How to Win at Penny Slots: Don't Play Them

I hear them before I see them every time I hit the casino.

Penny Slots.

Small in denomination and numerously scattered around the floor, penny slot machines have an alluring appeal of offering high pay outs with only a few pennies at stake. Some machine boast jackpots of 5,000 credits. While 5,000 credits is nothing to sneeze at when dealing with $1 slot machines, $.01 slot machines usually boil that amount to about $50-almost enough for a Las Vegas show. Given my phenomenal luck with quarter and dollar slot machines but a lack of funds to actually do damage to either slots, I decided to analyze myself playing penny slots at a few casinos just to see whether my luck would break a few of them.

Penny slots aim to convince players that they can go through their money slower than nickel, quarter, or dollar slots. Instead of pulling a dollar slot once, the theory is that penny slots allow players to blow through that same dollar in about 100 pulls. Immediately that theory is bullocks upon actually looking at a penny slot machine. The orthodox slot machine had one payline and only required one credit of the stated denomination. Penny slots feature several paylines and require players to pay at least one penny per payline. So instead of just a penny per pull, it is really $.10 to $.40 just to get things started. Then the slot machines entice players to multiply their lines of bets for a chance of more money and to qualify for special features or jackpots. I have seen machines require a risk of 10 lines at 40 times the bet to qualify for the jackpot, which means it is $4 per pull!

Winning on any slot machine is already based on blind luck. Penny slots do pay, but often very little. In fact, it is hard to win at penny slots-players just lose at a slower rate when the slot does pay. I often saw myself winning 25 credits after playing 160. All it does is entice me to keep on playing hoping to hit it big. The little rewards can be effective at reeling players to play more. But all it does is delay how long it takes to lose all the penny credits deposited into the slot machine. At least with quarter or dollar slots, the winnings-though rare as well-actually are winnings.