How to play slot machines (2023)

In the not too distant past, slots players were second-class citizens among casino patrons. The jackpots were small, the payout percentages were horrible, and slots players were simply not eligible for the kind of courtesy bonuses (free rooms, shows, meals) that table players are commonly given. But in recent decades, the face of the casino industrychange. Sports betting and internet gaming are growing rapidly and becoming a bigger part of casino revenue. But they are still no match for slot machines. While commercial casino gaming revenue declined in the US in 2020 due to the coronavirus disease pandemic, a large63 percentof those revenues came from electronic gaming devices and in many jurisdictions,that number is as high as 80 percent.(The American Gaming Association considers slot machines to be "electronic gaming devices" and includes video poker, instant races, and similar platforms in the category.)

Slots are more popular than table games for a reason. It's easy: just put coins in the slot and press the button or pull the handle. Newcomers may find personal interaction with dealers or other players at the tables intimidating; slots players avoid this. Also, the biggest casino life-changing jackpots are offered on the slots.

The following article will tell you everything you need to know about slots, from the basics to various strategies. We will start from scratch with an introduction to how the slot machine game works.

How to play

In the early days of slot machines, all games used mechanical reels. But now, most slot machines display reels on video screens, and often receive and deliver payouts via bills, coupons, and tickets rather than coins or tokens. Slot machines offer various denominations, where the denomination is the value of each credit played. There are games in penny, 2-cent, nickel, dime, quarter, dollar, and up to $100 denominations, and some machines allow players to choose which denomination they want to use. After paying the machine, your money is converted to credits. Slots can take 45, 90 and even 500 credits at a time.

Once payment is entered into the coin acceptor, the equivalent number of credits is displayed on a meter. On revolving slot machines, press a button marked "play one credit" until you reach the number of coins you want to play. Then press the "spin reels" button or pull the handle on the few slot machines that still have handles, or press a button marked "play max credits" or "max bet" which will play the maximum credits allowed per spin on that machine .

In video slots, press one button for the number of paylines you want to activate and a second button for the number of credits wagered per line. A common setup has nine paylines that you can bet on from 1 to 5 credits. Video slots are also available with5, 15, 20, 25 and up to 50 or more pay lines, accepting up to 25 credits per line.

The symbols that land on a payline determine whether a player wins. The classic symbols are cherries, bars, double bars (two bars stacked on top of each other), triple bars, and sevens. But there are many others, such as fruits, playing card symbols andimages based on the theme of the game.

A single cherry on the payline, for example, can return two credits; the player can get 10 credits for any three bars (a mix of bars, double bars and triple bars), 30 for single three bars, 60 for three double bars, 120 for three triple bars and the jackpot for three sevens. However, many of the stops on each reel will be blanks, and a combination that includes blanks pays nothing. Also, a seven is not just any bar, so a combination like bar-seven-double bar pays nothing.

video slot machineThey usually have representations of five spinning reels on a video screen, but there are slot machines with more reels. The paylines not only run on the reels, but also in V, inverted V, zigzag and other configurations on the screen. — In addition, video slots often feature bonus rounds and "scatter pays." Designated symbols trigger a scatter payout if two, three or more appear on the screen, even if they are not on the same payline.

Similarly, scatter symbols will trigger a bonus event. For example, the bonus can take the form of free spins, prize pick interactions, or mystery bonuses. The player may receive a "second screen" bonus. An example of a second screen bonus comes in the popular WMS Gaming “Jackpot Party” slot. If three party noisemakers appear on the video reels, the reels are replaced on screen by a grid of gift-wrapped packages. Players tap the screen to open a package and collect a bonus payment. They can keep tapping packs for more bonuses until a pack finally reveals a "pooper", which ends the round. These bonus rounds helped video slots grow in popularity, butthey are not so frequent nowadays, as game designers experiment with the format.

