• Do Slot Machines Have Cameras Use
• Do Slot Machines Have Cameras Without

As you've seen in some movies, casinos normally have coverage of everything - sometimes by law. Lots of money flow in and out of casinos on a daily basis, so they need all sorts of cameras and sensors to make sure nothing is out of place when they start counting cash.

• Second, that there are the several ways slot machines can have their odds of winning set on an ongoing basis, depending on their specific type. So yes, actually, it does matter who controls slot machine odds. Because this is where patterns of winning are found. When slot machines are set up to be as random as possible, and that assigned.
• It's also almost impossible to watch every slot machine in a large casino in Las Vegas for example. Some of these major resorts have thousands of machines and they can't have a camera on every one of them. This is a cheater's advantage. Slots Cheats - Cheating Slots.

Introduction to Controls Slot Machine Odds

Who controls slot machine odds is a popular question from slots enthusiasts. It’s quite an interesting question, which I thought my audience would appreciate an answer to.

My most recent encounter with this general question was during the Q&A segment of another gambling podcast, episode #634 from Five Hundy By Midnight. They had a question from David which was, “When a new themed penny slot debuts, what is the typical hold percentage? Does it vary by machine, casino, or both?”

Tim and Michelle, co-hosts of the long-lasting Five Hundy By Midnight, a gambling podcast that’s all about Las Vegas, answered the question well, if somewhat briefly.

I’m sure my own audience would like the answer too, so I’m providing a few more details as well as a more general answer with a bit of the why of it all.

This segment has the following sections:

• Introduction
• A Bit of Background on Legal Requirements
• A Bit of History on Physically Setting Odds
• Slot Machine Types Based on How Odds are Set
• Identifying Who Controls Slot Machine Odds
• Does It Really Matter Who Controls Slot Machine Odds? Yes!!
• Summary

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A Bit of Background on Legal Requirements

To answer this question, I’ll need to delve into a bit of recent history to explain how odds are set in older-style standalone slot machines using a random number generator (RNG). This way is how many people incorrectly believe the odds are currently set on ALL slot machines.

However, starting around 2008, a lot changed with setting slot machine odds. These changes are due to the emergence of new gaming technologies, not only in slot machines but also with the development of casino operating software. Both provide casinos with an increased operating efficiency and therefore low operating costs.

With so many more people visiting casinos in the last decade, and with their profit margins getting smaller every year, casino operators find they cannot afford to ignore the savings opportunities of new technologies.

The second driver for this change to how slot machines are controlled is due to ongoing developments in statutory regulations for gaming jurisdictions. In the U.S., these gaming jurisdictions are the states, territories, or federal district that legally allow gaming.

In essence, casino operators have to follow the gaming regulations for the jurisdiction wherein they are located. In part, these gaming jurisdictions often include laws which place an upper and lower limit on the pay back return for slot machines.

To not lose their gaming license, or to otherwise get in trouble with gaming control authorities, casino operators must remain in compliance with these legal gaming requirements.

Note that commercial casinos have to be comply to gaming regulations as set by the U.S. state, territory, or federal district they are located in. Native American tribal casinos also have to comply with their own set of gaming requirements, which are usually not based on state law.

Rather, these are defined by negotiation between a federally-recognized tribe and the state within which they are located by carefully crafting a state-tribal compact ultimately approved by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

So, within this overall context, who controls slot machine odds? At a high level, gaming regulators determine the legal limits, if any, for payout returns on slot machines. This is accomplished via state law or negotiated compacts, and usually not changed for a decade, if that often.

Casinos operators are, often but not always, required to provide weekly or monthly reports on actual payout returns to show their gaming authority they are compliant. Sometimes, depending on each gaming jurisdiction, these statistical reports are then provided to the public by the state gaming commission.

Going further, these regular reports can break down these actual payout returns by casino, table games, slot machines, gaming machines, by the denomination of slot machines within a specific casino, or even if the machine has a progressive jackpot. What is done is very specific to the gaming jurisdiction where the casino is located.

