Americancasinoguide Slot Machine
Slot Payouts by Casino / City / State The following information was gathered by the various Gaming Commissions controlling their casinos within their jurisdiction. Casinos constantly add and remove slot machines, trying new slot variations, therefore, the following information is presented as a guide only because these numbers change slightly.
- Slot Machines How to play and win at the slots. by Steve Bourie, gambling industry expert, author, speaker. Slot Machine Trends - 2016 What you need to know to play and win the latest slot games. by John Grochowski, 'Chicago Sun-Times' gaming columnist and casino expert.
- SLOT MACHINES With over 1500 slot machines in stock, we are uniquely positioned to bring you the best gaming machines in the industry! NOTE: Slot machines require freight shipping services. To get an accurate shipping cost, please contact us directly at 763-253-0230.
by John Grochowski
At first glance, there’s a large gap – or is it a gaping chasm? – between slot machines and table games.
You can see cards being dealt and dice being rolled, but you can’t see random numbers being generated. That leads to the impression that slots can adjust on the fly, making sure players can’t win too much in ways that can’t be done with cards, dice or roulette wheels.
Nonetheless, slots and tables share common ground that makes them more similar than players realize. Both give the house an edge by paying less than true odds on winning bets. The casino share comes from losing bets, of course, but the winners don’t quite offset the losers because they’re paid at less than the true odds.
Not only that. Slots and table games both arrive at expected results through normal probability.
It’s that last part that gives many slot players trouble. They see that a slot game has an expected payback percentage – usually less than 90 percent on penny slots but more on higher denominations. And they hear that results are random.
That leads to the question, “How can slot results be both programmed and random? If there are big wins, doesn’t it take cold streaks to get back to the programmed percentage? That doesn’t sound very random to me.”
Some answers:
Slot Machines Don’t Work Like That
Game designers set the odds so that normal results will lead toward an expected average payback percentage.
That’s the same situation you face on a table game.
Take roulette. On an American double-zero wheel, the game is “programmed” with 38 possible results — 1 through 36 plus 0 and 00.The numbers come up randomly, and when you win on a single number, you’re paid at 35- 1 odds, a bit less than the true odds of 37-1. That gives the house an edge of 5.26 percent. That’s the same as saying a payback percentage of 94.74 percent.
There is nothing to keep your number from coming up two or three times in a row, and nothing that says it has to come up within several dozen spins or more. But given enough trials, the random results and the odds of the game will lead to something very close to roulette’s expected percentage.
Slots work the same way, except there are thousands of possibilities instead of 38. For regular play on the reels, randomly occurring numbers are programmed, each corresponding to a reel symbol. To make up an example, the programmer might write it so that every time the random number one shows up, the reel shows a jackpot symbol; with numbers two, three or four, it shows a seven, with numbers five through nine, a triple bar, and so on. The possibilities are programmed, but when they turn up is random, just as it’s random when a 17 turns up in roulette.
After a big win, the machine doesn’t go into makeup mode. Over a long period of time, normal results according to the odds of the game will yield a normal payback percentage, and your big win fades into statistical insignificance.
Just as when a table games designer sets the rules of a card, dice or wheel game, the slot programmer sets the possible outcomes, and the pay table gives you back a little less than the true odds of hitting the winners. You can hit several winners in a row, or none, for a number of spins.
Results are random, but over hundreds of thousands of plays they will lead to something very close to the programmed payback percentage.
Cold Streaks After Jackpots Are a Myth
Casinos are there for the long haul, and they know that normal results in line with the odds of the game will take care of the percentages.
Imagine you’re betting three coins at a time at a dollar machine with a top jackpot of 10,000 coins, and that the machine is programmed to pay 95 percent in the long run. We hit the jackpot on our first pull. How low must the payback be over the next 999,999 spins to bring the overall percentage back to 95 percent for 1 million reel spins?
Would you believe a drop to 94.7 percent would do it? And if those 999,999 spins brought 95 percent, the overall payback including that first jackpot would be only 95.3 percent.
Normal results bring the overall payback percentage into normal range. The game doesn’t have to force any cold streaks.
That’s the same situation table players face. If I’m playing craps, betting on 12 and collect 30-1 payoffs several rolls in a row as the shooter rolls an unusual number of boxcars, does the casino have to force other numbers to come up for a while to make up for my streak? Of course not.
Someone might congratulate me on a nice win, but operators know that the 35-1 odds against rolling 12 coupled with day after day after day of play and normal probability will lead my streak to fade into statistical insignificance.
On a roulette wheel, if red numbers come up half a dozen or more times in a row and the whole table is betting with the streak, does the casino panic? No, because normal probability will lead the streak to fade into statistical insignificance and the game will pay something close to its normal percentage.
There is no mechanism to force cold streaks after big wins on tables, nor is there any such mechanism on slots. Forced results on slots are illegal in all American jurisdictions. Results have to be random, just as they are on tables.
But odds of the game can be set so that winners are less frequent than losers, and winners pay at less than true odds. Slots work that way, and so do table games. That’s enough for random results to give the house its edge.
John Grochowski has been covering casinos and casino games for nearly 40 years. He is the author of six books and his work appears in newspapers, magazines and websites around the world.
Try an online casino for FREE! Use any of our great No Deposit Bonus Codes. No credit card needed, just sign up and start playing!
by John Grochowski
As long as there have been slot machines, there have been myths about how they work.
You can’t see random numbers being generated the way you can see dice rolling, cards being dealt or balls landing in wheel slots. So the mind tries to fill the gaps, with varying degrees of accuracies.
