We have compiled a comprehensive selection of articles, YouTube videos, and podcasts about slot machines and how to win the slot machine jackpot! Learn how to play slot machines and how these complex machines work. Find out how to win on slot machines by reading these unique strategies from slot experts. Read and listen to interviews with the experts to learn slot machine tips and advice on the best slot machines to play.
I play slots on a daily basis. If you’re clever, you CAN win more than you spend. A slot machine is designed to take exactly 50% of what is put into the machine. The machine tests you, you put your 1st hundren bucks in, it will let win some, loose some but after 10-20mins its gone.
Click the links below to read the articles and hear the podcasts.
- Video Podcast – Slot Machines – When to Bet Maximum Coins with Steve Bourie
- Video Podcast – Answers to Common Slot Machine Questions with John Grochowski
- Video Podcast – How to Win on Slot Machines with slot expert Frank Legatoi
- Video Podcast – Slot Machines how they work and how to win with Steve Bourie
- Video Podcast – All about Slot Machines with Michael “Wizard of Odds” Shackleford
- Audio Podcast – Everything you ever wanted to know about slot machines with slot expert Frank Legato
- Audio Podcast – Slot Machines, how to win and how they work with slot expert John Robison
- Audio Podcast – Winning on Slot machines with slots expert Frank Legato
- Audio Podcast – Slot machine myths with slots expert John Robison
- Audio Podcast – Slot machines with John Growchowski
A detailed look at slot machines and how they work
These gambling machines have three or more spinning reels which display symbols. The goal is to spin the reels and have the symbols match up to form winning combinations. In order to play, you would place a bet, spin the reels and hope for the best possible winning combination.
Over the years these machines have evolved and modern slots are more exciting than ever. The majority of slots are played online through online casinos. The best online casinos offer hundreds of slots titles to choose from, and these modern online slots can offer up to millions of dollars in rewards.
So where do you start?
How to play slot machines
The first step in spinning those internet reels is finding an online casino or a selection of online casino games that look promising to you. You can start by reading our online casino reviews to see which ones suit your personal gambling preferences. Online casinos are constantly trying to keep up with their competitors by having the best software, best game selections, and of course, the best offers.
If you are interested in starting on the slot machines, it would be wise to look for those offers. With increasing competition comes better deals and more FREE MONEY! Online casinos love to boast about their long lists of slots titles and massive game selections. Therefore, you can often find casino bonuses that score you all kinds of free play on slots and other online casino games. The most common type of no-deposit bonuses is free spins bonuses. All you need to do is register with an online casino and start playing - no download or deposit necessary!
How to win at slots
Slot machines are much less intimidating compared to table games. There is not a huge deal of strategy involved. If you want to win the slot machine jackpot, you have to bet some money and for the most part, hope for the best. However, there are some slot machine tips that can increase your winning odds and help guide you to the best slot machines to play.
Modern-day slots are controlled by a random number generator (RNG) which is used to generate completely random number combinations. This controls the payback percentage for each slot machine. The RNG is programmed to have a specific payback percentage for its respective slot game. Usually, the more money the machine requires per bet, the higher the payback percentage will be. These payback percentages are rarely ever changed due to the amount of work it requires to make these revisions.
So how much are you willing to gamble? Knowing how much risk you are willing to take is an indicator of how much money you could walk away with. What kind of slots player are you? Are you someone who likes to go in big and take your chances at the progressive jackpot slots who are you okay will going in small and walking away with a bit at a time?
A game’s volatility refers to how much risk is involved with that game title. If you are aware of the volatility of the particular slots you wish to play, you will have an idea of how frequently you can expect the slot to pay out and how to win on slot machines. Low volatility slots will hit frequently but have lower payouts, while high volatility slots will hit less frequently, however, will payout in much higher amounts.
Once you have made this determination, then choose your slots accordingly. When playing slots, always bet high enough to activate a new set of winning symbols. This will increase the overall payback percentage. When betting on progressives, always play the games with the highest jackpots and be sure to bet the maximum amount of coins in order to be eligible to win this jackpot.
It is very important to familiarize yourself with the slots you choose to play. Different titles have different return-to-player (RTP) rates. RTP refers to the funds a player is expected to win back from a certain game over a predetermined amount of time. This percentage is a theoretical number usually used as a reference. The average RTP rate for online slots is 96% however, some online slots have extremely high RTP rates.
Scoring the slot machine jackpot
The best slot machines to play are arguably the progressive slots. These slot machine jackpots titles can pay upwards of $1 million. However, the odds of actually winning are extremely slim. Our experts have taken a look at these and have studied what increases your chances on how to win at slots with progressive jackpots.
The progressive jackpot slots are made from a percentage of the money played in the slot titles included. As more and more players put money into the progressive jackpot, the total grows until one lucky winner gets the winning combination. The payback percentage on the other winning symbols will pay out less and not all progressive slots will payout the same. It is a good idea to learn as much as you can about the types of slots you wish to play, so you can know what to expect from them.
