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.

Mission 130 - Destroy Slot Machines. There are a lot of these scattered about town, all with the same general setup- a small store or business, slots toward the back, two goons keeping watch. The business always has a back door into an employees-only area which you can sneak through to shoot up the machines, preferably with a silenced weapon. Know your limits and play within your budget. Not setting a gambling budget is perhaps one of the.

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

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.

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.

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.

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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Slots are the easiest games in the casino to play -- spin the reels and take your chances. Players have no control over what combinations will show up or when a jackpot will hit. There is no way to tell when a machine will be hot or cold. Still, there are some pitfalls. It's important to read the glass and learn what type of machine it is. The three major types of reel-spinning slots are the multiplier, the buy-a-pay, and the progressive.

The multiplier. On a multiplier, payoffs are proportionate for each coin played--except, usually, for the top jackpot. If the machine accepts up to three coins at a time, and if you play one coin, three bars pay back ten. Three bars will pay back 20 for two coins and 30 for three coins. However, three sevens might pay 500 for one coin and 1,000 for two, but jump to 10,000 when all three coins are played. Read the glass to find out if that's the case before playing less than the maximum coins on this type of machine.

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The buy-a-pay. Never play less than the maximum on a buy-a-pay, on which each coin 'buys' a set of symbols or a payout line. The first coin in might allow the player to win only on cherry combination, while the second coin activates the bar payouts, and the third coin activates the sevens. Woe is the player who hits three jackpot symbols on a buy-a-pay with only one coin played--the player gets nothing back. A variation is the machine with multiple payout lines, each activated by a separate coin. All symbols are active with each coin, but if a winning combination lines up on the third-coin payout line with only one or two coins played, the payoff is zero.

The progressive. You also have no reason to play less than maximum coins on a progressive machine. A player who eventually lines up the jackpot symbols gets a percentage of each coin played. The first progressive machines were self-contained--the jackpot was determined by how much that particular machine had been played since the last big hit. Today most progressives are linked electronically to other machines, with all coins played in the linked machines adding to a common jackpot.

These jackpots can be enormous -- the record is $39,710,826.26, a $1 progressive at a Las Vegas casino. The tradeoff is that frequency and size of other payouts are usually smaller. And you can't win the big jackpot without playing maximum coins.

If you must play fewer than maximum coins, look for a multiplier in which the final-coin jump in the top jackpot is fairly small. Better yet, choose a machine that allows you to stay within your budget while playing maximum coins. If your budget won't allow you to play maximum coins on a $1 machine, move to a quarter machine. If you're not comfortable playing three quarters at a time, move to a two-quarter machine. If you can't play two quarters at a time, play a nickel machine.

With so many paylines and the possibility of betting multiple coins per line, video slots are different. Some penny slots with 20 paylines take up to 25 coins per line. That's a $5 maximum bet -- a pretty penny indeed! Most players bet less than the max on video slots but are sure to cover all the paylines, even if betting only one coin per line. You want to be sure to be eligible for the bonus rounds that give video slots most of their fun. Some progressive jackpots require max coins bets, and some don't. If a max-coins bet is required to be eligible for the jackpot and you're not prepared to roll that high, find a different machine.

Money Management

Managing your money wisely is the most important part of playing any casino game, and also the most difficult part of playing the slots. Even on quarter machines, the amount of money involved runs up quickly. A dedicated slot player on a machine that plays off credits can easily get in 600 pulls an hour. At two quarters at a time, that means wagering $300 per hour -- the same amount a $5 blackjack player risks at an average table speed of 60 hands per hour.

Most of that money is recycled from smaller payouts--at a casino returning 93 percent on quarter slots, the expected average loss for $300 in play is $21. Still, you will come out ahead more often if you pocket some of those smaller payouts and don't continually put everything you get back into the machine.

One method for managing money is to divide your slot bankroll for the day into smaller-session bankrolls. If, for example, you've taken $100 on a two-and-a-half-hour riverboat cruise, allot $20 for each half-hour. Select a quarter machine -- dollar machines could devastate a $100 bankroll in minutes -- and play the $20 through once. If you've received more than $20 in payouts, pocket the excess and play with the original $20. At the end of one half-hour, pocket whatever is left and start a new session with the next $20.