Given all these variability of what is or is not done within a U.S. gaming jurisdiction, I’ve created an online series of posts for my audience of slots enthusiasts. It’s meant to help them navigate this dynamic environment of state-specific gaming regulations.

For more information on your specific state, territory, or federal district of interest, see Slot Machine Casino Gambling, State-By-State: A Weekly Blog.

So, at its high level, slot machines are controlled by gaming regulators by the placement of legal requirements for payout return percentages. Sometimes, however, these state-specific gaming regulators do not set limits on payout returns. Put another way, they have deliberately chosen to not set legal limits.

Do Slot Machines Have Cameras Use

When this happens, somewhat obviously, casino operators do not have a legal requirement for setting payout returns. However, to remain open and not close due to lack of customers, they still have to be careful to not set their payout returns too low.

It’s worth noting that most gaming regulations set a low limit on payout returns to which casino operators deliberately stay well above. To do so is just good business.

A Bit of History on Physically Setting Odds

The random number generator (RNG) was developed for slot machines by Bally Technologies in 1984. About a decade later, most slot machines had this RNG, which allowed for easily adjustable odds of winning.

Beforehand, the odds of winning were set in an entirely mechanical manner. This worked well for decades, until the technical development of slot machines began to cause difficulties. Basically, as credits to bet and number of pay lines increased, the physical mechanisms for determining odds began to reach certain physical limits.

Slot enthusiasts loved having a choice of how many credits to bet, as well as playing a slot machine with more than one pay line. Increased credits and pay lines also led to much higher jackpots.

All of these developments led to odds of winning being needed for many more possible outcomes, which mechanical devices for determining the odds of winning began to not be able to handle. In fact, these mechanical devices began to fall behind and actually became less and less random in nature.

As an aside, the topic of randomness is actually quite interesting. True randomness is very difficult, if not literally impossible, to generate. Often, when randomness is needed in either an mechanical or electronic device, various methods are used which are “random enough.”

Technically speaking, there is no such thing as an existing perfectly random number generator. At best, there are only pseudo random number generators, one variant of which was patented by Bally Technologies in 1984.

Moving away from our brief sortie into the philosophy of randomness, the invention of the RNG solved for slot machine manufacturers this limitation of mechanical devices for determining randomness in slot machines. But, it created another problem: With adjustable odds of winning via electronic RNGs, casinos would need to have a large workforce to do that adjusting.

And so, that is what casinos did. They built and trained a workforce of slot mechanics to adjust the odds of winning on their new slot machines to meet their desired performance metrics.

However, the size of that workforce would increase tremendously depending on how often those odds of winning were adjusted. For older style slot machines, this is at least 7 days and may be as much as 2 weeks, as I’ve expressed in Professor Slots Episode #21: Winning at Slots on Older Casinos-Kentucky Slots 2018.

Most recently, since 2012 or so, relatively newer casinos have been able to reduce this costly workforce thanks to new casino operating systems. These systems not only help casinos manage large promotional events with less overall issues, but also allow them to remotely adjust the odds of winning on slot machines connected to the casino’s central computer system.

Of course, this connection to the casino’s central computer system is currently limited to a wired connection due to potential security concerns as well as WIFI bandwidth limits. As a result, using a central computer in this manner is only possible if all the slot machines are physically “wired up.”

Doing so requires sufficient building infrastructure, such as clearance beneath floors and behind walls, to allow for these many, many cable connections. This is only practically possible in all new casinos being built as well as older casinos being heavily renovated. That is to say, renovated to have far more than simply new carpeting and wallpaper.

With wired connections from slot machines to a central computer, the reduced cost of a smaller workforce of slot mechanics, much faster adjustment of casino performance metrics to daily or even hourly updates, and more satisfied customers due to efficiently run events, the question remains. Who controls slot machine odds?

To get closer to the answer to this question, we’ll next have to discuss how the legal limits of payout returns are set on actual slot machines. Why? Because slot machines can be categorized by how their odds are set. And, how those odds are physically set will tell us who really controls them.

