Slots Hero

Slots players often wonder about casinos and whether or not they have the ability to change the payout percentages of the slot machines, to make them tighter or looser.

I know it seems that sometimes it might seem like casinos are changing the payout percentages. You won some on a slot machine and then you go back in a day or two or a week and you seem to not win a thing.

Like any human mind looking for logic, your mind begins to try to reason out why. Well it is the same slot machine that you won on before. And you know that while casinos like to take in money, they do not really like paying out—who would?

Your mind works itself around to the conclusion that the casino must have gone into the slot machine’s computer and changed its payout percentage, changed it to make it tighter.

Here is the thing about this. Casinos have to file paperwork for each slot machine with that state’s gaming regulation body. In order for a casino to change the payout percentage of just one of its slot machines, it has to submit a stack of paperwork, the slot machine has to be removed from the floor and its chip removed.

The chip must then be sent back to its manufacturer in order for the payout percentage to be altered. Then the chip is sent back to be reinstalled in the slot machine and the slot machine returned to the casino floor.

That is a lot of paperwork and a lot of time to change the payout of a slot machine on a whim.

If you are playing on a standard video slot machine then you should not have to worry about the casino changing the payout percentage to make slots loose or tight.

However, there is now a new version of video slot machines that are connected to a central computer, and with those there is a way for casinos to sort of change the payout percentage. But if you are observant you will know when they do it.

I will tell you all about it in Tight Slots and Loose Slots—Part II.

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One of the benefits to playing slots online is that you can research which is the best online slots game to play. And by that I mean you can not only read reviews but you can also look up what the payout percentage.

The payout percentage of an online slots game is the percentage that slots game pays back in payouts.

The way a payout percentage is figured works like this: all of the wagers made by every play on that particular online slots game in, say, one month are added together. Every single payout—big and small—is added together as well for the same month.

The total amount of payouts is dived into the total number of wagers, and the answer is then multiplied by one hundred. The resulting answer is the payout percentage. As an example, I am going to say an online slots game took in $100,000 in wagers and made $95,000 in pay outs. The math would look like this:

95,000/100,000 = 0.95 x 100 = 95%

So the online slots game in the example has a payout percentage of 95%, meaning that it returns 95% of the wagers players made to it. Obviously the higher the payout percentage, the more that online slots game is paying out in winnings.

Now do not get ahead of yourself.

While payout percentage can indicate which online slots games are paying back more of their wagers, it does not mean that an online slots game with a higher payout percentage will pay out more to you.

A payout percentage could mean that the online slots game in question pays out lots of small winnings or fewer large winnings. Unfortunately there is no way to tell which way the online slots game will payout—large or small.

But I myself will stick with online slots games with higher payout percentages because at least I know that they are paying out more than other online slots games. Maybe I will be lucky enough to win some of those payouts.

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I have heard that some players will choose what slots game to play based on how it looks. This can apply to getting a guy feeling from a slot machine in a casino or from the logo of an online slots game.

But really what makes for the best slots game?

Several things actually, and what might be the best for you may not be the best for someone else.

Paylines
First off you need to consider how much you are comfortable wagering per spin. If you are only looking to have a good time, and making your bankroll last you do not want to play a slots game with a lot of paylines.

I am talking about the ones with forty, fifty or even one hundred paylines. Using the example player from above, she might only be wagering a penny per payline to make her bankroll last. So those forty, fifty or one hundred payline slots games will cost $0.40, $0.50 or $1 per spin. And that is only if she wagers one coin per payline.

She would be much better off finding a slots game with fewer paylines, such as a nine, fifteen or twenty payline slots game.

Payout Percentage
This one requires a little more research. Payout percentage is the percentage that the slots game pays out from all of the wagers made on it.

For example, if a slots game took in $100,000 in wagers and paid out $95,000 in wagers, its payout percentage is 95%. Basically you divide the amount paid out by the total amount wagered, then multiple the answer by 100, and there is the payout percentage.

The higher the payout percentage is, the more the slots game pays out.

Now keep in mind a higher payout percentage does not mean that you will win more or win larger amounts. It just means that the slots game pays out more of its income than another slots game. But playing on one with a higher payout percentage puts you in a better spot to potentially win more.

Now you have a couple things to keep in mind while choosing the best slots game for you.

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Almost any brick and mortar casino has a high limit room. Players of slot machines know that there are slot machines in that high limit room. These machines usually are $5 per spin if not more. But there are also $5 slot machines on the regular casino floor as well.

This leads players to wondering if there is a difference between the two slot machines. Some believe that the $5 slot machines in the high limit room have a better payout percentage, a higher one than those on the regular casino floor.

