Many slot players pour money into two or more adjacent machines at once, but if the casino is full and others are having trouble finding a place to play, limit yourself to one machine. Practically,
Many slot players pour money into two or more adjacent machines at once, but if the casino is full and others are having trouble finding a place to play, limit yourself to one machine. Practically, even in a light crowd, it’s wise not to play more machines than you can easily monitor. If you play too much, you could end up in the situation of the woman working up and down a row of six slots. She tossed coins into machine number six, while number one, on the aisle, paid out a jackpot. She couldn’t do anything when a passerby scooped a handful of coins from the first tray.
Sometimes players taking a break before the rest area will have a chair tip against the machine, leave a jacket on the chair, or leave some other sign that they will be back. Watch out for these signs. A nasty confrontation can ensue if you’re playing a machine that’s already so turned off.
Payouts
Payout percentages, or the proportion of stakes returned to players as winnings, have risen since the casinos discovered that it is more profitable to keep 5 percent of a dollar than 8 percent of a quarter or 10 percent of a penny. In most of the country, slot machine players can expect a payout percentage of around 93 percent, although payouts are higher in Nevada. — Keep in mind that these are long-term averages that can withstand a sample of 100,000 to 300,000 pulls.
Anything can happen in the short term. It is not uncommon to make 20 or 50 or more pulls without a single payout on a spinning reel slot, although payouts are more common on video slots. It’s also not uncommon for a machine to pay back 150 percent or more for a few dozen pulls. But in the long run, the programmed percentages will hold.
Since previous slots were mechanical, if you knew the number of stops – symbols or empty spaces that could stop on the payline – on each reel, you would calculate the odds of hitting the highest jackpot. If a machine had three reels, each with ten stops, and one symbol on each reel was for the jackpot, then on average three jackpot symbols would line up, either once every 10,310,310 draws or 1,000 draws.
On those machines, the big payouts were $50 or $100 – nothing like the sheer numbers of slot machines players expect today. On systems that electronically link machines in different casinos, progressive jackpots reach millions of dollars.
Slot Machine Strategies
Slots are the easiest games in the casino to play — spin the reels and take your chance. Players have no control over which combinations will appear or when a jackpot will fall. There is no way to tell when a machine will be hot or cold. However, there are some pitfalls. It is important to read the glass or help menu and find out what type of machine it is. The three main types of reel-spinning slots are the multiplier, the buy-a-pay and the progressive.