Below are 5 tips that will help you with finding loose slot machines to hit a jackpot. The first tip that will help you to increase your chances of hitting a jackpot is to time the machines. If you are in a land based casino playing the slots then you can simply sit near the slot machine you are timing and watch the results.
Slots machines, as games of chance (rather than skill), are generally more about having fun than they are about making money.
However, there are things you can do to maximize your wins and minimize your losses. For example, by calculating a slot machine’s payout percentage, you can obtain a larger picture idea of how much money you stand to win back. Other tactics include using effective bankroll management techniques, joining a slots club to benefit from its rewards programs, and more.
What Are the Odds of Winning on a Slot Machine?
- Provided your slot machine sets on a regular casino slot machine stand with holes in the top and the holes are aligned with the slot machine, those coins which bypassed the hopper will go down the chute, through the hole in the bottom of the machine, through the hole in the top of the stand, and into the open area in the stand cabinet.
- Slot machines installed with non-complex RNGs can be beaten by high-tech devices and prediction algorithms.
Slot machine odds used to be easy to calculate. When you’re dealing with three reels, ten symbols on each reel, and a limited pay table, then it’s just a simple math problem. But the rise of electromechanical slot machines and (later) video slots added some complexity to the situation.
How Probability Works
Probability has two meanings. One is the likelihood of whether or not something will happen. The other is the branch of mathematics that calculates that likelihood. To understand the odds as they relate to slot machines (or any other gambling game), you have to understand the basic math behind probability.
Don’t worry though. The math isn’t hard. Probability involves addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, all of which you learned in middle school.
The first principle of probability is that every event has a probability of between 0 and 1. If something has no chance of ever happening, then its probability is 0. If something will always happen, no matter what, then its probability is 1.
Probability is, therefore, always a fraction. It can be expressed in multiple ways, as a decimal, as a fraction, as a percentage, and as odds.
A simple example is a coin flip. The probability of getting heads when you flip a coin is 50%. That’s common sense, but how is it determined mathematically?
You simply take the total number of possible outcomes, and divide the outcome you’re trying to determine the probability of it by that number. There are two possibilities when flipping a coin, heads or tails, but only one of them is heads. That’s 1 divided by 2, which can be expressed as ½, 50%, 0.5, or 1 to 1 odds.
Odds are expressed as the number of ways something won’t happen versus the number of ways that something will happen. For example, if you’re rolling a single six-sided die, and you want to know the odds of rolling a six, you’re looking at 5 to 1 odds. There are five ways to roll something other than a six, and only one way of rolling a six.
When you want to determine the probability of multiple things happening, you use addition or multiplication, depending on whether you want to determine whether one OR the other event will occur, or whether you want to determine whether one event AND the other event will occur.
If you’re looking at an “OR” question, you add the probabilities together. If you’re looking at an “AND” question, you multiply the probabilities by each other.
So if you want to know what the probability of rolling two dice and having one or the other come up with a six, you add the probabilities together. 1/6 + 1/6 = 2/6, which is rounded down to 1/3.
If you want to know the probability of rolling two dice and having BOTH of them come up six, you multiply the probabilities. 1/6 X 1/6 = 1/36.
How Slot Machine Odds USED to Work
Early slot machines were mechanical devices. They had three metal reels that had ten possible stops each.
To calculate the odds of a single symbol appearing on a reel, you just divide the one symbol by the total number of potential outcomes. So if you had one cherry on a reel, your odds of hitting that cherry were 1/10, or 10%.
To calculate the odds of getting three cherries, you multiple 1/10 X 1/10 X 1/10 and get 1/1000, or 0.1%.
If the odds of hitting that symbol are the same as all the others, then you have 10 possible jackpots you can win, which means that your chances of winning SOMETHING are 10/1000, which is 1%.
Most people wouldn’t play a slot machine that lost 99 times out of 100, though, so slot machine designers added additional, smaller prizes for getting two symbols out of three for certain symbols. And as long as they paid out less in prizes than the odds of hitting those jackpots, then those slots are guaranteed to make a profit in the long run.
For example, if a prize for hitting three cherries was $1000, you’d be playing a break-even game, but if the prize were $750, it’s easy to see how the casino would be guaranteed a profit. The difference between the odds of winning and the payout odds is where the casino makes its money.
How Slot Machines Work Now
Modern slot machines use a computer program called a random number generator to determine the outcomes of the various spins of the reels. This creates an imaginary reel with a number of symbols limited only by the program in question.
A mechanical slot machine with 256 symbols per reel would be huge, too large to play, much less to build. But a computer can create an imaginary reel with 256 symbols per reel and take up no more space than an iPod Shuffle.
To make things even more interesting and entertaining, slot machine designers can program different probabilities for each symbol to come up. Most symbols might come up once every 256 spins, but others might come up twice as often, while still others might only come up half as often.
