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Slot Machine Strategies

Last update: March 2011

Play online instead of in land casinos

Online slots are typically looser than in land casinos because online casinos don't have the enormous costs of the buildings and physical machines.  Returns in land casinos are generally around 91% while they're around 97.4% at Bovada.

The catch is that it takes time and effort to visit a land casino, while online slots are just a few clicks away.  If you play four times as much online than you would in a land casino, you'll wind up losing more online, even with the better odds.  Set loss limits and stick to them!  You can also play with fake money so you don't risk losing.

Play in the looser casinos

In Vegas, the casinos on the Boulder Strip and in North Las Vegas have the best paybacks (~96%).  After that are the other off-strip casinos, then downtown (~94%), and then the Strip (~91%).  ("Off-strip" means any casino that's not on the Strip or downtown.) (source for the figures)

Nationwide, Reno NV is usually on the top of the list for the best paybacks in the U.S.  Most of the rest of the country has pretty lousy slot odds.  If you're in one of those areas, then either play online or graduate to a better game.

Avoid the stingiest casinos

All land casinos pay worse than Bovada online, but some are especially bad:

1. The airport.  Airport slots ranked dead last in the Wizard's slot survey.  Also, if you hit a big jackpot and have to wait for a hand pay, you might have to choose between missing your flight or giving up the jackpot—a lose-lose situation.
2. The nicest casinos.  The nicer the casino, the worse the odds.  Among actual casinos in the Wizard's survey, the Venetian ranked dead last, and Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, and Caesars Palace weren't far behind.  (The Wynn wasn't included in the survey, but I expect it would be near the bottom.)  As mentioned above, skip the Strip and head to the locals casinos.
3. Grocery and convenience stores.  Their video poker is the tightest around, so the slots are almost certainly set the same way.
4. Cruise ships and ferries.  They don't have to offer good odds because there's no competition—you can't walk out and go to the casino next door.  The ships know they have a captive audience and set their odds accordingly.  The worst roulette odds I ever saw in my life were on a ferry between England and the Netherlands, which means that the slots were almost certainly the same.

Bet the minimum amount that's still fun for you.

The more you bet, the more you'll lose.  It's that simple.  Bet as small as you can and still have fun.  Most casinos will still serve you free drinks even if you bet only a penny at a time.

Play the highest denomination machine that's within your budget.

Higher-denomination machines usually pay better.  The trick here is to not bet more just because you're playing a bigger machine.  If you were playing 10 lines, 5 credits on a 1¢ machine (50¢/spin), instead play 2 lines, 5 credits on a 5¢ machine (50¢/spin).

Choose electro-mechanical machines over video slots

Jackpots come far more frequently on old-school slots vs. video slots.  With full-time play, an electromechanical slot hits its jackpot once every few weeks on average, while it takes literally years on a video slot.  And the more likely you are to hit the jackpot, the more likely you are to walk away a winner.

On electro-mechanical slots, choose the machines with the smallest jackpots

The smaller the jackpot, the easier it is to win, increasing your chances of walking away a winner.  This doesn't work with video slots, because the jackpot odds are almost always incredibly long, and unrelated to the jackpot size.

Limit play on progressives with huge jackpots.

On the machines with huge progressive jackpots, a huge portion of each bet goes to feed the meter.  For example, on Megabucks, a whopping 10¢ of every $1 goes to pushing the meter higher.  Excluding the jackpot, Megabucks returns only about 78% on average.  If you must play a big progressive (because you want a shot at a huge jackpot), play a two-coin machine instead of a three-coin machine, and look for a $0.05 or $0.25 machine instead of a $1.00 machine.

Use a slot card.

Get a free slot card from the Player's Club desk (every casino has one) and use it.  While the cashback rewards for slot points are usually insignificant, playing on a slot card means that the casino may give you free meals and will usually mail you offers for free or deeply discounted rooms, and that can save you a bit of money.

Contrary to popular myth, using a slot card has zero effect on whether you win.  The card system is completely separate from the RNG that chooses where the reels stop.  I've won several jackpots with my slot card in.

Avoid celebrity & licensed slots

Slots based on a celebrity, movie, or TV show have to pay licensing fees, so they pay out a couple of percentage points less than generic slots. (source)

Play machines which are advertised as paying back a specific high percentage.

If you can find machines that are listed as paying a specific high percentage, then choose those.  This will almost never happen in a land casino, because casinos don't like to divulge that info, but it happens sometimes.  For example:

• The Hollywood Casino in Mississippi reportedly had twelve 98% machines in 2016.  (They didn't return my call to verify whether they still do.  Can any reader please verify and send me a picture?)
• The Strat and Riviera casinos had specially-labeled 98% dollar slots, but that's a thing of the past.
• The last time I was in Reno, years ago, Fitzgeralds there had a section of about 50 dollar slots whose average payback was 97.4%.  

If you know of other casinos which list the payback of any machines, please send me a picture!

However, ignore a sign on a bank that says "Up to xx% payback."  The "up to" means that one of the machines pays that much, and the rest are crap.  Also ignore claims such as "Loosest Slots" or "High Payback" which are meaningless since they're not specific.

Some online casinos list the paybacks of their machines, such as Video Slots.  Unfortunately, they don't take U.S. players.

"Hit & run" doesn't work

Popular strategies say to move onto another machine after a set, short period of time, or after getting some nice payouts (under the assumption that after paying generously, the machine will tighten up).  These methods are useless, because every spin is random.  Previous results have no bearing on future results.

$10,000 challenge for system sellers

It galls me that some people prey on the gullible by selling "winning slot machine strategies" on the Internet.  It ought to be obvious that if someone really knew a way to consistently beat slot machines then they wouldn't need to sell that information for $19.95 (or whatever).  Unfortunately, some people are still duped.

For years I've offered a $10,000 to any system-seller who could prove that their system actually does what they say it does.  I hope to show that those systems are worthless, because no system-seller has ever dared to take me up on the challenge.

Play slots online

I suggest you play something other than slots because the slot odds are so bad.  You could also play online with fake money, because then it doesn't matter if you lose.  A good casino for free-play is Bovada, since it requires no download and no registration.  (If you see a registration box, you can close it and continue without registering.)  You can play with real money too, though I hope you won't (or at least won't bet more than you can comfortably afford to lose).

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Gambling problem?

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3. Know that Parkinson's drugs encourage gambling.

All my slot machine articles

• Slot machine basics.  How much it costs to play, how much you can win, expected loss, why they're a bad bet, why they're popular, how you can limit your losses, speed of play
• How to play slot machines
• Slot returns.  How much they pay back.
• The Randomness Principle.  Slots don't continually get looser and tighter as they're played.  They don't have to.
• How they work. Explains the randomness principle, and runs through the math to show how a game returns a particular payback percentage.  There's a companion page on Par sheets.
• Slot Machine Myths
• Slot Machine B.S.  Wrong info that's published elsewhere.
• Strategies. Tips for increasing your chances of winning, and saving money.
• Slot Jackpots.  Odds of hitting the jackpot, progressive jackpots, and other jackpot topics.
• Biggest Jackpots.  The largest slot and table game jackpot wins in Vegas.
• Skill-Based Slots.  The scoop on the new games in which your results aren't entirely determined by chance.
• Slot Machine malfunctions. How and why slot machines screw up, causing players to think they've won the jackpot when they really haven't.
• Slot Machine Simulator.  I programmed an exact replica of the Blazing 7s slot (odds-wise).  Click it to play thousands of spins in one second and see how you do.