The loosest slot machines in the past 12 months have been Megabucks and penny slots. Megabucks had the tightest slots at over 11% casino win percentage. Penny slots are the most popular denomination, even though their win percentage is not the most generous. Megabucks offers some of the best slots in Vegas with the highest winnings. On progressive slot machines, a percentage of each wager is added to the jackpot or jackpots. Three-reel slot machines usually have a single progressive jackpot on the top payoff, and you must bet maximum coins to be eligible. On a three-coin dollar slot machines, for example, you can’t win the progressive if you bet only one or two coins.
Remember the movie National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation, when gambling fever consumes Chevy Chase’s character, Clark W. Griswold? He goes on a losing streak to beat all losing streaks while his son, Rusty, wins four cars by playing the slot machines. Maybe Clark would have done better if he had read Probability For Dummies! In this article, you discover the basic ideas behind slot machines and how they work, so that you can get past the myths and develop a strategy based on sound probability.
Understanding average payout
When casinos advertise that their slot machines pay out an average of 90 percent, the fine print they don’t want you to read says that you lose 10 cents from each dollar you put into the machines in the long term. (In probability terms, this advertisement means that your expected winnings are minus 10 cents on every dollar you spend every time the money goes through the machines.)
Suppose you start with $100 and bet a dollar at a time, for example. After inserting all $100 into the slot, 100 pulls later you’ll end up on average with $90, because you lose 10 percent of your money. If you run the $90 back through the machine, you’ll end up with 90 percent of it back, which is 0.90 x 90 = $81. If you run that amount through in 81 pulls, you’ll have $72.90 afterward (0.90 x 81 = 72.90). If you keep going for 44 rounds, on average, the money will be gone, unless you have the luck of Rusty Griswold!
How many pulls on the machine does your $100 give you at this rate? Each time you have less money to run through the machine, so you have fewer pulls left. If you insert $1 at a time, you can expect 972 total pulls in the long term with these average payouts (that’s the total pulls in 44 rounds). But keep in mind that casinos are designing slot machines to go faster and faster between spins. Some are even doing away with the handles and tokens by using digital readouts on gaming cards that you put into the machines. The faster machines can play up to 25 spins per hour, and 972 spins divided by 25 spins per minute is 38.88 minutes. You don’t have a very long time to enjoy your $100 before it’s gone!
The worst part? Casinos often advertise that their “average payouts” are even as high as 95 percent. But beware: That number applies only to certain machines, and the casinos don’t rush to tell you which ones. You really need to read or ask about the fine print before playing. You can also try to check the information on the machine to see if it lists its payouts. (Don’t expect this information to be front and center.)
Implementing a simple strategy for slots
Advice varies regarding whether you should play nickel, quarter, or dollar slot machines and whether you should max out the number of coins you bet or not (you usually get to choose between one and five coins to bet on a standard slot machine). In this section, you’ll find a few tips for getting the most bang for your buck (or nickel) when playing slot machines.
Basically, when it comes to slot machines, strategy boils down to this: Know the rules, your probability of winning, and the expected payouts; dispel any myths; and quit while you’re ahead. If you win $100, cash out $50 and play with the rest, for example. After you lose a certain amount (determined by you in advance), don’t hesitate to quit. Go to the all-you-can-eat buffet and try your luck with the casino food; odds are it’s pretty good!
Choosing among nickel, quarter, and dollar machines
The machines that have the higher denominations usually give the best payouts. So, between the nickel and quarter slots, for example, the quarter slots generally give better payouts. However, you run the risk of getting in way over your head in a hurry, so don’t bet more than you can afford to lose. The bottom line: Always choose a level that you have fun playing at and that allows you to play for your full set time limit.
Deciding how many coins to play at a time
When deciding on the number of coins you should play per spin, keep in mind that more is sometimes better. If the slot machine gives you more than two times the payout when you put in two times the number of coins, for example, you should max it out instead of playing single coins because you increase your chances of winning a bigger pot, and the expected value is higher. If the machine just gives you k times the payout for k coins, it doesn’t matter if you use the maximum number of coins. You may as well play one at a time until you can make some money and leave so your money lasts a little longer.
For example, say a quarter machine pays 10 credits for the outcome 777 when you play only a single quarter, but if you play two quarters, it gives you 25 credits for the same outcome. And if you play the maximum number of quarters (say, four), a 777 results in 1,000 credits. You can see that playing four quarters at a time gives you a better chance of winning a bigger pot in the long run (if you win, that is) compared to playing a single quarter at a time for four consecutive tries.
The latest slot machine sweeping the nation is the so-called “penny slot machine.” Although it professes to require only a penny for a spin, you get this rate only if you want to bet one penny at a time. The machines entice you to bet way more than one penny at a time; in fact, on some machines, you can bet more than 1,000 coins (called lines) on each spin — $10 a shot here, folks. Because these machines take any denomination of paper bill, as well as credit cards, your money can go faster on penny machines than on dollar machines because you can quickly lose track of your spendings. Pinching pennies may not be worth it after all!
What if — one day — you entered a slot machine bonus round and walked out $15,000,000 richer? For some lucky players, that has actually happened.
