The Basics of Casino Slot Machines

It's pretty self-evident how slot machines work, and anyone of an age to read this should be familiar with the theory already. With most video machines now, there's usually five rows of five randomly generated symbols or numbers, and when you match a horizontal or diagonal row you win some sort of amount. What we're going to focus on is not the basic operations, but the dizzying array of different types of slot machines available, with all sorts of different themed gimmicks and bonuses. Which ones are best to play, and how can you get the best odds for yourself?

The first thing that you should know about slots is that there's no real way to "beat" them, unless you've got some kind of James Bond cheating device (and the always vigilant security doesn't spot you using it.) They also offer some of the worst odds in the house as far as winning, surpassed only by Keno on average (but slots move much faster than Keno and thus take your money away much faster.) Despite this, slots stay among the most popular of casino games, largely because of the lure of inserting only a penny, nickel, dime or quarter and hitting the "big jackpot" of tens of thousands of dollars. Casinos now offer much larger jackpots than they used to, but this is because with the advent of video slots and their almost total replacement of the old mechanical machines, the odds are even more in the house's favor now and it's harder for you to actually win.

There's also a lot of bogus superstition surrounding slot machines. Analysis by the people who manufacture and maintain them has shown, at least for the ones in Nevada and Indian casinos, each spin is totally random and has nothing to do with any previous spin. "Hot streaks" are all in the player's mind, as well as certain groupings of them being "looser" than others, and banging on them or slapping the buttons really hard doesn't tell the machine "you mean business."

Strategies for slots thus center mostly around maximizing ancilliary benefits, or at the very least losing the lowest amount in the longest time possible. If you play slots, you should just be playing for fun, with a carefully set aside amount that you fully plan to lose. Playing the lowest denomination machines is an obvious wise choice, even though the payouts tend to be less, over the same period of time of play you are likely to lose much more at a higher denomination machine, since the odds are equally crappy at both. When a casino says it has the "loosest" slots, this is virtually meaningless, as even if they are being honest it is likely only a tiny fraction of a percentage point more likely to pay out than other slots (thus technically qualifying it as the "loosest", and there's no way to verify anyway since casinos don't have to publish odds tables for slots and almost never do willingly.)

If you are going to play slots, the first thing to do is get a hold of the house card and use it to track your play. Usually, there is an area of the casino where you can sign up for these cards (usually called "Player's Cards") where they will ask for some information in return like your mailing address and phone number. Tracked play on slots usually doesn't get you much, but shop around to the different casinos and see what they offer (sometimes listed on their website, but you'll often have to actually go to the "Player's Club" and fish around in their documentation to see all of what they offer.) Some casinos will comp you a meal for an hour of tracked play on any machines, even penny slots, so if you play the minimum for an hour (and were planning to play anyway) you can at least come out of it with a decent dinner if nothing else (at an expected overall loss of about $20-30 at worst if you are playing the minimum.) A bigger advantage to these is that it gets you on their generic mailing list of people who play regularly, and they may offer you free or deeply discounted rooms during the off-season.

The one real advantage you can give yourself is to find the machines with the best rate of return, and following that the best overall jackpot. Again, this is tough because casinos don't usually publish their return rates or odds. If you find one that advertises a return rate of 98% or higher, however, that's the one to go for, because it is rare for them to be set above 98%. From there it's just a matter of selecting the one that offers the biggest jackpot. If you're seriously looking to win, however, you should be playing table games and not even bothering with the slots.