How To Beat Indian Casino Slot Machines

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When you set for yourself an ambitious goal such as to learn how to win at Slots or how to pick a winning Slot machine, hard work is key. You need to have a clear process in place, a defined bankroll to invest in your tests, and a lot of patience. The secrets to winning on Slot machines are not easy to uncover, especially since Casinos don't want you to know them. Every spin on a slot machine is totally random. Every time the machine is played, the computer program picks a random symbol on the first, the second, then the third reel. The payback or return of the machine is then based on the probability of lining up the winning combinations and the payout for these combinations.

Learning how to win at slot machines is an elusive goal pursued by slots fans around the globe. While the flashing lights and colorful video sequences are enough to whet their appetite, most slots devotees won’t be satisfied until they’ve hit a progressive jackpot or two. In this article, we’ll look at some winning slot machine tactics and tips, as well as exposing some truths about the game that most players prefer to ignore.

The Cold Hard Truth about Slots

There is no magic formula for beating the slots. There’s also a reason why slots comprise the majority of any casino’s revenue: they take in more money than they pay out. If some way to “beat” slots actually existed, don’t think for a minute that casino management wouldn’t find a way to overcome or eliminate it. At the very least, they would just start banning anyone who used such a method.

At best, playing slots is a fun yet totally uncontrollable experience. Thanks to the random number generator installed in all modern video slots, each spin has the same chance of winning (or losing) as every spin before it.

The best slots strategy is to admit that the game is a crapshoot. Once you’ve broken free of the superstitions that many players cling to, you’ll be able to enjoy the game with a more relaxed attitude.

Since Charles Fey invented the slot machine in the late 19th century, players have been trying to figure out how to gain an advantage over the house. Some have developed elaborate methods of cheating, others have resorted to flawed slot systems, and even more have utilized the slot machine tactics discussed in this article.

Please note that slot machine tactics will not magically allow you to determine where the symbols line up on any given spin; no expert or system can make that guarantee, and if they do they’re lying. However, there are numerous slot machine strategies that will allow you to maximize your fun and get the most out of your bankroll. While you might not win more, there’s a strong possibility that you’ll lose less. For most players, that’s an edge worth pursuing.

Chasing Payout Percentages

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The payout percentage on a slot machine is the amount of money it will pay out over its lifetime. For example, a slot with a 95% payout percentage will pay back 95% of the 100% that’s deposited into it; the house will wind up with a 5% profit. These are long-term estimates, however, meaning that anything can happen in the short term.

Slots traditionally offer a payout percentage ranging from 82% to 98%, although the exact number can vary depending on state laws. If a player can find out the exact payout percentage of multiple slots, he can then choose to play the machine with the higher expected return. Unfortunately, there are two major stumbling blocks to this tactic. First, a machine with a higher payout percentage may not pay significantly more in the short term. Second, casinos tend to be secretive when it comes to releasing these figures. However, if you do find a slot with a 98% payout percentage, you’d be a fool not to try it

Tips for Beating Slot Machines

While there’s no way to guarantee a successful slots session, there are other ways to leave the casino a winner. Chief among them is maximizing the amount of fun you have, and this often goes hand-in-hand with making your bankroll last as long as possible. The following tips are designed to help you do just that.

Bankroll Management – It’s difficult to beat a slot machine if you’ve run out of money. That’s why learning how to manage your bankroll is the most important skill that any player can develop. First, calculate how much money you can afford to lose. You need to be honest with yourself during this phase, as you don’t want to spend funds that are needed elsewhere (such as credit card payments, rent, etc.).

Second, make sure that you only take this amount of money with you to the casino. If you’re playing online, only deposit an amount into your account that you can afford to part with.

Don’t Be Afraid of Switching – Some players will spend hours pumping coins into the same machine, even if they’re getting nothing in return. This is often because they’re afraid of walking away from a slot that’s about to get “hot.” Don’t fall into this trap. If you lose continuously at a specific game, don’t be shy about getting up and moving to another machine. Your luck might not improve, but at least you’ll get a change of scenery.

Know the Slots – If you’re going to play a slot machine, it’s important to be familiar with it. How many paylines does it offer? What is the maximum bet? Older machines will have the winning combinations printed on their front, while most video slots will provide you with the same information by pressing a button. You should never let ignorance about a game interfere with your enjoyment.

Find the Perfect Slot – One of the best ways to beat a slot is to find a game that suits your needs. Do you want to play for a long time without spending a lot of money? If so, then you may want to stick with penny slots. Do you want to risk more money for the chance to hit a major payday? If this is the case, then you’ll want to check out the progressive jackpots at the casino. Just remember that online casinos and brick-and-mortar establishments have slot machines that are perfect for every player (unless your definition of “perfect” is a machine that pays out with every spin).

Play Max Coins on Progressives – Some gamblers will tell you to always play the maximum number of coins, but this isn’t always necessary. Many of the lower-end slots will provide decent paydays even if you’re making smaller wagers. The major exception is with progressive slots, where you do have to make the maximum wager in order to be eligible for the top prize. If your bankroll can afford it, this is a chance to become a millionaire within a matter of seconds.

Facing the truth about the randomness of slot machines can be deflating at first, but it will set you free in the long term. By managing your bankroll, picking the right machine, and using a little common sense, you can win at slot machines even if you leave the casino with empty pockets.

First of all you should know that slot machines, as with many casino games, are a type of game for which there is no “winning strategy” - technically speaking they are a negative equity game, or –EV game for short. Unlike a game such as poker (against real opponents, not vs. the house) where proper application of skill can make a game profitable in the long-term, most casino games are designed to make this impossible.