This enables slot machine designers and casinos to offer slot machine games with far larger jackpots than they were able to when they were limited by mechanical reels. And they’re able to offer these large jackpots and still generate a healthy profit.
How Does This Relate to Payback Percentages?
The payback percentage is the amount of money that the slot machine is designed to pay out over an enormous number of spins. This number is almost always less than 100%. The difference between 100% and the payback percentage is the house edge, and that’s where the casino makes its profits.
A simple example can help illustrate how this works. Suppose you have a slot machine with three reels with ten symbols on each, and it only pays out when three cherries hit. The odds of winning that jackpot, as we determined earlier, is 1/1000.
If we set the jackpot as $900, and charge $1 per bet, the payout percentage for that game will be 90%, or $900/$1000. Of course, no one would play a slots game which only paid out once in every 1000 spins, which is why there are various smaller payouts programmed in.
There’s no way to tell what the payback percentage on a particular game is unless you have access to the par sheet for that machine. Casino management has that information, but players never have access to that info.
The best slot machine odds are almost always found in real casinos. If you see slot machines in an airport or a bar, be aware that the payback percentages on those games is much lower than you’ll see in a real casino.
How to Win at Slot Machines
Everyone would like to know how to win at slots, but the truth is that winning at slot machines isn’t any harder than losing at slot machines. You put your money in the machine, spin the reels, and hope for the best. Slot machines are meant to be fun; they’re not intended to provide the player with an income.
In fact, the reality is just the opposite. Slots are there to provide the casino owners with an income. How that works is one of the subjects of this page.
On the other hand, you can minimize your losses and increase your enjoyment of slots games by understanding how they work. You can also learn which slots pay back the most money. In the long run, the house will still have an edge over you, but understanding how much you can expect to lose in a given venue can help you make better bankroll management decisions.
In fact, it might be a good idea to modify you definition of “winning at slots”. Instead of considering yourself a winner if you bring home a big profit, consider yourself a winner any time you played and had a lot of fun.
How Slots Work
All slot machines in modern casinos use a random number generator (an “RNG) to determine the results of each spin. An RNG is a tiny computer that does nothing but constantly generate numbers. When you push the spin button, that microcomputer selects a number which determines the outcome. In fact, this happens before the reels have even stopped spinning.
On modern slot machines, the reels are just there for show. From a practical standpoint, you could put a quarter in a machine, push a button, and have the screen flash: “You lose!” or “You win $10”. The mechanism that determined the outcome would be the same, but who would want to play a game like that, especially if you know that the house has a mathematical edge over the player.
The spinning reels, the sound effects, and the bonus games are all there to make the game more interesting to play. If you don’t like the artwork, the music, or any other aspect of a slots game, don’t bother playing it, because those are the real rewards of playing. The chance of getting lucky and winning a jackpot is a real reward, too, but don’t ignore the other aspects of the game.
The random number generator is programmed to pay back a certain percentage of the money paid into it over a period of time. This period of time is known in gambling math as “the long run”, and it’s a lot longer than most people think. We’re talking about tens of thousands of spins, not dozens or hundreds.
This percentage that’s programmed into these machines is always less than 100%. If a slots game were programmed to pay back more than 100% of the money put into it, it would lose money for the casino.
Casinos aren’t in business to lose money.
The trick is to find slot machines that have the highest payout percentages.
How To Break A Slot Machine Jackpots
Which Slots Pay Back the Most Money
If every slot machine game in the world had a payback percentage posted on the machine somewhere, it would be easy to determine which slots pay back the most money. You could limit your play to machines with a payback percentage of over 95% for example.
It’s too bad casinos don’t provide that information on specific games, though.
You can find information about specific locations and their payback percentages, though. Some gambling guides and magazines publish this information. For example, The American Casino Guide provides certified information about the payout percentages in various states. Not all states reveal this information, but it’s not a huge leap of logic to expect better payback percentages in states that do reveal this information.
For example, the overall payback percentage for slots in Black Hawk, Colorado is 92.8%. In Central City, Colorado, it’s 92.93%, and in Cripple Creek, it’s 93.66%. Alabama doesn’t release the numbers on their payback percentages.
Which casinos do you think offer the better game?
A couple of guidelines hold true no matter where you play, though. One of those is that payouts are better in large cities with lots of gambling. For example, the payouts in Vegas are higher overall than the payouts in Colorado. And the payouts improve when you play for higher stakes. For example, penny slots in Vegas average around 88% to 91%, but dollars slots average between 93% and 96%. Finally, slot machines at airports usually offer the lowest payouts.
Where To Buy Slot Machines
What does that mean for the player? It means that over the long run, if you wager $x on a particular game, you’ll win back $x times the payback percentage for that machine. If you’re playing a dollar slot machine on the Strip in Las Vegas, for example, and the payout percentage is around 93%, then if you place $10,000 in wagers, you’ll win back $9300. You lost $700.
