Fortune Machine
A seaside-pier fortune machine, rescued and polished. Three drums of omen symbols, five lines to land them on, and a lever that has been pulled by a great many hopeful elbows.
The machine
Four-leaf clover
Crescent moon
Old brass keyCrescent moonFour-leaf clover
CrowOld brass keyFour-leaf cloverCrescent moon- Top row
- Middle row
- Bottom row
- Falling diagonal
- Rising diagonal
Stake: 10 coins (five lines)
Your coins: –
Choose a line stake and pull the lever.
How to play
- Pick 2, 5 or 10 coins per line. All five lines are always in play, so a pull costs five times that.
- Pull the lever. Each drum stops on a random position and shows three symbols.
- Three identical symbols along any of the five lines pays that symbol’s price, multiplied by your line stake. Lines that pay are drawn in mint.
- Only three of a kind counts. Two crystal balls and a clover is still a clover-shaped disappointment.
How it pays
| Symbol | Pays × line stake | Chance on a line |
|---|---|---|
 Crystal ball |
400 | 1 in 8,000 |
 Black cat |
90 | 1 in 1,000 |
| Crow |
75 | 1 in 1,000 |
| Old brass key |
40 | 1 in 296.30 |
| Crescent moon |
15 | 1 in 64 |
| Four-leaf clover |
8 | 1 in 23.32 |
We enumerated all 8,000 ways the three twenty-stop drums can come to rest, on all five lines. Together they pay back 37,095 line stakes for every 40,000 staked, an average return of 92.7375%. About 30.3% of pulls return something, and many of those return less than the five lines cost.