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Atlassino Academy · Slots · Lesson 9

Electronic table games

Some tables run on terminals: the same games, read off a screen instead of a sign. What the rule book says a screen must show before your first bet.

  • About 19 minutes
  • Illustrated hosts: Leo and Maya
  • Last checked 27 October 2026

You sit down where a table used to be. In front of you there is a screen, and beside the seat there is no little sign. What do the rules in Chile say that screen has to show you, and how is the result of a round decided?

The short answer

The national catalogue of games counts an electronic table as a slot machine, so the rules for slot machines apply to it. Every combination that pays and the rules of the game have to be on the machine at all times, in Spanish. A terminal that plays a game you know, roulette or blackjack or poker, has to keep the odds of the live game unless its pay glass says otherwise. And where several terminals share one game, one draw decides the round and the result is the same on every screen. None of it says anything about the round to come.

  • What each result paysOn the machine, at all times
  • The rules of the gameOn the machine, in Spanish
  • What a feature or bonus doesExplained on the machine’s own artwork
  • Your credits, bets, prizes and payoutsOn the screen, in credits or in money
Leo touches one of three buttons on the front of an electronic table terminal while Maya looks at the panel open on its screen, which shows four rows of a plain symbol beside a plain bar, and an empty sign stand holds no card on the rail beside them.
Leo smiling, explaining with an open hand.

Leoformer dealer · rules and maths

I dealt at a table for years, and then the table went. The seats around it came back as screens, and people sat down at them the way you sit down at a bus stop — fast, and without reading anything.

Everything my little sign used to say is still there. It is one layer further in, behind a button somebody has to press, and nobody is standing in front of it to tell you that you have not pressed it.

What an electronic table is

The national catalogue of games lists the electronic table among the kinds of slot machine, under two names. A video version of a live game is a video simulation of a game that is usually played live, such as roulette or blackjack, and it may include an electro-mechanical part such as a real roulette wheel. A multi-position machine ties several terminals to one central computer: one or more players bet from the terminals on the same round, the central computer runs the game, and it produces a single result, the same for everyone taking part. The catalogue gives electronic roulette as its example. Either way, from the moment you load credits, you bet by touching the glass.

A credit is a count, not an amount of money: what one credit is worth was set inside the machine, and turning credits into money is the arithmetic of lesson 2.1.

RouletteBets open

  • Minimum, per bet1 unit
  • Wheel0
  • Straight up35 to 1
  • Credits120
PAYTABLEGAME RULES

An example screen, drawn by our code: no casino’s artwork and no product’s interface.

  • The headThe name of the game, and whether betting is open. At a live table the same words run across the head of the little sign.
  • The linesThe smallest bet and what a result pays. Each is a figure that belongs to this screen and to no other.
  • CreditsWhat your money is counted in until you cash out, unless the screen counts in money.
  • The buttonsThe paytable and the rules of the game sit behind them, and pressing them costs nothing and starts no round.

What the screen has to show you

The regulator’s guide to slot machines puts it plainly: players learn how to play, and what the prizes are, from the instructions on the machine itself, and those instructions always have to be in Spanish. The technical standard adds that every combination that pays and the rules of the game have to be available at all times, even between games, and that the artwork has to explain the rules of any feature or bonus. The counts that belong to you — the credits bet, the credits won, the credits paid and the credits available — have to be on the screen as well, in credits or in money, where you can see them clearly.

At a live table the same information is split between a small sign, the cloth and a person. At a screen it is in one place, and free to read while you are still standing up.

One result, and the odds of the live game

A machine that plays a simulation of a live game — poker, blackjack, roulette — has to show the same odds as the live game, unless the pay glass or another display says otherwise. And as a slot machine it is held to the same minimum return as every other machine on the floor.

On a multi-position machine one random number generator decides the round, and its result is the same on every screen. After the result has been picked, the machine may not make a second, variable decision that changes the result you are shown. And each round stands on its own: its result is independent of the round before it and of the round after.

Whatever a screen shows of finished rounds, nothing in it is about the round to come. What you staked two rounds ago is a number to keep yourself, and losing track of it is the ordinary way an evening gets away from someone.

Who runs the game

The catalogue describes a machine whose game is run automatically by its central computer. That is a description of a kind of machine, not of every seat you will meet. 2 of the 20 casinos we list name an electronic table on their own website. What the quoted words give is the name of the game. They do not say whether a real wheel turns behind the screen, so that is a question for the room.

Maya smiling, explaining with an open hand.

Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks

At a live table something interrupts you every few minutes whether you want it or not, and half the people who leave on time leave because the shoe ran out and they took the hint.