When you get a winning combination, the winnings will be added to the credit meter. If you want to cash out the credits shown on the meter, click the "Withdraw" button and most machines will print a barcoded ticket that can be redeemed for cash. In some older machines, the coins still drop into a tray.

slot machine label

Many slots players pump money into two or more adjacent machines at the same time, but if the casino is crowded and others are having trouble finding places to play, stick to one machine. As a practical matter, even with a few people, it is advisable not to play on more machines than you can easily keep an eye on. Play too much and you could find yourself in the situation faced by the woman who was working up and down a row of six slot machines. She tossed coins into machine number six, while machine number one down the aisle paid out a jackpot. There was nothing she could do when a passerby grabbed a handful of coins from the first tray.

Sometimes players who take a bathroom breaklean a chair against the machine, leave a coat on the chair, or leave some other sign that you'll be back. Watch out for these signs. A nasty matchup can ensue if you play on a machine that has already been re-staked.

Paid

Payout percentages, or the proportion of bets returned to players as winnings, have increased since casinos discovered that it is more profitable to have 5% of a dollar than 8% of a quarter or 10% of a nickel. In most of the country, slot machine players can expect around a93 percent payoutpercentage, although payments in Nevadarun higher— Note that these are long-term averages that will hold up over a sample of 100,000 to 300,000 pulls.

In the short term, anything can happen.It is not unusualGet 20 or 50 or more draws without a single payout on a revolving slot, though the payouts are more frequent on video slots. It's also not uncommon for a machine to pay out 150% or more for several dozen pulls. But, in the long term, the programmed percentages will be maintained.

Since earlier slot machines were mechanical, if you knew the number of stops (symbols or blank spaces that might land on the payline) on each reel, you could calculate the odds of hitting the biggest jackpot. If a machine had three reels, each with ten stops, and one symbol on each reel went to the jackpot, then three jackpot symbols would line up, on average, once every 10,310,310 draws, or 1,000 draws.

On these machines, the big payouts were $50 or $100, nothing like the big numbers slot machine players expect today. In systems that electronically link the machines of several casinos, progressive jackpots reachA million dollars.

The microprocessors that control today's machines are programmed with random number generators that control the winning combinations. It no longer matters how many stops are on each coil. If we equipped that old three-reel, ten-stop machine with a microprocessor, we could put ten jackpot symbols on the first reel, ten on the second, and nine on the third, and even program the random number generator so that three jackpots symbols aligned only once every 1,000 times, or 10,000 times. And in video slots, the reel strips can be programmed to be as long as necessary for the game odds to reach the desired percentage. They are not limited by a physical reel.

Each possible combination is assigned a number or numbers. When the random number generator receives a signal, from pressing a button to pulling a handle, it sets a number and the reels stop at the corresponding combination.

Among the signs, therandom number generatorit operates continuously, going through tens of numbers per second. This has two practical effects for slots players. First, if you walk out of a machine and see someone hit a jackpot right away, don't worry. To win the same jackpot, you would need the same fraction of a second as the winner. The odds are overwhelming that if you had stayed on the machine you would not have gotten the same combination.

Second, because the combinations are random, or as random as possible for the program to define, the chances of matching any particular combination are the same each draw. If a machine is programmed to pay out its jackpot once every 10,000 draws on average, your chances of hitting it are one in 10,000 on any given draw. If you have been inactive for days and played 10,000 times, the odds on the next draw will still be one in 10,000. These odds are long-term averages. In the short term, the machine could do 100,000 pulls without missing the big one, or it could pay off twice in a row.

So is there a way to ensure you win big on a slot machine? Not really, but despite the predominant elements of chance, there are some strategies you can employ. We will cover them in the next section.

