It is not an exaggeration to
say that slot machines are the single, most favored form of gambling
in a casino.
The objective of any slot player is to line up the symbols that
return cash paybacks as frequently as Lady Luck will allow. Progressive
slot players are usually hoping for the big jackpot win that could
be in the thousands or millions of dollars
Today’s slot machines are not the mechanical devices that
were first dubbed “one-armed bandits” by politicians
and social reformers of the late 1890s and early 1900s. Instead,
they are computer-driven mechanisms that are not easily tampered
with. The heart and soul of the new slot machines is the RNG or random
number generator. This program is in a computer chip and it determines
which symbols will appear on the reels when you put your coins in.
Pressing the button or pulling the handle signals the RNG to signal
the machine to line up a given set of symbols. Even when no one is
playing the machines, the RNG is selecting number sequences that
correspond to the symbols on the reels. This selection process is
extremely fast and hundreds of sequences can take place in a heartbeat.
In reality, when you put in your coins or play your credits, you
are merely asking the machine to tell you what sequence had already
been picked at the precise moment you hit the button or pulled the
handle. (Note: except for rare internet casinos that use live dealers,
all internet games are computer driven and use an RNG as the selection
principle.)
Until recently most casinos kept the actual programming of their
machines a secret. Casinos might advertise that they had the “loosest” machines
or that some of their machines returned “97.8 percent” (or
some such figure) but they never told which specific machines these
were. Recently, however, with the rise in competition for the slot
players’ patronage, many casinos have begun to certify the
returns on their machines. Often these certified machines will be
programmed at 98 percent, which means that for every dollar played
in such a machine, the average return will be 98 cents. That gives
the casino a two- percent edge over the player.
Even in casinos where the machines are not certified, casino statistics
can help us to ascertain which are the best machines to play. In
this case, the higher the denomination, the more likely the better
return. Therefore, a five-dollar machine will return a better percentage
than a dollar machine that will return a better percentage than a
quarter machine and so on.
Often the difference between two denominations is dramatic enough
to make playing a single coin in a higher denomination a better bet
than playing maximum coin in a lower denomination. Thus, you would
be better off playing a single coin in a dollar machine than maximum
coin in a quarter machine.
If you are considering playing slots in a given casino, first check
to see if the casino has any certified slots. If so, play these --
even if it means playing a single coin. However, you should always
play full coin on machines that give out big jackpots for doing so.
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