Slot machines are the most popular gambling game in most United States casinos, but the number of players who really understand how they work is terribly small.
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Playing with your slots club card decreases your chances of winning. The theory is that the casinos want you to win less in order to recoup the perks and rebates that you receive from playing with the slot machine club. The reality is that the amount of money returned is negligible, and the casinos don’t mind paying it. Slot machines with low betting values will help you conserve money and play longer. For example, rather than betting $20 on each spin, you can bet as low as $.01. With only $10, you could last over an hour without hitting any winning combinations.
The purpose of this post is to explain what slot machines are and how they work in language anyone can understand.
Frankly, I think most people who understand how slot machines really work avoid playing them. And I think some of the people who play slot machines and think those games are cheating are daft in their reasoning, too.
If you pay attention to what I’ve written in this post, you’ll know the truth about slot machines.
And when you know the truth, you can make a decision about whether to play as an educated person instead of as a rube.
Modern slot machines are powered by computers and electronic devices, but that wasn’t always so. Understanding how those computers and electronics produce results requires some understanding of the history of slot machines and how they worked in the past.
What makes a slot machine a slot machine is the presence of spinning reels with symbols on them. Early version of slot machines used actual physical reels, springs, and gears to create random results.
On the front of these machines was a window with a horizontal line across it. This represented the “payline.” If symbols lined up and matched on the payline, you won a prize amount.
At first this was money, but eventually, slots were outlawed. Many bar and pub owners replaced the monetary prizes with fruit-flavored candy and sticks of candy to get around the new laws.
The traditional, classic symbols on slot machine reels are still based on those older machines. This is why you find so many slot machines with cherries, apples, and bars on them. (The bars represent sticks of gum.)
The early slot machines used the same strategy to make money in the long run that modern slot machines do. They gave you odds of winning that weren’t commensurate with the payout amount.
This is best explained using some mathematical examples.
Let’s say you have a simple 3-reel slot machine game with 10 symbols on each reel. This slot machine only has 1 winning combination, too, and it costs $1 per spin to play.There are 1000 possible combinations of symbols on a 3-reel slot machine of that description, but only one of them is a possible winner.
If that winning combination pays off 950 for 1, the casino has a clear advantage, right?
Over 1000 spins, you’ll lose $1000, but on that single winning spin, you’ll win $950 of it back. You’ll lose $50.
That is, of course, a theoretical result based on long-term mathematical expectations. In the short run, anything can and often will happen when you’re playing slots.
And real slot machines are more robust than that. They have more winning combinations with lower prize amounts, but all the prize amounts multiplied by all the probabilities of winning always result in a number less than 100%.
That number is called the payback percentage.
Modern slot machines use the same kind of math and game-play, but instead of using a complicated system of gears and stops, they use computer programs to create the same kind of odds. This has perks for the player, but it has drawbacks, too.
On a traditional mechanical slot machine, the probabilities are straightforward. If you have 10 different symbols, the probability of that symbol showing up on a payline in a spot is 1/10.
With a computerized slot machine, the designers can use any kind of weighting that they want to. One symbol might be programmed to show up 1/20 of the time, while another might be programmed to show up 1/5 of the time.
You have no way of knowing or estimating what the probability is, either.
To make things even more interesting, 2 identical slot machines might have different programming “under the hood.”
You might be playing The Price Is Right slot machines at a casino and be facing a 95% payback percentage.
You might switch to the same game at the same stakes at the machine next to it and be facing a payback percentage of 85%. There’s no way to tell the difference.
This change in the way the games work enables casinos to offer larger jackpots than they would be able to offer otherwise.
But you trade transparency for that.
I prefer to play games where I can figure out how much of a mathematical disadvantage I have.
That’s impossible with most modern slot machine games.
Random Number Generator Programs and Why Slot Machines Don’t Cheat
The computer program that powers these results is called a random number generator. That’s almost always referred to by an acronym of “RNG.”
It’s a simple enough computer program. It’s just a program that continually thinks of numbers—thousands of them per second. When you press the spin or stop button on a slot machine, the computer program stops on one of those numbers.
That number corresponds to a combination on the reels of the machine.
The outcome has been determined by the computer program before the reels stop spinning.
This doesn’t mean that the machine is cheating. You’re not more likely to lose after a winning streak, and you’re not more likely to win after a losing streak. Every spin of the reels is an independent event.
The difference between the odds of winning and the payout odds for each bet is what creates an edge for the house. Cheating isn’t necessary for the casinos or the slot machine designers.
The math takes care of that for them.
I have a paranoid friend who literally believes the world is flat. He also thinks slot machines are rigged.
He’s wrong about both, but he’s less wrong about the slot machines.
They ARE rigged, mathematically, by providing payouts that are lower than the odds of winning.
