How To Win Against Slot Machines

Mar 14, 2012  3 Unbelievable Ways to Win on Slot Machines By Gemma Sykes on March 14, 2012 If you’ve ever walked into a casino or visited one online, one of the first things you will notice is the pictures of all the big winners.

Slot machines can be some of the most interesting and lucrative casino games available. The sheer variety of themes and game features ensure that players are offered a superior real money gambling and gaming experience. Today, with the advent of online casinos, players have the opportunity to win significant amounts of money from the comfort of their home. Gone are the days when playing slot machines entailed packing and a drive to the nearest casino. You can simply register a real money account at any of the numerous licensed casino sites available, choose a game from an extensive slot portfolio and start wagering.

What makes slot games more attractive is that they do not require any complicated playing techniques or strategies as they are based on luck. This means that slots are ideal for players who are new to casino games. When you play for real money, it is imperative that you win more than you lose. To win at slots is not an easy task as there is no set strategy to do so. However, there are certain factors that can help you increase your chances of winning money at slot games and some of them have been discussed below.

How To Win Against Slot Machines

Set a Bankroll Limit and Stick to It

This is one of the primary steps to ensure that you have enough funds to wager with for a long time at the slots so as to increase your chances of winning on slots. This is especially important if you intend to wager on slot games for an extended period of time. You should remember that money set aside for personal purposes such as rent and payment of utilities should never be used for gambling.

It is recommended to set aside a particular amount of money each day for wagering on slot games. Doing so will allow you to be aware of just how much money can and should be spending during a single day. If you do not, it is highly likely that you will end up spending too much money on the first day itself.

This will throw your bankroll limit system out of order and you will lose a significant amount of money at the end. Try and stick to the bankroll limit as much as possible as otherwise managing your finances will become a huge problem. Do not fret if you have a small bankroll as slot games can be availed in a variety of betting denominations today. This is also a great way to ensure that your money will last for a longer period of time.

Understand the Payback Percentages Concept and Select Game Accordingly

Once you have fixed your bankroll limit, you can go ahead and choose your slot game. The games are available in a variety of themes from sports, fantasy, action and science-fiction. However, even though the theme of the game will enhance your game play, the concept of payback percentages is what you should pay attention to if you are interested in winning money on the game.

Payback percentages are an approximation of how much that specific game will pay out to players. For purposes of winning, it is recommended to choose top paying slot machines with 95-98%. This means that, if a game has a payback percentage of 97%, the game will payout 97% of the investment over an extended period of time.

This does not mean that players will receive 97% of their investment every time they wager on the game. Today, a majority of the slot games have a high payback percentage in order to attract players. Narrow down the list of games you wish to play according to this criterion.

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Opt for Games with Multiple Features Including Bonuses, Free Spins and Progressive Jackpots

Slot games have a lot going for them as most of them include bonus features such as multiplied payouts and free spins. As the industry gets more competitive, gaming software developers are scrambling to make some of the most lucrative slots that offer spectacular rewards.

Free spins are a great way to increase your winnings at slots. Although most slot games offer this feature, the number of free spins differs from game to game. Some may offer 8 and others 20 or more. When you select a slot, make sure it has bonus features. The more the number of free spins the greater the chances of winning more money.

Progressive jackpots are popular among gamblers as they allow players to win massive amounts of money based on real money on the game by players across the world. The more players that wager on the game, irrespective of their location, the higher the jackpot will be. It is important to note that you will have to bet the maximum amount on each spin to be eligible to win the progressive jackpot.

Set Aside Your Winnings

This is a crucial factor at winning money on slot games. When you earn payouts, do not include them in your general bankroll for the day immediately, but keep them aside. Doing so will allow you to keep a tab on how much money was made against the wagers placed. Otherwise, you will not be aware of the return on your investment for the day which is a sure-shot way to lose significant money on slots.

When you finish playing for the day, you can decide whether you would like to merge the winnings with your bankroll or keep the money in a separate account. The latter is a good way to make and save extra money. If you are only interested in gambling for a short period of time, you can opt for the former. A benefit of doing this is that you will not have to re-fund your bankroll on a regular basis.

