After casually stringing Qianhuan along for a couple of sentences, Li Nian smoothly pushed the second chip into the slot machine and pulled the lever.
"Beep beep beep—"
The slot machine once again played its cheerful sound effect. The decorative bulbs beside it flickered as the reels spun rapidly.
Icons flashed past one after another. Lin Yu watched the slot machine's reels absentmindedly, then quickly furrowed his brows.
"Something's wrong."
Lin Yu spoke in a low voice.
"What's wrong?"
Li Nian tilted her head toward Lin Yu and asked in confusion.
Lin Yu pointed at the still-spinning reels and said, "This machine has five reels. Based on the arc of each icon and the overall size of the reels, there should be thirteen icons on each row: twelve icons consisting of six different fruits—two apples, bananas, peaches, oranges, lemons, and pears each—and one classic 'red seven'... But the order is wrong."
"These reels aren't electronically simulated. They're genuinely mechanical structures rotating, so the order of the patterns should be fixed."
"But... the order changes every time they spin—for example, on the first reel, the icons next to the red seven one turn were a lemon and a pear, while the turn before that, they were an orange and a peach."
As Lin Yu spoke, Li Nian suddenly understood. "So... this mechanical reel, which shouldn't have changing pattern sequences, is somehow changing the order of its patterns!"
"In other words... there's something strange about this slot machine!"
As Li Nian spoke, Lin Yu nodded. "That's right."
Hearing Lin Yu confirm it, Li Nian grew indignant. "Then why play at all? That lousy casino rigged this mechanism to deliberately lower the payout rate, didn't it? Slot machines already have terrible expected returns and low winning odds. If they're doing this too, can