But they work honestly in terms of providing completely random results and independent trials. In fact, in any jurisdiction where such games are legal, they’re heavily regulated, inspected, and audited.
Casinos make more money from slot machines than they’d probably make with a printing press that printed new money in that same amount of floor space.
The Difference between Short Term Results and Long Term Expectations
The mathematical examples I’ve used assume you’re interested in predicting results in the long run. That’s the entire point of gambling math as it relates to probability.
But long term expectations have little to do with what happens in the short run.
The long run can be defined as an infinite number of bets. Every bet you place brings you closer to the long run, but you’ll never get there.
The Law of Large Numbers is a mathematical principle that says the more independent trials you run, the closer you’ll get to the theoretical expectation.
In the short term, though, you’re possibly going to win. I’ve seen surveys that showed that roughly 20% of the gamblers at a casino leave with some winnings in their pocket on any given visit. The casinos don’t mind. In fact, they’re counting on it.
If no one ever won, people wouldn’t play. And without gamblers, casinos make no money and can’t stay in business.
My best advice to someone who’s playing slot machines is to not spend much time in front of them. If you get a reasonable sized win when you sit down, be willing to quit and walk away.
The longer you play, the more likely you are to see results that mirror the long term expectation.
Your goal should be to take advantage of those short term aberrations called luck or deviation. You can’t count on that in any given situation,
The longer you play, the more your results are going to resemble the mathematically expected results.
And with a negative expectation game like a slot machine, you’re going to lose all your money if you play long enough. That’s how a negative expectation gambling game works.
What about the Other Bells and Whistles on Modern Slot Machine Games?
When I use the expression “bells and whistles,” I’m talking about features of slot machine games other than the standard 3 spinning reels. Some of these additions and changes are complicated, but some of them are simplicity itself to understand.
One example of a bell and whistle is the number of reels on a slot machine game. Traditional slot machines just had 3 reels, and one of the reasons for that was the size of the reels and the machine that housed them.
The number of symbols also used to depend on the size of the reels—the smaller the reels, the fewer symbols you can print on them.
Additional paylines are another bell and whistle on most modern slot machines. The traditional machine just has a payline horizontally across the center, but modern slot machines have various patterns similar to the various patterns you might use on bingo cards.
They might run diagonally, or they might run in a zig zag pattern.
To activate multiple paylines, you must make multiple bets. Each payline gets activated by a wager, and the payout is based on the combination that appears on that line and the wager on that line only.
On larger machines with lots of paylines, you can win on multiple paylines but still be a net loser. For example, if you bet a nickel on each of 20 paylines, you’ll have put an entire dollar in action. If one of those paylines wins for 50 cents, you’ve still lost 50 cents on the game.
But the slot machine still lights up and shows you the payout as if you were a net winner.
Wild symbols are another example of a bell and whistle on a modern slot machine. If you’ve played cards, especially poker, you are probably already familiar with the concept of a wild symbol.
It’s a symbol that can be used to complete any winning combination. It acts as a replacement for the symbol that you needed to make that combination.
Scatter symbols are a little more confusing, but they’re similar to wild symbols. A scatter symbol is one that doesn’t have to be on a payline to trigger a payoff. You just need enough of those scatter symbols to show up somewhere on the screen at once.
Many times, on a 5-reel machine, you’ll get a payoff if 3 scatter symbols or more show up from left to right. They don’t need to be along a payline or anything like that. They can literally be “scattered” across the screen.
Sometimes scatter symbols and/or wild symbols trigger bonus games or free spins. Free spins are a simple enough concept to understand—they’re just extra spins on the reels that you don’t have to pay for.
On some machines, they’re always winning spins—the only thing in question is how much you’re going to win on each spin.
Bonus games can be more interesting, but they’re almost always entirely random. Often the bonus games involve choosing from a video display of multiple boxes or treasure chests. Depending on which one you choose, you get a prize amount.
There’s no skill involved in these kinds of bonus games.
Slot machine designers are now experimenting with design elements that borrow from video games like Space Invaders, though. If you get a certain number of symbols, you can trigger a bonus game, and the amount you win from that bonus game might depend on how many aliens you can shoot from the skies overhead.
Slot Machine Strategies and Systems Don’t Work, So Don’t Even Bother
If I could teach you only one thing about slot machine games, it’s this:
They’re entirely random. Each spin is an independent event. This means that what’s happened on previous spins has no effect on what’s going to happen on a subsequent spin. Most strategies and systems assume that the previous spins have some relationship to subsequent spins.
I once read an entire book of slot machine systems that were supposed to help you win at slots. The guy who wrote it was a total cornball. I’m not even going to mention the name of the book or the author here.