If at any point the original $20 for that session is depleted, that session is over. Finish that half-hour with a walk, or a snack, or a drink until it is time for a new session. Do not dip back into money you've already pocketed.

That may seem rigid, but players who do not use a money management technique all too frequently keep pumping money into the machine until they've lost their entire bankroll. The percentages guarantee that the casino will be the winner in the long run, but lock up a portion of the money as you go along, and you'll walk out of the casino with cash on hand more frequently.

That is changing in new server-based slots that have started to appear in casinos. Operators will be able to change payback percentages at the click of a mouse, but they still must have regulatory approval to do so.

There is a lot more to slot machines than meets the eye. But if you learn the ins and outs of playing them, you can use some strategies that just might help you hit the jackpot.

^©Publications International, Ltd.

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Slot machines remain a mystery to many gamblers because you can’t see their inner workings. This differs from casino games like blackjack or roulette, where you can physically see how results are determined.

This has led to may slots myths, such as casinos flipping switches to change payback or machines running hot and cold.

The truth is that slot machines, and their results aren’t difficult to comprehend when you look closer at the matter.

Below you can see 10 important points on slot machines that will clear up many misconceptions. You’ll also see other info on the biggest slots jackpots, skill-based bonus rounds, and slots history.

1. Slot Machine Results Are Determined by Random Number Generators

One of the most important things to know about slot machines is how results are determined.

These games used to work on mechanical reels and levers. But now, almost every game is a video or online slot machine that features a random number generator (RNG).

The RNG cycles through sequences of simulated random numbers. Oftentimes the RNG moves at the rate of thousands of number sequences per second.

When you select the spin button, the most recent number combination determines your result. This means that the biggest determinant in your result is when you choose to spin.

Some players believe that they can produce desired results by “timing up” spins correctly.

This might be true if slot machines had more predictable RNGs. But given the speed at which RNGs move and how they continue working even when not played, timing up spins is impossible.

In summary, slots results are totally random. And you can’t do anything beyond developing an elaborate cheating plot to win guaranteed profits.

2. Slots Payback Determines Your Chances of Winning

Your odds of winning with a slot machine are determined by the payout percentage (a.k.a. payback).

Also called, return to player (RTP), this figure represents how much money you’ll theoretically win back from your bets. A slot machine with 95% payback would return $0.95 on every dollar you wager.

Many land-based casino jurisdictions require a minimum slot RTP. New Jersey requires a minimum payback of 83%, Mississippi requires 80%, and Nevada calls for at least 75%.

Most brick and mortar casinos have higher average RTP than the state required minimum because they want players to feel like they have a chance to win.

ThoughtCo reports that the average payback on Nevada penny slot machines is 90%, which is low in comparison to other types of slots in the state. But it’s also far higher than the state requirement of 75%.

Modern online slots payback between 95% and 97%. Online slots don’t have the same overhead costs as casinos, so they typically offer higher payback.

Obviously, you want a game’s RTP to be as high as possible. But the problem is that most casinos don’t advertise RTP on all of their slots.

This means that you’ll have to do research to find slots payback in many casinos.

This is easy to do with online slots providers because they usually offer a uniform payback across all of the casinos they serve. For example, NetEnt’s Blood Suckers slot has 98.0% payback at every online casino where it’s offered.

Land-based slot machine RTPs are harder to come by because they vary from casino to casino. But you can often find a composite RTP figure by researching individual casinos and games.

3. Casinos Can’t Change Slots Payback Whenever They Want

Slots payback is tricky because it’s programmed to pay out over a long time period. Payout percentages may not actualize until hundreds of thousands of spins.

If you’ve played a specific slot for this long, then you’ll be close to the game’s specified payout percentage.

But most players don’t realize how long it takes to reach a slot machine’s RTP. And they often think that they’re being taken advantage of when they go through a cold streak.

This has led to the myth that casinos use a back office switch to change payback. But this isn’t the case in either land-based or online casinos.

Brick and mortar casinos order slot machines with a specific RTP. The game developer then programs the payout percentage into the software and stores it on a nonvolatile random access memory (NVRAM).

If a land-based casino wants to change payback for a specific slot machine, they must physically swap out the software. State/country gaming jurisdictions also require that casinos go through red tape before they change RTP on any game.

This means that it’s both time-consuming and illegal to randomly switch a slot machine’s payback whenever one feels like it.

