first, except that having two 7's line up on the first two reels of two symbols may cause something special to happen when stopping the third reel, which will either cause a third 7 to line up and pay out the jackpot, or end up one space away from lining up to tease the player. Very rarely, a Chansey may appear in this situation; it will use Egg Bomb on the third reel repeatedly until the last 7 falls in place for a jackpot.

Payouts

Series of icons	Payout
	300
	15
	10
	8
	6

Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald

The third generation is where slot machines began to become more complex. While fundamentally the same as in the first two generations, the third generation introduced bonus games to the slot machine experience. Bonus games in the third generation allow for better odds of landing big payouts during the duration of the bonus game. Getting the biggest payout in a bonus game in this generation immediately ends the bonus game. The speed of the machine is noticeably slower in Pokémon Emerald compared to Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire.

As the player gets more triple lightning bolts, he/she gets more opportunities to try the Reel Time. The player can earn four regular bonuses with the Reel Time, as well as a large bonus, totaling 660 coins.

Payouts

Series of icons	Payout
	300
	300
	90
	90
	12
	6
	4
	2
	Replay
	3 coins, power

Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum

Starting in the fourth generation, slot machines can only be played for 3 coins at a time. However, bonus round spins only cost 1 coin.

A Ditto Clefairy

Slot machines in the fourth generation control slightly differently than in the past three generations. Instead of simply stopping the reels from left to right with one button, reels are now stopped with their own buttons: the left reel uses the Y button, the center reel uses the B button, and the right reel uses the A button. The jackpot has been reduced from 300 coins to only 100, but winning a jackpot also triggers a bonus game. The bonus game in this generation involves trying to keep a Pokémon happy. The Pokémon can be a normal-colored Clefairy, an alternate-colored Clefairy, or a Ditto pretending to be a Clefairy. In the bonus game, each time the slots begin to spin, the Pokémon will point at a wheel. If the player stop the wheels in the order Clefairy points out, the player will land on three Replay symbols and automatically win fifteen coins. Keeping the bonus game going as long as possible involves strategy, and it ends when the Pokémon leaves the scene.

Slot machines are not playable in the European versions of Platinum, apparently due to European Union anti-gambling laws. Instead, they have been replaced by game machines.

HeartGold and SoulSilver

Only Japanese copies of HeartGold and SoulSilver have slot machines; in international releases, the Game Corner hosts a game called Voltorb Flip instead.

Slot machines in the remakes of the second generation games play differently than in their originals. Pressing A stops the reels from left to right; however, the Control Pad controls both coin insertion and reel starting. Additionally, slot machine payouts can actually vary per machine, and are typically more in line with the Sinnoh games as opposed to the original Generation II games.

As players use the slot machine, a Smeargle depicted on the top screen and seen painting can change the background of the top screen's monitor, and any change in background changes slot effects. A green background signals normal play, a red background signals that it's easier to obtain a 7 or Poké Ball, and a blue background signals that it's easier to obtain a Pikachu or Marill.

Smeargle has an 8-bit signed integer mood value, which starts at 0. When at 0 or lower, the mood value increases by 1 with each spin unless a winning combination occurs. When the mood value is positive, it will increase by a varying amount whenever two Poké Balls or two 7's line up on the first two reels, but the third reel stops in a way that results in a loss. Its mood value must be positive for a background change to occur; the higher its mood value, the more likely a background change will occur. After a background change, its mood value will reset to a random negative value, usually between -1 and -15. Smeargle will pop up thought balloons depending on its mood value after each spin, unless its mood value is 0.

The jackpot for three 7's is 100 + 2x, while the jackpot for three Poké Balls is 100 + x, where x starts at 0, may increase whenever a non-jackpot symbol is lined up, and resets to 0 after every bonus game.

A bonus game is started by winning a jackpot. Lining up three 7's starts a 15-round bonus game, while three Poké Balls will trigger an 8-round bonus. In this bonus game, players attempt to perfectly line up a randomly chosen one of Johto's starter Pokémon, and the machine may provide some assistance. Bonus game payouts vary depending on success, as well as the slot machine's speed during bonus games. At the end of a bonus game, the background automatically becomes red. This lets players "chain" together jackpots and bonus games; however, the bonus game difficulty increases (up to a maximum) with each chained jackpot.

The payout for each success in a bonus game is 20 + d * Floor(n / 2) coins, where n is the number of previous successes in the current game and d is 1, 2, or 3, based on the difficulty setting for the current bonus game (the harder, the higher the value). The maximum possible bonus win (not counting the 15 or 8 coins spent) is 447 coins for a 15-round bonus, or 196 for an 8-round bonus. At the end of the bonus game, Smeargle's mood value is set to -n.

In Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD

Slot machines also appear in Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, in the room at Realgam Tower that would house Battle Bingo in the latter game; however, the slot machines in these games are not interactable, simply decorative, probably due to the fact that the Coin Case does not exist in those games.

In the anime

Typical slot machines have only appeared in the backdrop of Neon Town in The Song of Jigglypuff. There, one slot machine was shown to stop on two Vulpix symbols and then a Psyduck symbol.

However, a slot machine of a different variety is an integral part of a standard Professor Oak's lecture, displaying Pokémon silhouettes prior to the featured Pokémon being revealed.

In the TCG

The following is a list of cards named Arcade Game.

Related cards Cards listed with a blue background are only legal to use in the current Expanded format. Cards listed with a green background are legal to use in both the current Standard and Expanded formats.
Card	Type	English Expansion	Rarity	#	Japanese Expansion	Rarity	#
Arcade Game	T	Neo Genesis		83/111	Gold, Silver, to a New World...

Trivia

• The reels do not always stop exactly when the player presses "A". Sometimes they will slip one or two symbols to get another symbol aligned with the first and second reels (and therefore pay out a prize), but following Japanese slot machine regulations, they will never slip for more than 0.19 seconds (four symbols).^[1] They will also slip to avoid paying the Jackpot (and any other prizes) too often, but will also slip in favor of the Jackpot on certain spins. They appear to slip far less often in FireRed and LeafGreen.
• In Generation IV, the bonus round of the slot machines come more into alignment with the actual Japanese slot machine laws^[1]. No payout lower than the big bonus is higher than 15 coins in these games, and for the big bonus, there is a bonus round where the coins come out 15 at a time.
  • Also, the reels in these games will slip for longer than 0.19 seconds in certain scenarios, such as the bonus round.
• The reel time featured in Generation III slot machines is also a real feature on Japanese slot machines. The maximum bonus is 660 coins, which falls in between the 400 to 711 coins mentioned in the Wikipedia article. However, unlike real Japanese slot machines, these payouts come all at once, instead of 15 coins at a time.^[1]
• Like in real Japanese game parlours, some machines have much better odds than others.

References