Do Not Get Carried Away During a Winning Spree

When you find yourself on a winning spree, do not get swept away in the moment. More often than not, players tend to wager more when they are on a winning spree to earn double the amounts that they already have. However, chances are high that you may lose the next game and a majority of your bankroll limit for the day.

Once you have made a significant amount of money in a day, you can stop wagering and begin anew the next day. This will ensure that you do not get bored of gambling and also safeguard your money from risky wagers.

In the not-too-distant past, slot-machine players were the second-class citizens of casino customers. Jackpots were small, payout percentages were horrendous, and slot players just weren't eligible for the kind of complimentary bonuses -- free rooms, shows, meals -- commonly given to table players. But in the last few decades the face of the casino industry has changed. Nowadays more than 70 percent of casino revenues comes from slot machines, and in many jurisdictions, that figure tops 80 percent.

About 80 percent of first-time visitors to casinos head for the slots. It's easy -- just drop coins into the slot and push the button or pull the handle. Newcomers can find the personal interaction with dealers or other players at the tables intimidating -- slot players avoid that. And besides, the biggest, most lifestyle-changing jackpots in the casino are offered on the slots.

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The following article will tell you everything you need to know about slots, from the basics to various strategies. We'll start at square one, with a primer on how playing slot machines works.

How to Play

The most popular slots are penny and nickel video games along with quarter and dollar reel-spinning games, though there are video games in 2-cent, 10-cent, quarter, and dollar denominations and reel spinners up to $100. Most reel spinners take up to two or three coins at a time while video slots can take 45, 90, and even 500 credits at a time.

Nearly all slot machines are fitted with currency acceptors -- slide a bill into the slot, and the equivalent amount of credits is displayed on a meter. On reel-spinning slots, push a button marked 'play one credit' until you've reached the number of coins you wish to play. Then hit the 'spin reels' button, or pull the handle on those few slots that still have handles, or hit a button marked 'play max credits,' which will play the maximum coins allowed on that machine.

On video slots, push one button for the number of paylines you want to activate, and a second button for the number of credits wagered per line. One common configuration has nine paylines on which you can bet 1 to 5 credits. Video slots are also available with 5, 15, 20, 25, even 50 paylines, accepting up to 25 coins per line.

Many reel-spinning machines have a single payout line painted across the center of the glass in front of the reels. Others have three payout lines, even five payout lines, each corresponding to a coin played. The symbols that stop on a payout line determine whether a player wins. A common set of symbols might be cherries, bars, double bars (two bars stacked atop one another), triple bars, and sevens.

A single cherry on the payout line, for example, might pay back two coins; the player might get 10 coins for three of any bars (a mixture of bars, double bars, and triple bars), 30 for three single bars, 60 for three double bars, 120 for three triple bars, and the jackpot for three sevens. However, many of the stops on each reel will be blanks, and a combination that includes blanks pays nothing. Likewise, a seven is not any bar, so a combination such as bar-seven-double bar pays nothing.

Video slots typically have representations of five reels spinning on a video screen. Paylines not only run straight across the reels but also run in V's, upside down V's, and zigs and zags across the screen. Nearly all have at least five paylines, and most have more -- up to 50 lines by the mid-2000s.

In addition, video slots usually feature bonus rounds and 'scatter pays.' Designated symbols trigger a scatter pay if two, three, or more of them appear on the screen, even if they're not on the same payline.

Similarly, special symbols will trigger a bonus event. The bonus may take the form of a number of free spins, or the player may be presented with a 'second screen' bonus. An example of a second screen bonus comes in the long-popular WMS Gaming Slot 'Jackpot Party.' If three Party noisemakers appear on the video reels, the reels are replaced on the screen with a grid of packages in gift wrapping. The player touches the screen to open a package and collects a bonus payout. He or she may keep touching packages for more bonuses until one package finally reveals a 'pooper,' which ends the round. The popularity of such bonus rounds is why video slots have become the fastest growing casino game of the last decade.