Online slots providers control the payback that games have. Internet casinos license their software and feature whatever RTP is available.

This prevents tampering because the online casinos are merely licensing slots games.

Many gaming providers pay for third-party lab testing to ensure that their games are fair and random.

4. Slot Machines Have Fun Bonus Rounds

In 1996, WMS Industries created the first, second-screen bonus round in Reel ‘Em slot. Ever since then, slots creators have been adding more and more second-screen bonuses to games.

This creates excitement because you move off the reels and into a different type of game. What’s also fun is that you’ll find plenty of different bonuses across the slots world.

Bonus rounds usually have something to do with a slot machine’s theme. For example, Random Logic’s Millionaire Genie slot has a bonus round where you’re granted wishes that can turn into prizes.

Most bonus rounds fall into a broad range of categories, which you can see below:

• Choosing objects – This involves selecting items such as pots to reveal prizes.
• Fight – Select a character to battle an opponent.
• First person shooter – Allows you to move a cursor and shoot objects.
• Wheel – You spin a wheel to determine your prize.
• Board game – Move your character around a board to win bonus payouts.

None of these types of bonuses reinvent the wheel in gaming. But it’s still fun to trigger a bonus and do something different beyond spinning the reels when you get a chance.

5. Some Slot Machines Contain Skill

Slots players have been satisfied with spinning reels and winning prizes for decades. But casinos and gaming operators are now incorporating more skill into slot machines in an effort to capture younger players’ attention.

One way this is done is through skill-based bonus rounds. Let’s look at Scientific Games’ Space Invaders as an example:

• You have the option to choose a random or skill based bonus round.
• The skill based bonus takes you to a new screen, where you control a tiny ship at the bottom.
• You move the ship and shoot aliens as they travel down the screen.
• Your score (payout) depends upon how many aliens you hit.

Space Invaders is an old arcade game that’s been around since 1978. And most people would never play this game alone.

But it’s fun in the context of a slot machine because you’re doing something different and playing for real money.

Some companies are even developing gaming machines that are entirely based on skill. This includes GameCo’s Danger Arena, which is a first-person shooter that sees you blast robots for money.

Your score depends upon how many robots you can shoot within the allotted time frame. You earn the top prize if you’re able to destroy 10 bots and get a perfect score.

It remains unclear when skill-based gaming will take off in casinos. But the odds are that it’ll happen at some point within the next decade.

6. Class II Slot Machines Operate Like Bingo

Earlier I covered how slots operate based on random number generators. These are referred to as “Class III” slots in America.

But there are also Class II slot machines, which operate like bingo games.

These slots are popular in tribal casinos that don’t have a Class III gaming compact with their respective state. Many states have worked out Class II compacts with Native American tribes, allowing them to offer bingo style gaming.

A Class II machine looks just like a regular slot. But the results are determined as if you were playing electronic bingo.

What’s interesting is that the available number of prizes is capped to represent a real life bingo game. Once all of the prizes have been paid, the cycle starts over.

Essentially, Class II slots are just like the Class III versions in terms of randomness, payback, and jackpots. But they determine results differently to allow tribal casinos to still have slots like games.

7. The Largest Ever Slots Jackpot is Worth $39.7 Million

One really exciting thing about slot machines is that you can win huge jackpots. And the biggest ever jackpot is a $39.7 million prize that was won at Las Vegas’ Excalibur casino.

A 25-year-old software engineer from LA won this slots jackpot in 2003 while playing Megabucks. He put in $100 and never had to reload because he won the jackpot shortly after that.

Behar Merlaku thought he’d won a record $57 million at Austria’s Casino Bregenz in 2011. But it turned out to be a software glitch because the machine only offered a top payout of $6,500.

Merlaku took the matter to court and said that both he and his wife suffered emotional stress as a result of the malfunction. He also contended that his child was born with a cleft palate due to his wife’s trauma.

The couple was awarded €1 million as part of a settlement.

The largest online slots jackpot in history belongs to Jon Heywood, who won £13,213,838 in 2015.

The British soldier, who did tours in Afghanistan, was playing Microgaming’s Mega Moolah at the time of his win.

Heywood spoke with the Daily Mail about his windfall and said that he was going to help his father get a heart and lung transplant. He also planned to buy a yellow Bentley Continental GT car and decide what to do with the rest later.

