Secrets To Playing A Slot Machine

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  • The same is true for slot machines at the end of long rows. Pop down from your room, take some cash from a loose machine at the end of the row on the way and you’re off to the buffet or show before anyone even know you won at slots. This is seen as a marketing loss the casino takes seriously. TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND WIN A $10 FREE CHIP!
  • If you don't activate them all, it’s fine, but do remember, if you are playing with a reduced number of paylines, slot machine symbols won’t pay if they land on a payline that is not active. In case you choose to play a jackpot game, you’ll usually be required to activate all paylines to be in with a chance of winning the jackpot.

Secrets to Winning on Slot Machines While you might not know how to tell if a slot machine is ready to pay, there are certain things you can do to ensure that you choose the right game. Each slot machine has an RTP percentage that lets players know their chances of winning while playing that game. If you are playing a slot machine in a casino without a slot card you are truly throwing money away. Slot cards, or players club cards, are free to obtain. You get them from a sign-up desk in the casino and insert them into a slot machine before you play.

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Slot machines are the most popular game in a casino today. About 85% of a casino’s revenue is generated by gambling machines.

Unfortunately, slots are games which can’t be beaten no matter how smart you are or how much strategy you use. The best you can do is hope to get lucky once in a while. But you can also use some smarts and strategies during game selection to lose money more slowly and increase your chances of winning.

This post is written with the first-time slot machine player in mind. There’s nothing advanced in this explanation of slots games and how they work. It’s just a basic step by step guide to playing slot machines for the first time.

1. Get Ready to Play by Having a Plan

It sounds silly, but getting ready is one of the first steps you should take. Going into a casino without a plan is a good way to lose a lot of money fast. Having a plan is step 1.

Your bankroll is the first thing you should consider. A bankroll is an amount of money that you’ve set aside to gamble with. It’s separate from all your other funds. It’s important that you don’t gamble with money you need for other purposes (like rent).

I like to have an overall bankroll for my trip, but I divide that into smaller bankrolls per day and per gambling session. For example, if I’m going to Las Vegas for a 3-day weekend, I might take $1500 to gamble with. I’ll plan on gambling with $500 per day, and I’ll plan on 2 sessions a day with a $250 bankroll for each session.

Once I lose my bankroll for a session, I have to stop playing. No going to the ATM, no dipping into the bankroll for my next session, and no dipping into my budget for dining out or show tickets.

I also make up my mind beforehand that I’m not going to drink while I play. You might or might not make the same decision. But my experience leads me to think that I’ll make poor decisions and forget all about any plans I have if I’m drinking alcohol.

I also try to choose my companions wisely. I don’t want to be stuck with someone who refuses to leave when my bankroll runs out. But I also am willing to leave when THEIR bankroll runs out.

2. Learn a Little Bit About How Slot Machines Work

You can do this step right now. Here’s how slot machines work:

Slots are just gambling games which have spinning reels with symbols on them. You input money to pay for each spin that you get. When you get certain combinations of symbols, you’re paid off with winnings.

Early slot machines were mechanical affairs with gears, springs, and levers. Modern slots are powered by a tiny computer program called a random number generator. This RNG is what determines the results on the spinning reels.

The games are programmed to pay off at less than the true odds of winning. (This is true of all casino games, in fact.) For example, if you have a 1 in 1000 chance of getting 3 cherries in a row, the payoff for that bet might only be 500 to 1.

Secrets To Playing A Slot Machine

This gives the game a house edge, just like any other casino game, but when talking about slot machines, everyone talks about payback percentage. (It’s also called payout percentage or return to player.)

This is just a word that describes how much of each bet the casino returns to the player over a long period of time. The best slot machines in the world usually have a payback percentage of maybe 96% or 97%, but most of the time, you’re facing a payback percentage of 95% or less.

This isn’t a literal result that you’ll see in a given gambling session or even over several gambling sessions. It’s a long term expectation based on tens of thousands of spins. In the short term, anything can happen. That’s why people sometimes walk away winners.

In fact, this is by design. If a slot machine literally gave you a 95 cent win every single time you bet a dollar, you’d never play. It would become obvious quickly that the game favored the house. But since you’re going to win or lose on a random basis, you get to feel like you can beat the odds.

And you can beat the odds—sometimes.

Modern slot machine games also have lots of bonus features, like bonus games, progressive jackpots, and wild symbols. Almost all of these aspects of gameplay happen automatically without any decision-making or strategy necessary on the part of the player.

3. Have Some Manners

Playing slots isn’t really a social activity, but you are playing these games in a public place. Other people are around and will be affected by your behavior. And there are certain rules of etiquette to keep in mind.