Why Can’t I make a Consistent Return at Slots?

Let’s look at why, in the case of slots, there’s no way to make money long-term. For simplicity let’s imagine a game where there is only one pay-out, the “jackpot”, paid out for matching five symbols, of course the same logic will apply to complex modern machines as well. In this hypothetical machine there are five symbols available on each line and you need to match five of the same to win the jackpot on a $1 machine.

The lines are controlled by random number generators, and over time the five different symbols will come up equally often on each line. So the chance of hitting, say a cherry on one line is 1/5. The chance of hitting a cherry on the second line is also 1/5. Therefore the chance of hitting five cherries in a row is 1/5 x 1/5 x 1/5 x 1/5 x 1/5, or 1/3125, or 0.032%. Your odds of winning are better than this, as you can hit five bells, five whistles or five of any other set of symbols, so on this machine your odds of any set of five are actually 5 x 0.032%, or 0.16%. So once in every 625 spins of this hypothetical machine, you’ll hit your set of five identical symbols for the jackpot.

Now if the jackpot payout was $625, the machine would be a break-even proposition, as on average you’d pay $1 624 times without winning anything, and then you’d hit once in every 625 spins for the $625 prize, breaking even overall. Of course pay-outs are set by the casinos at a slightly lower figure, usually between 90% and 98% of this frequency, so for example if this imaginary machine was set for 95% pay-outs, the jackpot would actually be $594.

Of course you can get lucky and hit jackpot on your second spin, walk away and keep the money, technically making a profit. But long-term there’s no way to beat the law of averages, and the house edge will be sustained over any short-term variance in results. Rarely, certain machines are reported as paying out just above 100% over a given month, but this is again just the variance inherent in randomness, and will not be sustained over larger samples.

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There’s a very nice little piece of software providing virtual testing of this principle, to be found here at Vegas Click. It simulates the return over one wager, over ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand and a hundred thousand wagers, of a bet subject to a house edge, and shows the returns expected in each simulation. Try it out for yourself - it’s cheaper than going to Vegas!

A slot machine house edge is known by casino managers as the “hold”, and hold percentages vary a great deal, and do tend to be smaller at more expensive slots, frequently found to be around 1- 3% at the five dollar slots. Of course, percentage of investment lost is not a real money figure, and you’ll still tend to lose more money in real terms at the more expensive machines, since you’re putting far more money through the machine each hour.

Why Play if There’s a House Edge?

Certainly you shouldn’t be playing in order to try to make sustainable returns. Of course many people enjoy the thrill of a gamble, even if they know or merely suspect that it’s a negative equity investment of their money. Of course, there’s always the chance you may get lucky, even astoundingly so, as some winners of multi-million dollar slots jackpots can certainly attest to. There’s also the enjoyment factor, and playing slots can be a cheap form of entertainment if you stick to a budget and if you actually do genuinely enjoy it!

What is the Exact Edge on a Particular Machine?

There’s an easy answer to this one – you frequently can’t find out. Certainly it’s against a casino’s interests to publish this information on the front of a machine, and I’m sure many gambling-happy players don’t even realise there is a real house edge, nor know the difference between a game of skill and one of pure luck. Monthly and annual reports are regularly published of the actual pay-outs for given machines, so do your research and you could get a good idea.

Certain states in the US require the pay-outs to be in a certain range (typically above 80%), and this can be discovered with a bit of trawling through your state’s gambling laws. For example in Nevada, the gaming board states that the machines must have a RTP of 73% while in Mississippi, it is 80%.

A good rule of thumb is that higher cost games tend to have a smaller house hold percentage, but it’s likely to always be at least 1-3 %.

You might also want to consider your likely loss over an hour of play at different denominations.

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Busting Slot Machine Myths

As with many a casino game, myths and falsehoods abound, and there are many people who think they have a stone cold strategy for beating slots and other casino games. These people are usually either lying, or deluded. If they’re trying to sell you a system, it’s most likely the former. Unless you have some kind of technology which can control or damage a slot machine directly, you can’t beat the machine long-term.

Of course anything along those lines would be straight up cheating. There’s no wagering system which will allow you to beat the house edge in slots, although there are systems which will allow you to lose the minimum – with slots this essentially comes down to choosing machines found to have a smaller hold percentage, and playing maximum wagers at all times, to enable you to at least hit the full jackpot when your luck does come around.

Many people believe that machines run on hot and cold cycles. This is a myth, random number generators are programmed to function on individual spins, and there is no “machine memory” of previous spins, each one being an isolated event. The same principle applies to tossing a coin. Throwing ten heads in a row doesn’t increase the chance of hitting tails the next time. Each throw is an individual probabilistic event, 50/50 with a true coin.

One myth with a modicum of truth to it is that the casino can alter pay-outs and other factors remotely. While untrue in the vast majority of cases, server controlled machines are gaining in popularity amongst casinos, although many establishments have rules about how and when settings can be changed, usually this only occurs between bouts of play, and a message should generally appear on the screen during the process, stating that remote control is in progress. For a non-server controlled machine to be altered in any way would involve physically opening the machine up and amending the EPROM chip within.

Further Advice for Playing Slots

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Some games do feature a skill bonus round or skill component which can improve your odds. Of course these are also set up so as not to obliterate the house edge, so they aren’t going to be sufficient to give you a real long-term return, but the advice on how to play these rounds offered by the machines should usually be adhered to for maximum benefit.

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Finally if you’re playing for fun (really the only reason to play slots), play slowly. You’ll save money.