8. Slots Jackpots Can Be Awarded In a Variety of Ways

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Many slot machines have a specific symbol combination that awards a jackpot. Normally this involves getting the highest paying icon or wild symbol 5 times in a pay line.

But there are other ways that a slots jackpot can be awarded too.

One method involves awarded the jackpot randomly at the conclusion of a spin. It doesn’t matter how much you bet or even if you win because you’re always eligible for the jackpot.

Random progressive jackpots are good for low rollers who can’t afford to make maximum bets to qualify for the top prize.

Some slot machines only pay the jackpot on a certain pay line.

For example, you might have to play all 20 lines because the jackpot can only be awarded on the 20th pay line. Playtech has a few older online slots like this.

Another way that jackpots can be awarded is through bonus rounds.

Oftentimes this involves spinning a wheel to unlock a progressive payout. Microgaming’s Mega Moolah and NetEnt’s Mega Fortune are two examples of slots that award jackpots through the bonus.

Other bonus rounds may see you perform actions to win the jackpot. One example is Microgaming’s Hall of Gods, where you smash mirrors with Thor’s hammer to reveal jackpot symbols.

9. Some Countries Have Different Names for Slot Machines

Americans, Canadians, and some Europeans are used to calling these games slots or slot machines.

But other countries have different names for slots. And these games sometimes include rule differences too.

Australians commonly called slots “poker machines” or “pokies.” Pokie is just an abbreviation for poker machine, which has to do with slots history (discussed later).

Pokies operate just like slot machines in America and many other parts of the world.

The UK has lots of fruit machines (a.k.a. fruities), which refers to the common slots practice of using fruit as symbols. The Scottish commonly refer to a fruit machine as apuggy.

Fruities differ from traditional slot machines because they have hold and/or nudge features.

Hold lets you hold one or more reels in place while the others spin. Nudge lets you nudge one or more reels down a space to complete or improve wins.

Hold and nudge inject some skill into slot machines. But note that these features have already been factored into the overall house edge.

Japan’s version of slot machines is called pachinko. This is a slots pinball hybrid that begins with shooting a ball into the field of play.

If a ball lands in the right pocket, then the slot machine reels in the center will spin. The goal is to line up the right combination and win a prize.

I mentioned earlier that Canadians use the term slots and slot machines.

But their state lotteries play a big role in the gaming scene and offer video lottery terminals (VLTs). Most VLTs work just like slot machines because they have RNGs and spinning reels.

The only exception is that a VLT prints out scratch-off tickets, instead of working like a slot machine.

10. The First Slot Machine Was Invented in 1893

Brooklyn based Sittman and Pitt created the first gaming machine in 1891. This is regarded as the precursor to slot machines, and it featured 5 drums that held a total of 50 card faces.

Players inserted a nickel into this poker machine and pulled the reel to play. The drums would spin and offer players a 5 card poker hand.

Sittman and Pitt’s game was popular at bars because it awarded free beers and cigars. But it was far from what we typically think of regarding slots.

Charles Fey and Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Schultze, who worked together at San Francisco’s Electric Works, are credited with creating the first slot machines.

Wilhelm Schultze was first, inventing the Horseshoe slot machine and an automatic payout mechanism in 1893. Fey introduced a newer version in 1895 that actually paid coins.

Fey would open a slots workshop the following year. It’s here where he developed the Liberty Bell, which became the most popular slot of its time.

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Fey was unable to patent his device because gambling was illegal in California. This brought on lots of competition over the years and helped further the slot machine industry.

Another great development was when video slots were introduced to casino floors in the 1970s. Nowadays, almost every slot machine produced is a video slot.

Microgaming introduced the first online slots in 1994. The industry has since taken off, which thousands of online slots now available through PCs, Macs, and mobile devices.

Conclusion

Slot machines aren’t transparent in how they award prizes. But you’ll have a lot more confidence playing these machines when you understand payback and random number generators.

Furthermore, knowing about payback and the RNG clears up many of the myths surrounding slots.

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Of course, the fun in playing slot machines isn’t in understanding how they work. It’s about the bonus rounds, jackpots, and cool game themes.

Luckily, there’s more of these aspects in the gaming world than ever before. I especially enjoy the bonus rounds that are being added into games today.

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It’s also exciting to see skill injected into more and more slots. It’ll be interesting to see how much the slots world changes when skill-based gaming takes off.