If you’re playing a game and need to take a break and go to the restroom, you can leave some kind of personal item (like your jacket) on the seat in front of the game to reserve it for when you return. I wouldn’t recommend leaving anything too valuable, though, because it is possible that someone will steal it. At the same time, if someone has left something to reserve their spot, don’t be rude and move it so that you can take over their machine.

Keep up with your players card. This is the card that you insert into the machine so that the casino can track your play and give you your rebates and comps. If you wander off with the card still inserted, you have to bother the customer service people to get a new card. Or you might have to bother someone who’s taken over the machine to get your card back. If you find someone else’s card still in the machine, remove it and put it on top of the machine.

If you win a huge jackpot, it used to be customary to tip the person who took care of your payouts. In modern casinos, though, everything is handled electronically via a ticket in/ticket out system, so this doesn’t come up. But you should still tip your cocktail waitress, even if she’s only bringing you a Coke.

If you’re a non-smoker, don’t complain about someone smoking at their machine. Just find a non-smoking casino instead. There are plenty of places where you can gamble without being subjected to tobacco smoke, but if you choose to play in a smoking casino, then let the smokers do what they do without harassing them.

Some slots players like to play more than one machine at a time. That’s fine, but if a casino is crowded, you should stick with one machine in order to let others play.

None of these etiquette tips will help you win more money, by the way. But it’s good practice to try to fit into normal society.

4. Choose Your Slot Machine Wisely

You cannot control the whims of lady luck, but you can try to choose slot machines which offer better odds. Pay no attention to the advice you see about how the loose machines are placed on the edge of the rows. That advice is outdated and useless.

Here are some modern, accurate tips about which slot machines have higher payouts:

Slot machines in major casinos pay out better than slot machines in other areas. You’ll find machines which pay out better at a casino on the Las Vegas Strip than you will at the airport, for example. Bars are also notorious for having slot machine games with low payback percentages.

The more complicated the game is, the lower the payback percentage is. All those extra bells and whistles like bonus games, fancy animation, and multiple paylines cost money to implement. And you pay for it in the form of a lower payback percentage and a higher house edge. If you can find a 3-reel, single line slot machine, you’ll have the best chance of walking away a winner.

Progressive slot machines have an ever-expanding jackpot, but you pay for that via a lower payback percentage, too. Every bet you make helps to fuel that jackpot. They take a tiny percentage from each bet and divert it directly to the jackpot. Your odds of winning that jackpot are long enough to be practically 0, so that money fueling the jackpot is just gone forever. It shouldn’t even count toward the calculation of the theoretical payout percentage.

Finally, consider trying video poker games. These aren’t true slot machines at all, but they offer a higher return to player even if you’re not familiar with how to play. They also offer you the opportunity to think and make decisions while you play. You might enjoy the mental stimulation of a video poker game.

5. Put Your Money In

There are still machines where you can input coins, but in today’s casino market, you’ll probably just be putting cash in the machine. They have a reader which looks similar to a change machine. When you feed cash into it, the credits appear on the machine so that you can start to play.

Since most gambling machines at most casinos use a ticket in/ticket out system, they also accept tickets in the reader. In the old days, you’d have to deal with lots of coins and cups to carry those coins around, but the tickets are a lot easier for both the player and the casino.

Secrets Of Casino Slot Machines

Before you put your money in, be sure to look at the front of the machine so you’ll know what denomination you’re playing for. If you insert a $100 bill into a dollar machine, you’ll have 100 credits. Insert that same bill into a $5 machine, and you’ll only have 20 credits.

You should also make yourself aware of how many coins you’re wagering per spin and per line. Most modern slots have multiple pay lines, and you have to pay to activate each one. This can add up fast even if you’re playing a low-denomination machine. For example, if you’re playing a penny slot machine which allows you to bet 5 units per line on 25 lines, you’re wagering $1.25 per spin if you place the max bet.

6. Always Play With Your Players Club Card Inserted

Almost all modern casinos have a players club you can join. You should join the players club and play with the card inserted into the machine. The casino tracks how much money you put into action over time and provides you with comps and rebates based on how much you are wagering.

You get these comps and rebates even if you walk away a winner.

That’s because the casino wants to reward you for playing. The more you play, the more you’ll lose in the long run. The casino doesn’t care about what happens in the short term, because they’re dealing with thousands of players on thousands of machines playing for thousands of hours a year. The long run happens for a casino much more quickly than it does for a player.

You might have legitimate reasons for not using the players club card, though. If you hate getting advertising in the mail, you might not want to join. If you have a philosophical problem with the casino tracking your playing tendencies, that might be a legitimate reason, too.

But if you want to minimize the house edge, use your players club card. It’s worth between 0.1% and 0.3% in rebates, and that might as well be real money. Over time it adds up, too.

