Q&A with director of casino operations for Chukchansi Tribe

So how do you know when a machine is likely to be a winner?

It all comes down to finding and playing the machine at exactly the right time. Guests on a daily basis ask me, ‘Which machine is hot or a winner?’ My response is always, ‘All of them.’ The challenge is finding that winning machine.

Why play Indian casinos if you have no idea what the payout is?

There’s a perception out there that games could be cheated and the casino might be cheating guests and you can’t win here. But you can win. We can’t put a machine on the floor unless it’s laboratory-tested and approved. On Saturday nights, traditionally our busiest, we get several thousand customers, and we had a wheel of fortune hit here for $250,000 a few months ago.

So players are a factor on payouts?

The customer dictates how the machines pay. If the slots are too tight, people are not going to come here and play. We have to have a payout percentage comparable to other facilities. Normally, penny slot machines are tighter; higher denominations get looser. All of that is determined by the customer and how competitive the industry wants to be.