Slots are the easiest casino games to play – spin the reels and take a chance. Players have no control over which combinations will appear or when a jackpot will be won. There is no way to know when a machine will be hot or cold. Still, there are some pitfalls. It is important to read the help window or menu and know what type of machine it is. The three main types ofrevolving slot machinesThey are the multiplier, the buy-a-pay and the progressive.

the multiplierIn a multiplier, the payouts are proportional to each coin played, except, in general, for the highest prize. If the machine accepts up to three credits at a time, and if you play one credit, three bars pay ten. Three bars will pay 20 for two credits and 30 for three credits. However, three sevens can pay out 500 for one credit and 1,000 for two, but jumps to 10,000 when all three credits are played. Read the glass to see if this is the case before playing less than the maximum coins on this type of machine.

Buy-un-paid.Never play less than the maximum on a pay buy, where each credit "buys" a set of symbols or a payline. The first coin can allow the player to win on the cherry combination alone, while the second coin triggers the bar payouts and the third coin triggers the sevens. Woe to the player who lands three jackpot symbols in a buy-a-pay with just one coin toss: the player gets nothing in return! A variation is the machine with multiple paylines, each activated by a separate credit. All symbols are active with each credit, but if a winning combination lines up on the third credit payline with only one or two credits played, the payout is zero.

The progressive.You also have no reason to play less than the maximum number of coins on a progressive machine. A player who finally lines up the jackpot symbols receives a percentage of each coin played. The first progressive machines were independent: the jackpot was determined by how much that particular machine had played since the last big hit. Today, most progressive machines are electronically linked to other machines, and all credits played on the linked machines add up to a common jackpot.

These jackpots can be huge - the record is$ 39.710.826,26,a $1 progressive in a Las Vegas casino. The downside is that the frequency and size of other payments are often smaller. And you can't win the big jackpot without playing the maximum number of credits.

If you must play less than the maximum credits, look for a multiplier where the final coin jump in the jackpot is fairly small. Better yet, choose a machine that allows you to stay within your budget while playing with maximum credits. If your budget won't allow you to play that many credits on a $1 machine, switch to a quarter machine. If you're not comfortable playing three quarters at a time, switch to a two-quarter machine. If you can't play two coins at once, play a slot machine.

With so many pay lines and the ability to wager multiple credits per line, video slots are different. Some penny slots with 20 pay lines accept up to 25 coins per line. That's a maximum bet of $5, quite a penny! Most players bet less than the maximum on video slots, but they will certainly cover all paylines, even if you only bet one credit per line. You want to make sure you're eligible for the bonus rounds that give video slots most of their fun. Some progressive jackpots require maximum bets and some do not. If a maximum bet is required to be eligible for the jackpot and you're not prepared to roll that high, look for a different machine.

Money Management

Managing your money wisely is the most important part of any casino game and also the most difficult part of playing slots. Even in the 25-cent machines, the amount of money involved adds up quickly. A dedicated slots player on a machine that plays with credits can easily get 600 spins per hour. In two rooms at once, that means betting $300 per hour, the same amount a $5 blackjack player risks at an average table speed of 60 hands per hour.

Most of this money is recycled from smaller payouts: at a casino that returns 93% on quarter slots, the average $300 expected loss on play is $21. .

One method of managing money is to divide your day slot balance into smaller session balances. If, for example, you took $100 on a two-and-a-half hour boat cruise, set aside $20 for every half hour. Select a 25 cent machine ($1 machines can devastate a $100 balance in minutes) and play $20 once. If you received more than $20 in payouts, save the excess and play with the original $20. At the end of the half hour, save what's left and start a new session with the next $20.

If, at any time, the original $20 for that session is depleted, that session will end. Finish that half hour with a walk, snack, or drink until it's time for another session. Don't wallow in the money you've already pocketed.

This may sound rigid, but players who don't use a money management technique very often keep pumping money into the machine until they lose their entire bankroll. The percentages guarantee that the casino will be the winner in the long run, but keep a portion of the money on the go and you will walk out of the casino with cash in hand more often.

There is much more to slot machines than meets the eye. But if you learn the ins and outs of playing them, you can use some strategies that can help you hit the jackpot.

Original Post: May 23, 2006