I will describe what he suggested, though. His first piece of advice was to track how many “naked pulls” you’ve had in a row.
A naked pull on a slot machine is one that results in no winnings at all.
His advice was to switch machines any time you get 5 or 7 naked pulls in a row. (I don’t remember the exact number, but it was something arbitrary like that.)
The idea behind this advice is that any machine which hasn’t paid out in the last 5 or 7 spins must be running cold, so you should find a machine that’s NOT running cold.
He also offered advice about setting loss limits and win goals. This idea has some merit, but not much.
A loss limit is the amount of your session bankroll that you’re willing to lose before walking away from a game. 20% is a commonly suggested number. So if you put $100 in a slot machine game and lost $20, you’d cash out and walk away for that session.
A win goal is just the opposite. It’s an amount that you will win which will signal that it’s time to quit playing. You might have a 20% win goal, too, which means that once you’re up to $120, you’ll call it a day for that playing session.
This can help you avoid having huge losing sessions. It can also help you have book occasional winning sessions.
What it doesn’t do is change the odds in your favor in any way. In the long run, you should think of playing slot machine games as one long game that lasts for the rest of your life.
Eventually the odds are going to even out to a point where you see the kind of results the math would predict, regardless of what happens during those individual sessions.
I’ll confess that when I play slot machines, I do use a variation of this strategy. My loss limit, though, is always 100% of the amount I put in the machine. I either want to hit my win goal or lose all my money trying.
That’s as effective as any other loss limit, but people never suggest that.
Raising and lowering the sizes of your bets don’t change the odds on the machines, either. Don’t pay attention to any advice which suggests otherwise.
Other Lame Pieces of Slot Machine Strategy Advice You’ve Probably Heard (Or Will Hear)
One of my favorite pieces of advice from slot machine gurus is to try to find loose slot machines on the ends of the rows of slots at the casinos.
The idea is that the casino managers put the loose machines there to attract more customers.
You’ll find superstitious types who believe that playing with you slot machine card inserted is also a mistake. They think having the card inserted makes it impossible to win.
They don’t understand how the computer programs in question work at all. They’re not connected. The random number generator determines the results of each spin. The card reader just tracks how much money you’ve put into action.
The 2 have no relation to each other.
In fact, it makes no sense that a casino would want to discourage you from using the card reader. They have a slots club for a reason—they want to encourage people to play at their casino.
In the long run, the math behind their games ensures them a healthy profit. They count on a percentage of their gamblers going home a winner.
They also want their gamblers to take advantage of the free stuff they’re earning with their slot machine club cards, because that means it’s working. It’s motivating them to play more.
Why Almost Every Other Game in the Casino Is Better than Slot Machines
The traditional way that gambling experts measure one casino game against the other is by comparing the house edge. The higher the house edge, the more the casino expects to win over time on average for each bet you place.
Slot machines generally have the highest house edge in the casino. Some of them might be exceptional, but you have no means of comparing them, because a slot machine is like a black box. You put money in and get money back.
Compare that to a video poker game, where you can calculate the payback percentage based on the probability of getting specific poker hands against the payout for those hands.
Since those games use a 52-card deck to determine your probabilities, it’s a simple enough matter to compare one video poker game to another.
Table games make it even easier to compare house edge figures.
But even if a slot machine had the same house edge as all the other games (or lower), it’s still one of the fastest-playing games in the casino. An average slot machine gambler makes 600 spins per hour.
This means slots players are putting more money into action and losing more money over time as a result.
Finally, slot machines are proven to have an addictive effect on the human brain. Addiction is bad. Alcohol can be fun. Some drugs can be fun, too.
But addiction takes something that would otherwise be fun and turns it into something that’s NOT fun.
Slot machines are the most popular games in the casinos, but that’s only because most gamblers are stunningly ignorant of how they work. You don’t have that excuse any more.
Playing on a slot machine can be tricky business. If you are in the initial stages of the game or a novice then you might need time to get familiar with the machine.
It is sometimes hard to decipher how to win on slot machines every time. This article can help you in finding a winning slot machine.
Every gambler looks for ways to trick casinos so that they can make the most on slot machines.
One of the toughest parts is to listen to the advice and sit through the good and bad. A number of casinos remain open to entertaining people. Many people are now pro at gambling and know tricks to win at slot.
You may have a plethora of options when it comes to choosing a casino. These top 7 qualities should help you in finding the best casino.
Before we go any further, you need to learn about the slot machine.
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What is a Slot Machine?
Having three or more spinning reels, slot machines are gambling games. The reels have symbols that spin and randomly form a combination once a player has placed a bet.
When numbers are lined up in a sequence, it determines wins. These are called pay lines. An amount is then given according to the wager.