Slot Machine Types Based on How Odds are Set

Slot machines can be divided up into methods by which their odds of winning are set. These slot machine types include:

• Standalone
• Casino-Specific Progressives
• Multi-Casino Progressives
• State-Wide Progressives
• Remotely Controlled Onsite by Casino
• Remotely Controlled Offsite by Gaming Regulators

Standalone slot machines are those which are most often found in older casinos, but are technically slot machines including within their cabinets the ability to set and provide odds of winning with a random number generator. A workforce of slot mechanics adjust the odds of winning periodically as directed by the casino operator.

In general, there is a limited number of settings available for these older slot machines. YouTube videos are available from individuals who have personally purchased an older style, standalone slot machine showing exactly how these odds are set.

For those videos I have viewed, there were six possible settings which could be entered after opening up the slot machine door. These settings were based on codes from a booklet provided by the slot machine manufacturer.

Keep in mind that videos such as these are the general source of knowledge most people have about the internal workings of slot machines. Employees of slot machine manufacturers and casinos with access to these payout settings simply aren’t sharing this information due to non-disclosure agreements and other legal restrictions.

Besides which, accessing the control for changing the odds of a slot machine is quite problematic. The slot machine is alarmed, so any tampering without official access (employee card key, entry code, physical key) are required to even open a slot machine door. Not to mention, the casino surveillance system sees all.

Discussing the three types of Progressive Slot Machines mentioned will be the dedicated topic for another time. I’d discuss how the ownership of these Progressive slot machines matters with regards to how the odds of winning are set. Briefly, the amount of the Progressive jackpot is primarily based on how many slot machines are included.

For instance, these can be a carousel of slot machines in a certain area of a casino, it can be a larger number of slot machines located throughout a casino, or a large group of Progressive slot machines located at multiple casinos.

These large group could actually be of two types: multiple properties of the same casino operator, or multiple casino operators, within a single gaming jurisdiction, i.e., state.

Already discussed are slot machines remotely controlled onsite at a casino through the use of a central computer operating system. Only new or heavily renovated casinos have the facility infrastructure to handle the sheer number of cables necessary.

If they are controlled onsite, these slot machines have their odds of winning adjusted daily or hourly by remote access. How often these adjustments are made is, rather unfortunately at this time, a matter of debate.

I’m currently trying to track down state legal requirements of which I’d heard rumors. The rumor I heard was that a slot machine must be idle for at least 15 minutes without a players card being inserted before the casino is allowed, if desired, to remotely adjust its odds of winning. Further, the rumor stated that this practice was typical and originally based on Nevada gaming regulations.

However, this rumor doesn’t pass the so-called smell test. At this time, I’ve currently reviewed state gaming regulations for over 38 U.S. states, territories, or a federal district. I’ve yet to find any substantiation for this rumor. Alternatively, it may well be an accepted business practice built-in to the advanced casino operating systems.

Why do I feel strongly that slots players are protected from having their odds of winnings reduced while playing? It’s simple – the state control board controls the odds of winning on slot machines, and everything I’ve seen, read, and studied tells me they work for you.

I just can’t imagine state gaming commissions would allow something this untoward, this nefarious even, to occur. They have careful casino operating system approval processes in place to prevent it, they watch casino operations like hawks (often from within the casino), and any casino that decides not to be fully compliant is in for a world of hurt if/when caught.

Finally, there are slot machines having their odds controlled off-site by state gaming regulators. These are most or all video lottery terminals style slot machines.

Video lottery terminals are, as their name implies, instant lottery machines. That means they are controlled by the state lottery, which is set up to remotely handle many, many such terminals at any given moment.

Identifying Who Controls Slot Machine Odds

Who controls slot machine odds at a casino you are considering whether or not to visit? Who controls slot machine odds on the slot machine you’re sitting at?