Conclusion

Slot machines are available in a bewildering array of sizes, shapes, and sounds. Most of them are straightforward enough, though—you input your money, spin the reels, and hope for the best. If you get confused about what’s happening, you can always ask a friendly nearby gambler who looks like she knows what she’s doing. The casino staff are usually eager to help, too.

There’s no such thing as a professional slot machine player, but if you use a little bit of good sense, you can have a lot of fun for your money when you’re playing. Just stick with the games I recommended in this post to maximize your probability of winning.

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Everybody wants to know how to win on slot machines. If only there was a secret formula or cheat code that could allow you to win slots every time, your bank account would swell and your dreams would come true.

Alas, no such secret formula exists. However, that doesn’t mean there’s no way to win slots more often.

I’ve been playing slot machines since as long as I can remember. In the past decade or so, I’ve come to learn a thing or two about them. I’m going to share real, practical, and actionable steps on how to win at slots.

I’m not promising you’ll win a progressive jackpot and retire to live the high life.

All I’m offering is hard-won insights and some useful information which can help you avoid common mistakes and maximize your chances of winning.

A Word About Slot Cheat Codes

How To Win At Slot Machines

Before we go deeper into slot machine secrets and winning tips, I need to tell you what this article is not about.

I am what you’d call a natural skeptic. I don’t believe in things like lady luck and good fortune, I believe in probability and verifiable facts. That’s why I don’t put any stock—none whatsoever—in slot cheat machine codes and systems designed to help you win every time.

I recently read a short e-book called How to Win Gas Station Slot Machines Every Time. I was curious to see what the author had to offer. It turns out, it was full of clichés and empty platitudes.

  • Waiting until someone had played for a while because the slot machine would be due.
  • Finding specific games and tapping the buttons in specific sequences to unlock hidden features.
  • Outright cheating by using mobile phone apps to read machine patterns and tricking the machine into paying out.

I chuckled to myself as I scanned the pages, knowing deep down that the author was a huckster and that nobody who used these slot machine cheats would gain anything.

Let me spell it out for you once, and once only: The companies which make slot machines, like Microgaming, are very rich indeed. They didn’t get that way by building games you can exploit.

In the next section, I’m going to teach you how slot machines really work. Understanding this vital information is the only way to win at slots more often.

How Slot Machines Work

There are still a few slot machines in Vegas and other casinos around the world which operate mechanically. But, these days, the majority of them are electronic. Trying to interfere with them physically won’t give you any advantage whatsoever.

Computer chips and algorithms known as “random number generators” (or RNGs) power modern video slots.

Because Indian casinos have to be on, well, Indian land, there aren’t all ideally located in terms of population. For example, tiny Bishop, California, with less than 4,000 people, has a casino, while San Francisco does not. And there are four casinos near Fresno, whereas San Jose, (twice its population), has none. The Graton Resort. Closest indian casino to san francisco. All that said, the closest casino to San Francisco is the Graton Resort & Casino in Rohnert Park. The Graton is located 50 miles north of San Francisco on Highway 101. The casino boasts that you can go from “Bay.

Without getting into complex technical details, these are algorithms which generate millions, and even billions, of numbers per second. When you hit the spin button, one of these numbers is selected, and if it’s associated with a payout, you win.

That’s pretty simple, right? There’s nothing overly complicated about it from a player’s perspective. Yet, if you think about it, you’ll realize that it means you can’t manipulate slot machines.

Setting aside philosophical arguments about whether true randomness really exists or not, you’re at the mercy of the algorithm. It could take a million spins before it pays out the jackpot, or it could happen three times in a row. It’s all based on the RNG.

Random number generators control both land-based and online slot machines. Gaming commissions check them to make sure they are random and fair. For online slot games, organizations like eCogra test the games while, in Vegas, it’s the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

Slot machine secrets exposed

If you understand the concept of random number generators, you understand the gist of slot machines. Let’s now move onto how to win on slot machines.

How to Win on Slot Machines — Tips and Tricks

I’ve created some general rules of thumb for playing slot machines. These aren’t 100% foolproof, but they do tend to be true. You should jot them down or remember them when you’re playing. You could think of this as slots wisdom won over many years of spinning the reels of fortune.

The Bigger the Jackpot, the Lower the Payback Rate

Every slot machine has what’s called an “RTP.” This is a percentage which tells you how much money the slot returns to players.

For example, if a slot machine has an RTP of 97%, which is high, then it will pay back $97 out of every $100 which players feed into it.

It’s important to remember that RTP is a theoretical number which explains the payback rate over the long run. It does not mean you will win back $97 out of every $100 that you play. It means that the machine returns this amount to all who play that slot. This includes all of the small wins as well as the jackpots.