Finding the best slot machines to play
Winning At Casino Slot Machines
The most advantageous way to browse slot machines is through finding bonuses and special offers. This way, you can try out different games without risking your own money. There are many different ways you can claim casino bonuses and these bonuses all come in different forms.
Oftentimes, online casinos will advertise their game selections by offering free play bonuses and free spins bonuses. These casino bonuses allow you to try out online casino games before registering with a casino or depositing your own money. Free play and free spins bonuses are a great way for online casinos to reel in new customers. There are so many casino options on the market, it can be tough competition for casinos.
Once you have found an online casino or a few online casinos that you feel are a good fit, you can register and receive your welcome bonuses. Welcome bonuses are offered once you have signed up with an online casino. This is a great way for the online casino to reward you for choosing them. Welcome bonuses usually include a certain amount of free spins and free play as well, so that you can start feeling comfortable with the selection of games offered.
When you think you are ready to start depositing your own money, you can expect to start receiving the big bonuses. Online casinos will often offer first deposit bonuses, and some even offer second and third deposit bonuses! These are usually the biggest bonuses, oftentimes offering a 100% match bonus on the first (sometimes even second and third) deposit. This means that if you deposit $500 into an online casino to start playing, they will match you, giving you a FREE $500 to play with. Think of all the spins you can achieve with that!
Slot Machine Winnings On Youtube
Of course, you will get to keep your winnings, however, most online casinos will have wagering requirements attached to their bonuses. Always read the terms and conditions before you deposit your money to avoid any disappointment.
Introduction to Choosing Slot Machines
Once a specific casino has been determined to currently be the best of any available, choosing slot machines becomes the next step towards making a profit at slots.
Remember, statistics supplied to state gaming commissions show that the odds of winning are, on average, somewhere around 90%. By assessing all available casinos, then selecting the best possible, you’ve already improved your odds of winning – perhaps by several percentage points.
Whatever your gambling goals are, we’ll talk about those in the next step Identifying Gambling Goals. For now, we need to consider choosing slot machines that will most likely improve our overall odds even more.
So, we’ve walked into our best casino to choose slot machines with the highest odds of winning we can find. How do we select a good slot machine? Most people don’t – they dive right in without much of a plan. Well, we have a plan.
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Why? Because everybody says it’s all about luck. If you pick wrong, “Well,” they say, “better luck next time.” Remember, casino employees are trained to say things like that. If you’d won a jackpot instead, you can believe they would have said, “You’re lucky! I’ll see you later when you win another jackpot!”
Slot attendants have a job to do, and it most certainly isn’t to get you to leave when you should. And, it’s difficult to not to influenced by such comments. But, try not to be.
In the following sections, I’ll briefly explain the following aspects of choosing slot machines:
- How odds are set within a slot machine
- Choosing denomination and maximum credits based on bankroll
- Basics of reading a slot machine’s paytable
- A simple way to use paytables to pick the best machines, and avoid the worst
Two Separate Odds of Winning
The odds of winning for a slot machine is a limited number of settings from the manufacturer. Besides understanding limited settings are available, it may help to understand that slot machines have two odds of winning to determine:
- If a player will or will not win anything
- How much that win will be, i.e., the jackpot amount
Why is understanding these two types of odds significant when choosing slot machines? Because winning slot machines come in all jackpot sizes. You’re still winning if you’re getting enough small jackpots that your bankroll isn’t shrinking. Even if it is slowly depleting, the bankroll can last quite a bit longer, so that’s also a winning slot machine.
Winning many jackpots this way is bankroll cycling. It may not seem very satisfactory, but whether it does or not depends entirely on what your gambling goals are. One type of gambling goal, earning maximum complimentary gifts, is most often achieved via bankroll cycling.
Another point about setting slot machine odds is, how often they change? Of course, it depends on the age of the casino, as discussed in the previous step Assessing Casinos for Success, or if it’s been renovated lately.
In my experience, older-style casinos change their slot machine odds every 7-10 days. Newer-style casinos can change their slot machine odds whenever the machine has been idle for 15 minutes or more, without a players club card inserted or the machine temporarily locked by a slot attendant.
Matching Bankrolls to Denomination/Credits
Only you can decide how much bankroll you want to risk gambling. I highly recommend bringing only as much money you can safely afford to lose comfortably.
Bankrolls quite literally determine which slot machines you can play. But, there’s more to it than understanding a $100 bankroll lets you play a 1-credit, $100-denomination exactly once, with very, very little chance of winning.
Whatever bankroll you have limits which slot machines can be played and how much it can be played. Slot machines have denominations ($0.01, $0.25, $1, $5, $10, etc.) and the maximum credits that can be placed in a single bet.
Slot machines typically must run for a while before wins become more likely. Yes, wins can occur at the first press of a button. They can also happen within the first few bets, where casinos offer a taste. But, usually, they need to run for a while.