As I’ve discussed before, both on my webpage Assessing Casinos as well as Professor Slots podcast episode #3: Assessing Casinos, Alaska Slots 2017, deciding which local casino you want to spend your time at is an important decision for determining your baseline success at slots.

So, you’ll likely want to know who controls slot machine odds when you’re choosing between, for instance, an older, pre-2012 casino with standalone slot machines or a racino with many new video slot machines.

The top level choice is really about your own gambling goals, as also discussed on my webpage Identifying Gambling Goals or, alternatively, within Professor Slots podcast episode #5: Identifying Gambling Goals, Arizona Slots 2017.

But, whether your gambling goal is entertainment, earning maximum comps, or take-home money, having better odds of winning on a slot machine will help accomplish that goal. So, ignoring other important considerations such as drive time, the spread of the buffet, players club, and etc., the type of slot machine is definitely a consideration.

Casinos with standalone slot machines where the actual machine in front of you has its own dedicated random number generator is relatively easily determined. Ask someone, how old is the casino?

Or, if you don’t want to ask someone or look it up online, just take a look at the slot machine in front of you. Specifically, look at the player card interface area. What does its display look like? Is it a touchscreen display?

Or an LED display like those seen outside of a bank showing the time and temperature for a passerby to see? If it’s a touchscreen, the slot machine is most likely not standalone. If it’s an LED, it most likely is a standalone slot machine.

Determining whether or not a Progressive slot machine is connected to a single carousel, across several carousels within a casino, across several casinos owned by a single casino operator, or across several casino operator properties will be, as previously mentioned, the topic of an upcoming post.

Next up are non-video slot machines with touchscreens at the players card interface. These are all slot machines centrally controlled by a computer onsite at the casino. You can confirm this by learning the date of the casino’s original opening or when it was last heavily renovated.

Keep in mind that a very few casinos have both, assuming they have expanded their original structure not by renovating it, but by building a new casino facility right next to it.

This is the case with Foxwoods Resort, which is itself an older style casino. However, they recently build Fox Tower right next to it, which is a newer style casino.

Finally, there are video slot machines. It can be difficult, if not impossible, to tell the difference between a video slot machine and a video lottery terminal. A video slot machine is controlled onsite by the central computer at the casino. A video lottery terminal is controlled offsite by the state lottery.

The only sure way to tell the difference between these two slot machine types is to take a look at what the state gaming commission says they are at that casino.

For instance, in Ohio, there are currently 4 commercial casino resorts and 7 pari-mutual racinos. The 4 casinos have traditional reel and video slot machines all controlled by a central computer located onsite.

However, Ohio’s seven racinos have a mix of traditional reel and video lottery terminals slot machines. The traditional reel slot machines are controlled onsite with a central computer while all of the video lottery terminals, which externally look exactly like video slot machines, are controlled offsite by the state lottery’s central computer systems.

Does It Really Matter Who Controls Slot Machine Odds? Yes!!

With this improved understanding of how casinos work, let’s consider these two facts. First, that there are types of slot machines, specifically those that are standalone or remotely controlled by casino operator or state. Second, that there are the several ways slot machines can have their odds of winning set on an ongoing basis, depending on their specific type.

So yes, actually, it does matter who controls slot machine odds. Why? Because this is where patterns of winning are found. When slot machines are set up to be as random as possible, and that assigned level of randomness is unchanged over days and weeks, then long-term statistical principles rule.

Meaning, on average over the long haul, people will always loss money playing slots. Put another way, profits are only possible in the short term.. This specifically applies to all slot machines controlled by the state, such as video lottery terminals.

However, when the odds are changed hourly or set over 100% for promotional purposes, then there are better times to play a slot machine – and all that slot enthusiasts need do is figure out when that better time is in order to win more and, potentially, make some level of profit. That’s what I did: I made a profit at slots by looking for and finding winning patterns, when I won 90 taxable jackpots in 9 months.

Only casino operators change their odds hourly or deliberately adjust them for promotional purposes. The state has no need or desire to do so, getting their money no matter what, while the casino is a business, with stockholders and a board of directors, obligated to try to succeed financially.