Machines have evolved. So have myths. No one thinks about whether games have heat sensors to tell whether you’re using fresh coins or recirculating coins warmed by a game’s innards. Slots that still take coins are rare, so the myth of higher payoffs on cold coins has disappeared.
On the other hand, myths about bonus events and whether results are predetermined have arisen, leaving a mix of old myths and news.
Let’s tackle five of the most popular misconceptions some players have about slot machines.
**MYTH #1 : Your winnings in pick’em bonus rounds are predetermined and your choices make no difference.
**FACT: A random number generator sets the possibilities in pick’em rounds, but your choices determine your prize.
Pick’em bonuses are those in which you choose icons to reveal winnings. A classic example is Jackpot Party, where you choose among a grid of gift boxes. As long as you keep picking winners, the round continues. It ends when your pick reveals a party pooper.
The RNG determines where the poopers are placed. Credit awards of different sizes, multipliers and games within the game also are placed in boxes randomly selected.
If a 200-credit prize has been randomly placed in the third box in the top row, then if you pick that box, you win the 200 credits. If a pooper has been placed on the left edge, fourth from the bottom, then touching that box will bring the pooper.
It doesn’t matter what boxes you’ve touched before. I’ve you’ve already won 2,000 credits and you touch the 200-credit box, you’ll still get that prize. If you’ve won nothing and touch the pooper … well, sorry.
When the round is over, the prizes in all remaining boxes are revealed. That is typical in pick’em bonuses, and it’s important. In U.S. jurisdictions with licensed casinos, all advertised prizes must be available. By showing you the possibilities, the game is telling you all those prizes were available, had you made those picks.
The game sets the possibilities, but results aren’t predetermined. Your picks determine your prizes.
In a small minority of games, however, the remaining possibilities are not revealed. In those games, it’s possible that your bonus is predetermined, but in most games, your picks matter.
**MYTH #2: Slots make up for comps by paying less when you use player rewards cards.
**FACT: Using your card makes no difference in wins and losses.
Americancasinoguide Slot Machine
When you use your card, information is collected on how much you bet, how many bets you make and your results. That information is used to determine what you get in cash back, free play, meals, room discounts and other perks. It’s also used to guide the rewards program in making direct-mail or electronic offers for return visits and to offer invitations to special events and giveaways.
The software that collects your information does not communicate back to the random number generator. The RNG does not know you’re using a rewards card at all, let alone what comps you’re earning.
All the RNG does is generate random numbers. It works from the same number set regardless of whether you’re using a club card, so card use does not affect your results in the slightest.
**MYTH #3: Casino employees can reward favored players with jackpots or make machines go cold for players they don’t like.
**FACT: Casino employees have no access to anything that would alter your results on slot play.
Once the random number generator is up and running, it continuously generates numbers. Those numbers are then mapped onto reel positions. If the random numbers map onto a losing combination, there’s nothing a casino employee can do to change that.
Employees can’t award jackpots, they can’t induce cold streaks, and they can’t change results whatsoever. They can provide customer service that can make your day more pleasant – or less pleasant, on a bad day. But they can’t make you win or lose.
**MYTH #4: Video slots, as computers, adjust paybacks in ways three-reel slots can’t.
**FACT: Three-reel slots are as computerized as video slots. All modern slot machines use random number generators and reel maps to determine your results.
Neither video slots nor three-reel slots make any sorts of adjustments on the fly. The don’t go cold if you’re winning or heat up if you’re losing. The RNG keeps generating random numbers, and the odds of the game will take care of the long-term payback percentage regardless of any short-term streaks.
But video slots and three-reel slots work in very similar ways. The difference is mainly in the display, not in the ability to manipulate results.
**MYTH #5: You’re more likely to win a jackpot in a crowded casino.
**FACT: There are more jackpots in crowded casinos because there are more games being played, but the chance of any one player winning is the same regardless of crowd size.
Imagine a casino filled with slot machines that pay their top jackpot an average of once per 10,000 spins. That’s a high frequency jackpot that would have to be on the small side, but it will do for an example.
Results are random, so it’s possible for the jackpot combination to show up two spins in a row, or not at all for 20,000, 50,000, 100,000 or even more spins.
American Casino Guide Slot Machine Payback Statistics
Let’s say on a slow Wednesday morning, 100 people are playing, each playing for 1,000 spins. In all, there are 100,000 spins. With average results for these machines, we could expect about 10 jackpots. Depending on where you are in the casino, you might or might not see a player win big.
On a busy Saturday night, 1,500 people each play 1,000 spins. There are 1.5 million spins, which with average results would yield 150 jackpots. Those 150 jackpots come in the space as the 10 jackpots when there are fewer players and more empty machines, so there’s a lot better chance you’ll witness a big win or two or three.
With all those big jackpots, the lights and sound effects from the slot machines and the hubbub with slot attendants, supervisors and security guards paying off the big winners, it will feel as though there’s a whole lot of winning on the busier night.
But notice that whether the numbers are 10 jackpots for 100 players or 150 jackpots for 1,500 players, it’s still an average of one jackpot per 10 players. The notion that there’s a better chance to win on busier nights is an illusion.
Real world conditions vary. Not all slots within a casino have the same jackpot frequency, many paying a lot less often than once per 10,000 spins.
But the principle remains the same. There are more jackpots on crowded nights, but the individual players’ chances remain the same regardless of crowd size.
John Grochowski has been covering casinos and casino games for nearly 40 years. He is the author of six books
and his work appears in newspapers, magazines and websites around the world.
Try an online casino for FREE! Use any of our great No Deposit Bonus Codes. No credit card needed, just sign up and start playing!