About 100-120 bets is the right amount to be prepared to play to determine if you’re sitting at a winning (or breakeven) slot machine. Yes, be careful initially, perhaps making as few as 20 bets, to determine if it happens to be a “bad” machine. Trust your instincts!
If it is a poorly performing machine, a “tight” slot machine, it won’t pay out anything at all. Quick decisions are necessary here, so limited betting gives a clue to its performance, yet still leaves enough to gamble with on another machine if it isn’t – assuming you stop playing it as soon as you notice it’s not performing well enough.
So, again, you determine how much bankroll you can afford to spend. Now, take that number and divide it by 120 bets. If your bankroll is $60, then that’s 50 cents per bet. In such a way, the right choice is a 2-credit, quarter-denomination slot machine. Or, a 50-credit, penny-denomination slot machine.
Always remember to play maximum credits for the highest odds of winning. Meaning, your casino may not have a 2-maximum-credit quarter or 50-maximum-credit penny machines. But, perhaps they have a 1-maximum-credit quarter or less-than-50-maximum-credits penny machines. Such slot machines would provide more than 120 bets of play, which is going in the right direction!
Reading a Slot Machine’s Paytable
When choosing a slot machine to play, a crucial aspect of winning is to review its paytable before playing. Frankly, the casino industry gains an advantage over players that don’t read slot machine paytables.
Located somewhere on a slot machine is one or more tables showing the number of credits won if specific combinations of reel symbols appear in the pay line after the player makes a bet. Below is a relatively generic example of a paytable.
The figure shows reel combinations along with their jackpot depending on the number of credits bet. Paytables don’t typically explain how much credits
Not every reel combination and its associated jackpot are usually shown in a paytable. Other reel combinations not shown in the top rows are also presented in the paytable area. Slot machines with WILD symbols can represent it with a myriad of other possible reel symbols.
A final element of paytable example provided is specific information on winning reel combinations, which can include an indication of how the slot machine operates during play. The bottom row of symbol explains that that slot machine has reel symbols which will move after the reels stop momentarily.
Secrets To Winning Slot Machines
Such additional features may not activate until the maximum credits are bet. It can sometimes be difficult, or impossible, to determine this. Most slot machines with bonus rounds will provide at least some information about it within its paytable.
Developing a habit of reviewing and studying a slot machine’s paytable can help improve your ability to judge the financial risks involved with playing that slot machine.
How to Avoid the Worst Slot Machines
The best way to improve the odds of winning via slot machine gambling is to stop making “sucker bets”. In less colorful language, avoid playing slot machines with terrible odds of winning.
First and foremost, understand when choosing slot machines that there are indeed terrible slot machines at a casino. By merely avoiding them whenever possible, on average, your long-term gambling return will improve. Each time we raise our odds like this, we’re pushing closer to achieving our gambling goals. So, let’s make sure we do that, shall we?
Calculate this “Goodness Ratio” as follows:
- When choosing slot machines, as discussed above, find the paytable with the denomination and maximum credits that best matches your available bankroll.
- Take a close look at the paytable. What is the maximum possible jackpot when maximum credits are bet?
- If the top jackpot is displayed in currency, divide it by both the denomination of the machine and the maximum credits
- If the top jackpot is displayed in credits, divide it by only the maximum credits
This “Goodness Ratio” tells us how worthwhile a specific slot machine is to play relative to others. By using this approach, any slot machine can be compared to any other slot machine.
Example: In the paytable above, the maximum jackpot is 2,400 credits with three maximum credits. Therefore, its Goodness Ratio is 2,400 / 3 = 800.
Repeat this calculation for slot machines of interest. While this Goodness Ratio will be similar for many slot machines, it can be startling to find “sucker bet” slot machines that might not otherwise be avoided.
Summary for Choosing Slot Machines
After a casino has been chosen, it’s time to select candidate slot machines most likely to result in a relatively high-value win. The size of your available bankroll, whatever it is, is an essential factor in this selection process. The bankroll size needs to be matched to the slot machine’s denomination and the number of maximum credits.
Here, we’ve also discussed how slot machines calculated odds twice: once to determine if you’ve won, and again to determine how much you’ve won. Another critical aspect discussed to improve a player’s performance was the basics of reading a slot machine’s paytable.
Finally, we talked about the “goodness” ratio to help select candidate slot machines and, perhaps critically important when improving our odds of winning, knowing precisely which slot machines must be avoided.
Next Steps
The next step on your journey to improving slots performance is Identifying Gambling Goals. Enjoy!
My research indicates I’m the first to share this information and offer personal coaching for slots enthusiasts.
I sincerely hope you find it both enjoyable and useful. For questions, call my voicemail hotline at 702-90-SLOTS, email me at Jon Friedl, or reach out to me through social media:
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Have fun, be safe, and make good choices!
By Jon H. Friedl, Jr. Ph.D., President
Jon Friedl LLC