The casino puts in the time and energy to hit their financial performance metrics. The casinos hire the best general manager who themselves hire the best possible team.

Put another way, the casino has a business need to adjust the odds of winning on their slot machines to eke out a living while the state only needs to be patient. Businesses are not patient – they try things in their ongoing quest for success.

And, really, that struggle is what has changed since around 2012 with the technology behind the winning odds of slot machines. Casinos are always trying new things. And, when they have control over setting the odds on slot machines, they adjust them to try to succeed.

Before 2012, this amounted to increasing the odds of winning to be over 100% on a single slot machine near a busy area in their casino, as a promotional tool with its own limited budget.

With the new casino operating technologies, casinos have been given a finer control over setting those odds. This has allowed them to try new things, which they very much like to do. These new things are to adjust the odds on slot machines more often than ever before.

In financial terms, they’re trying to tune their financial performance metrics on a daily or even hourly basis, something that was never before possible.

I’ve never worked for a casino, so have never been pitched a new casino operating system by a slot machine manufacturer’s sales team. But, it’s obvious that this “tuning” is part of the pitch being made to casino operators. Without having seen it, how can I believe this? Simple. I’ve won a lot at slots through pattern recognition.

What’s happened is that, and it matters not at all how it came about, casinos have obviously bought into the idea of finely tuning their financial performance metrics.

In the case of slot machines, which is the only game as casino offers that I’m interested in, they’ve broken the long-term constant randomness of the odds of winning on a slot machine. Therefore, as all statisticians know, patterns emerge.

So, again, yes it does matter who controls slot machine odds, because those controlled by the casino have had their randomness broken. It matters because slots enthusiasts can look for emerging patterns on these casino-controlled machines, then use them to win more.

In the future, I’ll talk more about the winning patterns I’ve found using this understanding. In the meantime, I hope I’ve made it clear how and why they exist.

Summary of Can You Guess Who Controls Slot Machine Odds?

In summary, who controls slot machine odds is answered by understanding they are controlled by the machine, the casino staff, both, possibly the state if the machine is a video lottery terminal, and by slot machine manufacturers themselves in the case of most Progressive slot machines.

This control over the odds of winning was historically a mechanical device supplanted by an electronic random number generator invented in 1984, afterwards allowing slots machines to be developed having more credits, denominations, and pay lines as well as higher jackpots.

There’s currently older-style casinos with standalone slot machines and newer-style casinos built to have the facility infrastructure necessary for physically wiring up their slot machines to be remotely controlled by a computer server.

I’ve discussed how to tell the difference, as well as explained how slot machines can be remotely controlled by the casino or, in the case of video lottery terminals, by computers established for this purpose by the state lottery agency.

Finally, I’ve discussed if any of this matters to slots enthusiasts looking for an advantage. It does matter. In essence, any slot machines with odds of winning directly controlled by a casino have patterns of winning because casinos keep adjusting those odds to meet their financial performance metrics.

These patterns make it possible for savvy slots enthusiasts to improve their own gambling performance.

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Have fun, be safe, and make good choices!
By Jon H. Friedl, Jr. Ph.D., President
Jon Friedl, LLC

Slot machines are the most popular gambling game in most United States casinos, but the number of players who really understand how they work is terribly small.

The purpose of this post is to explain what slot machines are and how they work in language anyone can understand.

Frankly, I think most people who understand how slot machines really work avoid playing them. And I think some of the people who play slot machines and think those games are cheating are daft in their reasoning, too.

If you pay attention to what I’ve written in this post, you’ll know the truth about slot machines.

And when you know the truth, you can make a decision about whether to play as an educated person instead of as a rube.

Modern slot machines are powered by computers and electronic devices, but that wasn’t always so. Understanding how those computers and electronics produce results requires some understanding of the history of slot machines and how they worked in the past.

What makes a slot machine a slot machine is the presence of spinning reels with symbols on them. Early version of slot machines used actual physical reels, springs, and gears to create random results.