At a screen the hint never comes. So name the round you are going to stand up on before you sit down.

If it stops being fun

If gambling stops being fun, the SCJ self-exclusion applies in every casino in the country. Minimum entry age: 18 (age of majority under Law 19.221; Law 19.995 bars minors from gaming rooms). The casino may ask for an official ID. More on responsible gaming.

Show all regions
+56 2 2589 3000All regions · Superintendencia de Casinos de Juego — Central Telefónica

Practice: read the screen

Two levels. Nothing here spins, nothing is staked and there is no balance: a screen has no decisions left in it once the bet is down, so the practice stops where the round starts. Level 1 puts one line of a screen in front of you and asks what that line decides — 3 moments. Level 2 is the one decision the screen never makes for you, and it is not scored.

Every square on the strip below is one of the scored moments, and they are all there from the start. Only your first answer on each one counts, and when the squares are full the second level begins by itself.

The practice table needs JavaScript. Here is one moment from it, with the answer.

Level 1

RouletteBets open

  • Minimum, per bet1 unitthis line
  • Straight up35 to 1
  • Credits120

An example screen, drawn by our code: no casino’s artwork and no product’s interface.

What does the highlighted line decide?

The answer: The least this screen takes for one bet.

The smallest bet belongs to the screen in front of you. Read the line before you put anything down, because the smallest bet is what decides whether your bet is taken at all.

Level 2

RouletteReady for the next round

An example screen, drawn by our code: no casino’s artwork and no product’s interface.

The round is over and the screen is ready for the next one. What happens now?

The answer: You name the round you will stand up on, and stand up on it.

There is no scoring here and no right answer. A live table has a rhythm you cannot argue with: the shuffle, the change of dealer, the minutes it takes to pay the person beside you. A terminal that runs without an operator has none of those, so the pause has to come from you.

Every moment works the same way: a screen, one question about it, and an answer that comes from the screen or from what the casino publishes about that game.

How the practice works

Where the answers come from. On level 1 the answer is in the screen itself: a line says what it says. Level 2 has no right answer and no squares.

What the screens are. Ours, drawn by code. No casino’s artwork, no product’s interface, no logos. Every amount on them is an invented example, not a figure from a casino.

One strip, no rounds. Every square is one moment, and they are all there from the start. Your first answer fills the square; practising a mistake turns a cross into “fixed in practice” and does not change the count. Progress stays in this browser; nothing is sent anywhere.

Check yourself

Maya with a finger raised and a knowing look.

Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks

Five quick ones. Pick an answer, then check it. No timer, no points: just whether it stuck.

A question marked “New situation” asks you to use the lesson on a case it did not show.

1A terminal plays roulette, and there is no wheel to look at. What odds should a bet on it carry?

Show the answer

Answer: The odds of the live game, unless the pay glass or another display says otherwise. The terminal simulates a table; the rule makes it keep what the table had.

  • The odds of the live game, unless the pay glass or another display says otherwise The rule asks that a machine playing a simulation of a live game show the same odds as the live game. If a terminal departs from them, that belongs on the pay glass, in front of you, before the bet.
  • Worse odds, to pay for the screen Nothing in the rule lets the cost of the equipment into the odds. The odds are those of the live game, unless the pay glass says otherwise.
  • Better odds, because there is no wheel that could be uneven The rule asks for the odds of the live game, not for better ones. Taking the physical wheel away does not move the odds in either direction.
2You are at a screen and have not bet yet. What are you entitled to have in front of you already?

Show the answer

Answer: Every combination that pays and the rules of the game, in Spanish. The paytable is the first thing to open at a screen, because it tells you the price of the seat, and it is there for the asking before any money moves.

  • Every combination that pays and the rules of the game, in Spanish Both, at all times, and not only once the money is in. That is what makes a screen a sign and not a mystery.
  • What the game has paid out so far this evening No rule we read asks a screen to carry that, and a screen that did would be telling you about rounds that are over rather than about the price of the next one.
  • Nothing until you put credits in — the screen wakes up with your money It is the other way round: the combinations that pay and the rules have to be available at all times, even between games.
3Six people sit at the terminals of one electronic roulette. How many results does the round have?

Show the answer

Answer: One, and it is the same for every seat. One round, one draw, one result on every screen. What differs from seat to seat is the bets, and so what each seat is paid.