When you hit a winning combination, winnings will be added to the credit meter. If you wish to collect the coins showing on the meter, hit the button marked 'Cash Out,' and on most machines, a bar-coded ticket will be printed out that can be redeemed for cash. In a few older machines, coins still drop into a tray.

Etiquette

Many slot players pump money into two or more adjacent machines at a time, but if the casino is crowded and others are having difficulty finding places to play, limit yourself to one machine. As a practical matter, even in a light crowd, it's wise not to play more machines than you can watch over easily. Play too many and you could find yourself in the situation faced by the woman who was working up and down a row of six slots. She was dropping coins into machine number six while number one, on the aisle, was paying a jackpot. There was nothing she could do as a passerby scooped a handful of coins out of the first tray.

Sometimes players taking a break for the rest room will tip a chair against the machine, leave a coat on the chair, or leave some other sign that they'll be back. Take heed of these signs. A nasty confrontation could follow if you play a machine that has already been thus staked out.

Payouts

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Payout percentages have risen since the casinos figured out it's more profitable to hold 5 percent of a dollar than 8 percent of a quarter or 10 percent of a nickel. In most of the country, slot players can figure on about a 93 percent payout percentage, though payouts in Nevada run higher. Las Vegas casinos usually offer the highest average payouts of all -- better than 95 percent. Keep in mind that these are long-term averages that will hold up over a sample of 100,000 to 300,000 pulls.

In the short term, anything can happen. It's not unusual to go 20 or 50 or more pulls without a single payout on a reel-spinning slot, though payouts are more frequent on video slots. Nor is it unusual for a machine to pay back 150 percent or more for several dozen pulls. But in the long run, the programmed percentages will hold up.

The change in slots has come in the computer age, with the development of the microprocessor. Earlier slot machines were mechanical, and if you knew the number of stops -- symbols or blank spaces that could stop on the payout line--on each reel, you could calculate the odds on hitting the top jackpot. If a machine had three reels, each with ten stops, and one symbol on each reel was for the jackpot, then three jackpot symbols would line up, on the average, once every 10310310 pulls, or 1,000 pulls.

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On those machines, the big payoffs were $50 or $100--nothing like the big numbers slot players expect today. On systems that electronically link machines in several casinos, progressive jackpots reach millions of dollars.

The microprocessors driving today's machines are programmed with random-number generators that govern winning combinations. It no longer matters how many stops are on each reel. If we fitted that old three-reel, ten-stop machine with a microprocessor, we could put ten jackpot symbols on the first reel, ten on the second, and nine on the third, and still program the random-number generator so that three jackpot symbols lined up only once every 1,000 times, or 10,000 times. And on video slots, reel strips can be programmed to be as long as needed to make the odds of the game hit at a desired percentage. They are not constrained by a physical reel.

Each possible combination is assigned a number, or numbers. When the random-number generator receives a signal -- anything from a coin being dropped in to the handle being pulled -- it sets a number, and the reels stop on the corresponding combination.

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Between signals, the random-number generator operates continuously, running through dozens of numbers per second. This has two practical effects for slot players. First, if you leave a machine, then see someone else hit a jackpot shortly thereafter, don't fret. To hit the same jackpot, you would have needed the same split-second timing as the winner. The odds are overwhelming that if you had stayed at the machine, you would not have hit the same combination.

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Second, because the combinations are random, or as close to random as is possible to set the program, the odds of hitting any particular combination are the same on every pull. If a machine is programmed to pay out its top jackpot, on the average, once every 10,000 pulls, your chances of hitting it are one in 10,000 on any given pull. If you've been standing there for days and have played 10,000 times, the odds on the next pull will still be one in 10,000. Those odds are long-term averages. In the short term, the machine could go 100,000 pulls without letting loose of the big one, or it could pay it out twice in a row.

So, is there a way to ensure that you hit it big on a slot machine? Not really, but despite the overriding elements of chance, there are some strategies you can employ. We'll cover these in the next section.

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