On the front of these machines was a window with a horizontal line across it. This represented the “payline.” If symbols lined up and matched on the payline, you won a prize amount.

At first this was money, but eventually, slots were outlawed. Many bar and pub owners replaced the monetary prizes with fruit-flavored candy and sticks of candy to get around the new laws.

The traditional, classic symbols on slot machine reels are still based on those older machines. This is why you find so many slot machines with cherries, apples, and bars on them. (The bars represent sticks of gum.)

The early slot machines used the same strategy to make money in the long run that modern slot machines do. They gave you odds of winning that weren’t commensurate with the payout amount.

This is best explained using some mathematical examples.

There are 1000 possible combinations of symbols on a 3-reel slot machine of that description, but only one of them is a possible winner.
If that winning combination pays off 950 for 1, the casino has a clear advantage, right?

Over 1000 spins, you’ll lose $1000, but on that single winning spin, you’ll win $950 of it back. You’ll lose $50.

That is, of course, a theoretical result based on long-term mathematical expectations. In the short run, anything can and often will happen when you’re playing slots.

And real slot machines are more robust than that. They have more winning combinations with lower prize amounts, but all the prize amounts multiplied by all the probabilities of winning always result in a number less than 100%.

That number is called the payback percentage.

Do Slot Machines Have Cameras Without

Modern slot machines use the same kind of math and game-play, but instead of using a complicated system of gears and stops, they use computer programs to create the same kind of odds. This has perks for the player, but it has drawbacks, too.

On a traditional mechanical slot machine, the probabilities are straightforward. If you have 10 different symbols, the probability of that symbol showing up on a payline in a spot is 1/10.

With a computerized slot machine, the designers can use any kind of weighting that they want to. One symbol might be programmed to show up 1/20 of the time, while another might be programmed to show up 1/5 of the time.

You have no way of knowing or estimating what the probability is, either.

To make things even more interesting, 2 identical slot machines might have different programming “under the hood.”

You might be playing The Price Is Right slot machines at a casino and be facing a 95% payback percentage.

You might switch to the same game at the same stakes at the machine next to it and be facing a payback percentage of 85%. There’s no way to tell the difference.

This change in the way the games work enables casinos to offer larger jackpots than they would be able to offer otherwise.

But you trade transparency for that.

I prefer to play games where I can figure out how much of a mathematical disadvantage I have.

That’s impossible with most modern slot machine games.

Random Number Generator Programs and Why Slot Machines Don’t Cheat

The computer program that powers these results is called a random number generator. That’s almost always referred to by an acronym of “RNG.”

It’s a simple enough computer program. It’s just a program that continually thinks of numbers—thousands of them per second. When you press the spin or stop button on a slot machine, the computer program stops on one of those numbers.

That number corresponds to a combination on the reels of the machine.

The outcome has been determined by the computer program before the reels stop spinning.

This doesn’t mean that the machine is cheating. You’re not more likely to lose after a winning streak, and you’re not more likely to win after a losing streak. Every spin of the reels is an independent event.

The difference between the odds of winning and the payout odds for each bet is what creates an edge for the house. Cheating isn’t necessary for the casinos or the slot machine designers.

The math takes care of that for them.

I have a paranoid friend who literally believes the world is flat. He also thinks slot machines are rigged.

He’s wrong about both, but he’s less wrong about the slot machines.

They ARE rigged, mathematically, by providing payouts that are lower than the odds of winning.

But they work honestly in terms of providing completely random results and independent trials. In fact, in any jurisdiction where such games are legal, they’re heavily regulated, inspected, and audited.

Casinos make more money from slot machines than they’d probably make with a printing press that printed new money in that same amount of floor space.

The Difference between Short Term Results and Long Term Expectations

The mathematical examples I’ve used assume you’re interested in predicting results in the long run. That’s the entire point of gambling math as it relates to probability.

But long term expectations have little to do with what happens in the short run.

The long run can be defined as an infinite number of bets. Every bet you place brings you closer to the long run, but you’ll never get there.