  • It depends on how much each person bet A bet decides what you are paid on the result, not which result comes up.
  • Six, one drawn for each seat That would be six machines, not one. The rule asks for one random number generator to decide the round of a multi-position machine.
  • One, and it is the same for every seat The central computer runs the game and produces a single result for everyone taking part.
4The terminal has picked the result of a round. What may it do next? new situation

Show the answer

Answer: Show it: it may not make a second, variable decision that changes the result you are shown. Picked first, shown after, and not touched in between.

  • Show it: it may not make a second, variable decision that changes the result you are shown The picked result is the result shown, and nothing is decided in between.
  • Draw again if the round looks too unlucky for the house A second draw after the first is a second decision. Results are picked once and are independent of one another.
  • Adjust it, so that a loss looks like a close call That is exactly the second decision the rule rules out.
5You are about to sit at a roulette screen, and the live wheel across the aisle takes a bet four times the size. Which is the cheaper hour? new situation

Show the answer

Answer: Those are two questions, and the screen answers only what one bet costs. The screen gives you the rate of payment, and that is genuinely useful. It does not give you how many rounds go by in an hour, so what an hour at one of these seats costs is not a figure the screen can hand you.

  • Those are two questions, and the screen answers only what one bet costs What one bet costs comes from the wheel and the rate of payment, and the screen prints the rates. What an hour costs also needs how many rounds go by in an hour, and no source we read gives that figure for a screen.
  • The screen, because the smaller bet makes the hour smaller A smaller bet placed more often is not automatically a smaller hour, and how often the rounds come round is exactly the figure we could not find.
  • The live wheel, because a machine is always dearer Nothing we read supports that. The rule asks for the odds of the live game on the terminal.

Back to the question we opened with. What each result pays and the rules of the game are on the machine at all times, in Spanish, and readable before you put anything down. The odds are those of the live game unless the pay glass says otherwise, and where several terminals share a game one draw serves every seat. The number of rounds you have left is a count you keep.

Where to check this

Where each game is played How many casinos name each game, with the sentence each figure comes from.

18+ across Chile · Play responsibly · self-exclusion and the regulator are at the end of this page

Further reading

  • Estándares para Máquinas de Azar · Superintendencia de Casinos de JuegoThe regulator’s technical standard for slot machines: the 85% minimum return, the random number generator and the ban on faking a near miss.
  • Funcionamiento de los juegos: Máquinas de azar · Superintendencia de Casinos de JuegoThe regulator’s plain-language page on slot machines: instructions in Spanish, minimum bets and independent results.
  • Preguntas frecuentes · Superintendencia de Casinos de JuegoThe regulator’s answer on slot odds: a minimum 85% return over about 100 million plays, and why it is not the chance of a prize.
  • Catálogo de Juegos · Superintendencia de Casinos de JuegoThe national catalogue of casino games: the kinds of slot machine it names, among them multi-position machines such as electronic roulette and video versions of live games.
  • PAR sheets, probabilities, and slot machine play · Kevin Harrigan and Mike Dixon, Journal of Gambling Issues (2009)What a manufacturer’s PAR sheet says about a machine: how often it pays, how much the payback swings, and the several versions of one game.
  • Key terms relating to live return to player performance monitoring of games of chance · UK Gambling CommissionA regulator’s definition of volatility: the standard deviation of the game, and what “very large but rare” and “small and often” prizes mean.

How it’s worked out

Sources, numbers and hosts

Where this happens. Every screen on this page is a terminal standing on the floor of a casino you can walk into. A live-dealer game you join from home is a different thing under a different book of rules. This page also prices no bets: what a roulette or baccarat bet costs belongs to the tracks of those games. What is here is the screen, and the minute before you touch it.

Sources. Three documents of the national regulator, quoted where they are used with their section and the date we read them: the catalogue of games, which counts multi-position machines and video versions of live games among slot machines; the technical standard for slot machines; and the regulator’s plain-language guide to them. None of the three has a chapter of its own for electronic tables: they are slot machines, and the rules for slot machines apply to them.

Numbers. The counts of casinos count quotes: a casino is counted when its own published words name an electronic table, never when our summary of them does. The amounts on the example screens are invented.

What is deliberately missing. How fast one of these screens runs, and whether a person or a real wheel is behind any seat in Chile. No source we read publishes rounds an hour for an electronic table, and none of the casinos we list says what stands behind one, so this page says nothing about the pace of one, and works out no cost per hour from it.

Hosts. Leo and Maya are illustrated characters. Their backstories, a former dealer and a former floor supervisor, are written for the course: neither is a real person, and neither speaks for any casino. The rules and numbers on this page come from the sources it cites, not from their experience.

No promise. Reading a screen makes the price of a seat known before you sit at it. It does not make the seat cheap, and nothing on this page says an evening at one is a good idea for you.

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