Useful Casino Tips to Win Slots
How to win at slots can sometimes be tricky. One of the tips that must be followed is to spend a substantial amount of time in order to get to know the machine and its pattern.
The question, however, remains how much time to spend at slot machines?
Keep reading to find some useful tips to win slots.
1. Highest Payouts Slot Machine
One of the mistakes that beginners make when they go online to win money is choosing the wrong slot machine. This might seem obvious but many tend to overlook it.
If you want to learn how to win on slot machines every time then you must choose the one that pays higher than other machines.
Return to the player that is RTP should be higher.
In order to find RTP, the easiest option would be searching for it online. Many websites are reviewing casino games and you can find one.
2. Volatility of Slots
Volatility is an important factor when you have to pick a winning slot machine. This is also referred to as variance and or risk level.
It determines the level of risk that is involved while playing for real money. This also determines your winning probability.
If volatility is low then it means that you will win frequently. With high volatility, the wins are rare but they will be bigger than the low ones.
Slots that have high volatility are often exposed to risks as you are unable to determine the lucky spin to win money.
If you have not found a way how to tell if a slot machine is ready to pay then do not jump to a hasty decision. Spending all the money on gambling is not a good idea. These 10 tips can help you to avoid spending all your money gambling.
3. Disregard the Obvious Option
Online gambling is becoming a serious phenomenon that has made its strong presence recently. Online gambling is another way how to win at slots. There is a myth that is associated with online gambling which requires one to increase stakes to win the jackpot.
The truth of this myth can be determined here.
No matter how impressive an online casino is, they still are after your money. There are all legal and legit but you need to know how to tell if a slot machine is ready to pay.
You need to dig deeper in order to reach the winning slot. For this, you need to consider the slots that are not promoted. Check the ones that are on the third or fourth page.
4. Go for Smallest Jackpots
In order to have the best chances to win the slots choose the smallest jackpots. The smaller is the jackpot, the higher the chances would be to win the game.
It takes so much time to create huge jackpots and as a result, you lose. This is the reason that you should stick to the smaller returns.
5. Do not go for Video Reels
Slot machines with video reels might look impressive but they pay less than the normal machines.
There is a reason why such slot machines pay less. Videos take long to display and while this is going on, the casino is not making money. This is the reason that such a slot machine is designed in a way that takes the money from players who are playing.
This is the reason that you should stay in the classic slot machine in order to get a big return.
6. Trust the Feedback/Other Players
This might not work when you are playing poker but for online gambling, you can trust other players. If the casino tries to trick you, other players can call it out. This is the reason that you should always check the reviews and ratings in order to find the truth about the game.
This would also tell you about the experience of the other players.
These are some of the tips that can help you in increasing the probability of your win. Your guide to gambling in Oz can help you in increasing your winning probability.
Manipulating slot machines in the past have questioned the probability of winning. Many players find it hard to believe if it is possible. However, with practice and familiarity, it is possible to manipulate slots.
Facts About Slot Games
You might be able to find how to win at slot games but at times you need to be aware of its working as well. If you are a frequent visitor to casinos then you must be familiar with the game and its rules.
There are some interesting facts about slot games that you must know.
Some of them are given below:
- The software for casino games is designed in a way that the mobile users experience the same version as they do while using a desktop.
- The user interface is kept simple with clear instructions. With a new slot comes with a new interface and design. This is the reason that they need to make a slot that in understandable and user-friendly.
- It is safe to play slots using mobile phones. They have a very strict security system that keeps your phone secured. The team would inform you as soon as any suspicious activity would take place from your account.
- Each slot is a machine is different. They might look the same on the outside but inside there is something that makes them different. A slot machine can hit the jackpot twice within the same time period.
- You cannot find any special technique or way to hit the spinner. Each move by the gambler would not affect the way in which the slot moves.
- There is also a myth that is associated with a hot coin. It is not true that a hot coin would affect the slot machine’s action.
These are some of the interesting facts that are not widely known. People tend to believe the myths that have been created over the past years.
Each machine is different and you should be familiar with its working.
Being familiar would help you in making the pattern work. You can win on slots. You need to keep in mind the tricks and tips that have been told.
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These are enough to help you in making a winning slot. So make sure you do your homework before showing up at a gambling game.
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How to Win on Slot Machines Every Time: Pick the Right Slot Machine
Now that you know so much about the slot machine, you should be able to pick the right one. This might be a tricky step but once you are through it you might know how to tell if a slot machine is ready to pay.
This article has made it easy for you to learn how to win on slot machines every time. Learn the tips and tricks so that you can hit the jackpot. With these aforementioned tips, you might be able to win the big hit.
Wouldn’t it be nice to win BIG?
To find the latest articles and features that cover the whole gambling industry in Australia, check out our other blogs posts.