Long gone are the days when you spun 3 reels with fruit symbols on them and won a few free spins as a bonus round. These days, there are all sorts of awesome, entertaining bonus rounds which make video slots appear more like video games.
I’ve played thousands of slots in my time, and thousands of bonus rounds, too. I’m going to share the best I’ve encountered here.
Unsurprisingly, most of them give you the chance to win huge amounts of cash, which is part of what makes them so great to begin with!
The Mega Fortune Bonus Wheel
When it comes to slot machine bonus wheels, most people think of Mega Moolah by Microgaming first. While that is a pretty cool feature, I personally think the Mega Fortune bonus wheel is slightly better.
What Are The Best Slot Machines To Win On In Las Vegas
This is a feature that will get your adrenaline pumping for sure. It’s a multi-layered wheel with cash prizes and several progressive jackpots up for grabs.
So, how do you win the Mega Jackpot and walk away a millionaire? Each time the wheel spins, you need to land on an arrow to proceed to the next layer. If you make it all the way to the center, you can officially call yourself filthy rich.
This feature can actually be triggered fairly often in Mega Fortune. A few days ago I was able to unlock it 3 times within the same quick session.
The Scary Rich 3 Free Spins Round
Unless you’re a hardcore slots player like myself, you might never have heard of Scary Rich 3 from Rival Gaming.
Slot Machines Jackpots Winners
It’s a horror-themed slot which is relatively unremarkable overall, apart from the cracking free spins bonus round. If you manage to trigger it with 5 scatter symbols you will get 666 free spins, which I can tell you from experience takes around half an hour to play through.
New Winning Slot Machines Videos
While that’s a heck of a lot of free spins and is enough to make this bonus round noteworthy by itself, there are also expanding wilds in play throughout. These significantly increase your chances of making winning combinations.
As I said before, it’s one of those slots few have heard of, but I have personally never seen another slot offering as many free spins in one feature.
The Avalon II Grail Bonus Feature
Sometimes a bonus feature is actually multiple bonus rounds all rolled into one, and that’s the case with the Grail feature in Avalon II from Microgaming.
If you manage to trigger this feature, you will have 8 different entertaining possibilities. There’s a dice roll game, 3 free spins rounds with up to 20 free spins and dynamic multipliers in one of them, 2 picking rounds with up to 160x your stake available, a fighting game with cash prizes, and a bonus wheel round, all within one feature.
This feature also has somewhat of a storyline to it, in which you need to retrieve ”the grail” and bring it back to Avalon. It’s got epic graphics and sound effects, which I have come to expect from Microgaming.
Why do I like this feature so much? Because it doesn’t get boring even when you trigger it multiple times within the same game. Oh, and you can win serious money, too.
The Breakaway Free Spins Round
Breakaway is an ice hockey themed game from Microgaming. It’s got loads of extra features, but the one which stands out most to me is the free spins round.
There are up to 25 free spins offered, which is nothing remarkable in and of itself, but all wins are instantly boosted 1,000% by a 10x multiplier.
Breakaway has a 125,000-coin jackpot, which is also worth playing for. Still, this is all about bonus rounds, and I definitely want to mention the free spins round here. Multipliers of 2x and 3x are common, but 10x deserves a special mention.
If the ice hockey theme doesn’t appeal, then either Football Star or Rugby Star also have free spins rounds with 10x multipliers. Check them out.
The Hall of Gods Picking Feature
Hall of Gods by NetEnt takes you back to the mythical era when Odin, Loki, and Thor ruled the minds of the Nordic people.
Thor’s hammer is a symbol we still recognize today, and it’s an important one in this bonus feature. How it works is that you take Thor’s hammer and smash various shields on the screen for cash prizes.
What makes this relatively simple feature so special? The fact that you can win millions instantly by finding one of the Hall of Gods progressive jackpots behind the shield you smash.
This feature has the power to make you a millionaire in a few seconds flat, and I think that makes it special, even if I haven’t yet had the good fortune to win it.
The Gonzo’s Quest Avalanche Reels
Gonzo’s Quest is one of NetEnt’s most popular slots of all time. It’s a simple game, but it has one brilliant feature I really like.
The “Avalanche Reels” make it possible to win multiple consecutive times off one single spin. This means that when you create a winning combination, the symbols involved disappear and are replaced by new ones, potentially unlimited times in a row.
While this is not totally unique in itself, Gonzo’s Quest adds extra spice to the rice by adding a dynamic multiplier element. For each consecutive win, a multiplier will increase by 1x, up to a maximum of 5x.
Just imagine 5 wins in a row from one spin, with the fifth win boosted 500% automatically (after all the others). That’s why this feature deserves to be included on this list, in my view.
The Mega Moolah Bonus Wheel
There’s no rule against having two entries for great slots bonus wheels, right?
While I stated clearly above that I feel the Mega Fortune bonus wheel is the best of the lot, the Mega Moolah one is still pretty immense.
This is more of a traditional bonus wheel, meaning there is just one layer to it. There are 4 progressive jackpots which can be won, starting with the Mini and going all the way up to the Mega.
If you’re lucky enough to land the Mega jackpot, welcome to the millionaire’s club! Mega Moolah is renowned for paying out ridiculous jackpots more suitable for a state or national lotto draw than a slot machine.