That’s only a long term mathematical expectation, though. In the short run, anything can happen, and that’s what keeps people playing.
How to Maximize Your Winnings and Minimize Your Losses
There are three ways to maximize your winnings and minimize your losses. The first is to always join the slots club, and always use your member card while you play. Slots club members get a percentage of their play returned to them in the form of casino rewards and cash back. This is normally a tiny percentage (think 0.1% or 0.2%), but it adds up, especially if you play a lot.
Don’t buy into the myth that playing with your slots club card lowers your expected return on the game, either. That’s not true. The random number generator in these games has no way of knowing whether or not you’re using your slots club card or not.
The second way to increase your winnings and minimize your losses is to use effective bankroll management techniques. This means limiting the amount of time that you play, limiting the amount of money that you’re willing to lose in any session and in any given gambling trip, and finding other fun things to do with your time besides just playing the slots.
Finally, try to play the machines with the highest payout percentage. Over the long run, if you keep playing, you’ll probably eventually wind up a loser at the slots (unless you hit a huge progressive jackpot), but you’ll lose your money more slowly and get more entertainment value for the money you gambled.
Picture Of A Slot Machine
When you play the slots you want to do your part to increase your chances of winning the jackpot. If you want to find a loose slot machine then you will find these tips to be helpful to you. The first thing you want to realize is the slots games do win at random and this means you should never count on a slot machine to produce certain results, but this doesn’t mean there aren’t some things you can do that will help you to increase your chances of winning. Below are 5 tips that will help you with finding loose slot machines to hit a jackpot.
- The first tip that will help you to increase your chances of hitting a jackpot is to time the machines. If you are in a land based casino playing the slots then you can simply sit near the slot machine you are timing and watch the results. However, you do want to make sure you are playing while you are timing that machine otherwise you can look like you are up to something and this will make the other players uneasy. If you are watching a certain machine and you see that it is getting a lot of attention and has yet to pay out a bog win then this is an indication that it should be getting close to paying out some nice wins soon. If this is the case, then you want to be the next person to jump on that machine when the person playing it steps away from it. If you are playing at an online casino then you want to watch for the announcements which many of the casinos post to let you know about recent big wins. If a slot machine has just paid out a large jackpot then you should give it some time before playing it.
- Another thing you want to keep in mind is the slot machines will have their cycles. There is not a game out there that will remain tight forever and at some point that machine is going to pay out big and you want to be the player that is playing it when this happens. If a game has been tight for a good length of time then it will reach a point where it will payout some nice sized wins, generally pretty much in a row. So, if you get on a game and it pays out a nice win don’t assume that is it and leave that game, stick around for a while and see if it has more to give. Many times you will see that pattern happen which will lead to you seeing quite a few bigger wins in a row.
- You should stay away from playing the slot machines that aren’t popular with the players. You want to play a game that has been getting a lot of attention from players. It is the more popular games that have a better chance of becoming loose and offering you the results you are looking forward to. By getting on a stale and less popular slots game you can waste your money only to find that the machine has nothing good to offer you in the way of decent wins. Plus, these games tend not to be very entertaining and are generally the ones that lack those special features which add both more excitement and chances for you to win.
- Another tip you want to keep in mind is not to fall into a trap of playing a game for too long. If the game is just keeping you going and giving you enough wins along the way to give you a false sense of hope then you want to realize that the game may not be getting loose and should be one you should stop playing. The best way for you to approach a game that is doing this to you is to stop playing it for a while and return to it in a little while. The best way to think about this is it’s like you are letting other players loosen it up for you and then you are returning when it’s closer to hitting. You never want to sit at one slots game and watch it take your money all the way down.
- Another great tip you want to follow is to play the high limit slots games. These games may cost you more to play, but they also pay out more. Plus, they tend to pay out more often. However, you will really need to watch your bankroll when you are on the high limit slots. If you are a player who is used to playing the regular slots then you need to be extra cautious when you switch to the high limit games because your money will go much faster and if you don’t watch it closely you could be in for a big surprise. However, when you want to find looser slots games, these will be your best bet.
Break The Piggy Slot Machine
Conclusion
Best Slot Machines To Play
When you want to find the loose slot machines and hit a jackpot you should follow the tips listed above. Always make sure you start out with a good money management plan and follow it. You should also make sure you have a good time. This way, you will enjoy your time playing no matter what the results end up being. With so many different types of slots games for you to choose from you should find many of them that will meet your own individual slots gaming needs. Don’t be afraid to leave a game that isn’t winning and which you feel isn’t going to hit any time soon. A lot of players get trapped into thinking that it will be just their luck that they will stop playing the game and it will payout big as soon as they leave it and this can be a costly way of thinking.