The Law of Large Numbers is a mathematical principle that says the more independent trials you run, the closer you’ll get to the theoretical expectation.

In the short term, though, you’re possibly going to win. I’ve seen surveys that showed that roughly 20% of the gamblers at a casino leave with some winnings in their pocket on any given visit. The casinos don’t mind. In fact, they’re counting on it.

If no one ever won, people wouldn’t play. And without gamblers, casinos make no money and can’t stay in business.

My best advice to someone who’s playing slot machines is to not spend much time in front of them. If you get a reasonable sized win when you sit down, be willing to quit and walk away.

The longer you play, the more likely you are to see results that mirror the long term expectation.

Your goal should be to take advantage of those short term aberrations called luck or deviation. You can’t count on that in any given situation,

The longer you play, the more your results are going to resemble the mathematically expected results.
And with a negative expectation game like a slot machine, you’re going to lose all your money if you play long enough. That’s how a negative expectation gambling game works.

What about the Other Bells and Whistles on Modern Slot Machine Games?

When I use the expression “bells and whistles,” I’m talking about features of slot machine games other than the standard 3 spinning reels. Some of these additions and changes are complicated, but some of them are simplicity itself to understand.

One example of a bell and whistle is the number of reels on a slot machine game. Traditional slot machines just had 3 reels, and one of the reasons for that was the size of the reels and the machine that housed them.

The number of symbols also used to depend on the size of the reels—the smaller the reels, the fewer symbols you can print on them.

Additional paylines are another bell and whistle on most modern slot machines. The traditional machine just has a payline horizontally across the center, but modern slot machines have various patterns similar to the various patterns you might use on bingo cards.

They might run diagonally, or they might run in a zig zag pattern.

To activate multiple paylines, you must make multiple bets. Each payline gets activated by a wager, and the payout is based on the combination that appears on that line and the wager on that line only.

On larger machines with lots of paylines, you can win on multiple paylines but still be a net loser. For example, if you bet a nickel on each of 20 paylines, you’ll have put an entire dollar in action. If one of those paylines wins for 50 cents, you’ve still lost 50 cents on the game.

But the slot machine still lights up and shows you the payout as if you were a net winner.

Wild symbols are another example of a bell and whistle on a modern slot machine. If you’ve played cards, especially poker, you are probably already familiar with the concept of a wild symbol.

It’s a symbol that can be used to complete any winning combination. It acts as a replacement for the symbol that you needed to make that combination.

Scatter symbols are a little more confusing, but they’re similar to wild symbols. A scatter symbol is one that doesn’t have to be on a payline to trigger a payoff. You just need enough of those scatter symbols to show up somewhere on the screen at once.

Many times, on a 5-reel machine, you’ll get a payoff if 3 scatter symbols or more show up from left to right. They don’t need to be along a payline or anything like that. They can literally be “scattered” across the screen.

Sometimes scatter symbols and/or wild symbols trigger bonus games or free spins. Free spins are a simple enough concept to understand—they’re just extra spins on the reels that you don’t have to pay for.

On some machines, they’re always winning spins—the only thing in question is how much you’re going to win on each spin.

Bonus games can be more interesting, but they’re almost always entirely random. Often the bonus games involve choosing from a video display of multiple boxes or treasure chests. Depending on which one you choose, you get a prize amount.

There’s no skill involved in these kinds of bonus games.

Slot machine designers are now experimenting with design elements that borrow from video games like Space Invaders, though. If you get a certain number of symbols, you can trigger a bonus game, and the amount you win from that bonus game might depend on how many aliens you can shoot from the skies overhead.

Slot Machine Strategies and Systems Don’t Work, So Don’t Even Bother

If I could teach you only one thing about slot machine games, it’s this:

They’re entirely random. Each spin is an independent event. This means that what’s happened on previous spins has no effect on what’s going to happen on a subsequent spin. Most strategies and systems assume that the previous spins have some relationship to subsequent spins.