Well, in my experience, slots with bigger jackpots, and particularly progressive jackpot slots, have a lower payback rate. I’ve seen jackpot slots with an RTP of 91%. That’s low compared to a game like Jack Hammer II by NetEnt which has an RTP of 97.07%.

Sometimes, you’re better off playing high RTP slots, even if they have a smaller jackpot. The chances of winning a progressive jackpot are slim, so you have to be realistic about the possibilities.

Yes, you could strike it lucky, but for every multimillion-dollar winner, thousands of players lost. If you want to win at casino slots, you’re better off with high RTP slots for this reason, you get more back in the long game.

Tip:

Secrets To Play A Slot Machine

One of the highest RTP slot machines is Mega Joker by NetEnt. It has an RTP of 99%. It’s a classic slot, and many people play it religiously because of the high payback percentage.

Don’t Forget the Bonus Features

Almost every slots player I know is blinded by huge jackpots. There’s a reason why casinos plaster the largest progressive jackpots all over banners across the web. They attract slots players like moths to a flame!

I’m not. The odds of winning the jackpot on any slot are low. Instead, I focus on lucrative bonus features. Some of the biggest wins I have ever had came from slot machine bonus rounds.

Here are a few which I feel are particularly worth looking out for. If a slot machine has one or more of these features, I give it serious consideration.

Free Spins

  • Free spins are one of the best slot machine bonus rounds. When you enter them, you’ll automatically bet at the value you were betting in the base game. If I haven’t triggered the free spins feature after 20 spins, I usually increase my bet size in anticipation. It has to trigger eventually, and I want to reap the rewards to the maximum extent when it does.

Multipliers

  • Multipliers can be part of the base game, or they can be part of bonus features. For example, a free spins feature can have a multiplier. I always look for slots with multipliers of up to 3x or higher. I then play with larger bets than I usually would. One big win with a 3x multiplier can be as good as a jackpot.

Cascading Reels

  • This is probably my favorite feature in slot machines. When you create a win, the symbols disappear, and new ones take their place. If you win once more, the same happens again. Some slot machines mix cascading reels and multipliers together. Sometimes, the multiplier gets bigger every time you create a new cascade. An example of such a slot is Gonzo’s Quest.

Slot Machine Secrets Exposed

There are lots of other great slot bonus features. Bonus wheels, picking games, and progressive jackpot bonus rounds also offer a chance to win big. The point is, you should always study the paytable of a slot machine, play it for free, and try to figure out its bonus rounds.

Best Slot Machines To Play

You’re much more likely to experience a big win in a free spins round with triple multipliers than you are to win a jackpot outright.

Of course, if you can find a slot machine offering lots of great features and a big jackpot, that’s the golden ticket. I’d always double-check the RTP on such a game, though. Usually, the greater the risk to the casino, the lower the RTP is.

Manage Your Bankroll by Leveraging Slot Volatility

Want to know the first game I play every time I log into the casino? It’s almost always Starburst.

Why so? Because Starburst is a high volatility slot. I rarely, if ever, experience long dry spells on this game. The wins are frequent, even if they aren’t life-changing. And I find that Starburst often helps me boost my balance. Once it’s suitably boosted, I move across to a higher volatility slot for a shot at bigger wins.

You can read an in-depth article on slot machine variance and volatility here. I’ve created a short and easy version for you below:

  • Low volatility slot machines pay little wins frequently.
  • Medium volatility slots pay mid-range amounts semi-frequently.
  • High volatility slots pay bigger wins less frequently.

For example, I never play high volatility slot machines when using free spins bonuses which offer only 10 or 20 spins. Experience tells me that on a high volatility game, I could easily experience 10 or 20 spins without a single win. I know that when the win does come, it will be explosive. But those slots aren’t best suited for this kind of bonus.

To leverage slots volatility, play low volatility slots when you’re down on your luck and only have a small bankroll.

They can also be extremely useful when trying to meet wagering or rollover requirements on a bonus offer. However, when you have a suitable amount of house money, switch over to higher volatility games with bigger potential wins.

Please remember that this is not a foolproof plan. Borderlands 3 slot machine red. Sometimes, the RNG just doesn’t spit out the right number, and no wins occur. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes, and you’ve got to accept that before you start playing a slot machine or expecting to win on slot machines.

Conclusion

I promised you logical, sensible tips for winning slot machines, and I hope you feel that I’ve delivered. All of what I’ve written above is fact-based, and none of it requires you to believe in hocus-pocus or to resort to cheating.

Winning slot machines is all about reducing the house advantage, knowing how to give yourself the best shot at the biggest payouts, and avoiding the common mistakes that too many players make.

That’s all I can offer you, and no matter what they say, it’s all anybody else can offer you, too.

Now that you know how to win more often, check out some of the best slot machines online.

Slot Machine Secrets Revealed

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