I once read an entire book of slot machine systems that were supposed to help you win at slots. The guy who wrote it was a total cornball. I’m not even going to mention the name of the book or the author here.

I will describe what he suggested, though. His first piece of advice was to track how many “naked pulls” you’ve had in a row.
A naked pull on a slot machine is one that results in no winnings at all.

His advice was to switch machines any time you get 5 or 7 naked pulls in a row. (I don’t remember the exact number, but it was something arbitrary like that.)

The idea behind this advice is that any machine which hasn’t paid out in the last 5 or 7 spins must be running cold, so you should find a machine that’s NOT running cold.

He also offered advice about setting loss limits and win goals. This idea has some merit, but not much.

A loss limit is the amount of your session bankroll that you’re willing to lose before walking away from a game. 20% is a commonly suggested number. So if you put $100 in a slot machine game and lost $20, you’d cash out and walk away for that session.

A win goal is just the opposite. It’s an amount that you will win which will signal that it’s time to quit playing. You might have a 20% win goal, too, which means that once you’re up to $120, you’ll call it a day for that playing session.

This can help you avoid having huge losing sessions. It can also help you have book occasional winning sessions.

What it doesn’t do is change the odds in your favor in any way. In the long run, you should think of playing slot machine games as one long game that lasts for the rest of your life.

Eventually the odds are going to even out to a point where you see the kind of results the math would predict, regardless of what happens during those individual sessions.

I’ll confess that when I play slot machines, I do use a variation of this strategy. My loss limit, though, is always 100% of the amount I put in the machine. I either want to hit my win goal or lose all my money trying.

That’s as effective as any other loss limit, but people never suggest that.

Raising and lowering the sizes of your bets don’t change the odds on the machines, either. Don’t pay attention to any advice which suggests otherwise.

Other Lame Pieces of Slot Machine Strategy Advice You’ve Probably Heard (Or Will Hear)

One of my favorite pieces of advice from slot machine gurus is to try to find loose slot machines on the ends of the rows of slots at the casinos.

The idea is that the casino managers put the loose machines there to attract more customers.

You’ll find superstitious types who believe that playing with you slot machine card inserted is also a mistake. They think having the card inserted makes it impossible to win.

They don’t understand how the computer programs in question work at all. They’re not connected. The random number generator determines the results of each spin. The card reader just tracks how much money you’ve put into action.

The 2 have no relation to each other.

In fact, it makes no sense that a casino would want to discourage you from using the card reader. They have a slots club for a reason—they want to encourage people to play at their casino.

In the long run, the math behind their games ensures them a healthy profit. They count on a percentage of their gamblers going home a winner.

They also want their gamblers to take advantage of the free stuff they’re earning with their slot machine club cards, because that means it’s working. It’s motivating them to play more.

Why Almost Every Other Game in the Casino Is Better than Slot Machines

The traditional way that gambling experts measure one casino game against the other is by comparing the house edge. The higher the house edge, the more the casino expects to win over time on average for each bet you place.

Slot machines generally have the highest house edge in the casino. Some of them might be exceptional, but you have no means of comparing them, because a slot machine is like a black box. You put money in and get money back.

Compare that to a video poker game, where you can calculate the payback percentage based on the probability of getting specific poker hands against the payout for those hands.

Since those games use a 52-card deck to determine your probabilities, it’s a simple enough matter to compare one video poker game to another.

Table games make it even easier to compare house edge figures.

But even if a slot machine had the same house edge as all the other games (or lower), it’s still one of the fastest-playing games in the casino. An average slot machine gambler makes 600 spins per hour.

This means slots players are putting more money into action and losing more money over time as a result.

Finally, slot machines are proven to have an addictive effect on the human brain. Addiction is bad. Alcohol can be fun. Some drugs can be fun, too.

But addiction takes something that would otherwise be fun and turns it into something that’s NOT fun.

Slot machines are the most popular games in the casinos, but that’s only because most gamblers are stunningly ignorant of how they work. You don’t have that excuse any more.