This is one of those slots myths.

While I cannot say for sure 100%, it is unlikely that there is going to be a significant difference between the $5 slot machines in the high limit room and the $5 machines on the regular casino floor.

The reason for this is that the people in casinos that manage the slot machines, called slot directors, are the ones who order the casino’s slot machines. When they order them they tend to order slot machines with the nearly the same payout percentage as the other slot machines in that denomination.

This means that when a slot director orders $5 slot machines, in this instance, he or she will order them all with nearly the same payout percentage regardless if the slot machine’s final destination is the high limit room or the regular casino floor.

I believe this slots myth is something that is perpetuated by the casinos, perhaps not directly, but they certainly do not mind players being lured into the high limit rooms and being tempted to play other high limit casino games.

It is best to keep in mind as a bit of slots strategy that there is no significant difference between the payout percentages of the slot machines on the floor versus those in the high limit rooms.

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Players often wonder about the long term payback on the slot machines in brick and mortar casinos. Many players feel that they have to wager the maximum in order to get the highest percentage of a long term payback.

And they would be right.

The truth is that slot machines have different long term paybacks depending on how many coins you are wagering. The more coins you are wagering per payline, the higher the long term payback will be.

For players who are lucky enough or who are ‘in’ enough with the staff at their favorite brick and mortar casino, and can get their hands on the par sheet for a slot machine, they will see that the long term payback of one machine will have different percentages for each coin level wagered.

And of course the more coins you wager the higher the long term payback will be.

But also bear in mind that just because you are wagering the maximum in coins, it does not mean that you are more guaranteed to win a jackpot.

All a long term payback is is the amount of money paid back over a period of time from the slot machine. It is not a gauge of slots odds for that slot machine.

So it seems that this idea of maximum coin wagers to have a shot at the best long term pay back percentage is a bit tricky. You have to wager more to have a shot at winning more back.

But really that should not be surprising. The more money a slot machine takes in on maximum coins wagers, the more it has to pay out to stay within the payout percentage it is programmed with.

If the slot machine is not paying out within its payout percentage then it is considered ‘not working’ and must be taken off the floor.

So really it is not surprising that the highest long term pay back goes with the maximum coin wager.

If players still want a shot a slot machine’s highest long term pay back but do not want to wager the maximum coins on a particular machine, they should consider playing a slot machine with a smaller maximum coin wager.

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There is a lot of bad slots advice and tips out there.

There are some people out there writing about slots that have no business writing about them. Unfortunately the little pieces they write wind up on those huge general information sites where unsuspecting players looking for information will find. They then build unreasonable expectations of slots games that do not really exist.

For example I found one that said that online slots were better because they had a lower house edge. They said, and I quote, “You get an incredibly low house edge. The payout percentage for online slots average 95-98%…those are incredible odds.”

This person obviously knows nothing about online slots, slots odds and payout percentages.

Payout percentages have nothing to do with slots odds.

Payout percentages are only a figure on how much money a slots game pays back out of its total intake. Meaning if a slots game takes in $100,000 in total wagers and pays out $95,000, it means that it has a payout percentage of 95%.

And while online slots games do have better payout percentages than slot machines, payout percentages do not say anything about the odds of winning a spin.

This is because there is no comment or figure in a payout percentage as to whether the winnings paid out come in the form of a small number of large payouts, which would give the slots game a larger house edge because the game does not hit as often; or whether the winnings come in the form of many smaller payouts, which would mean a lower house edge because the game is more likely to hit.

What slots players need to understand is that payout percentage has nothing to do with slots odds. Payout percentage only tells the player how much money is the game pays out in winnings. That is it.

I repeat, they have nothing to do with telling the player the house edge or what a player’s slots odds are.

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It seems that slots players will never tire of trying to find ways to crack the Random Number Generator (RNG) of online slots games and slots machines. I think they feel that if they can crack the RNG that they will then be able to beat the slots game, and collect that jackpot.

But the truth is that the RNG is not something that can be cracked.

Today’s ‘concern’ pertains to the RNG and previous spins.

Some players seem to think that the RNG takes into account the previous spin when pulling a result for the current spin. The truth is that the RNG does indeed take anywhere from the last spin to any number of spins into account when pulling a result for the current spin on an online slots game or slot machine.

Now, do not jump the gun on this. This is not by any means the secret, long sought after key to cracking RNGs and slots games open. There is a logical explanation to this:

The RNG has to take previous spins into consideration when pulling a result for a current spin simply because it would not due to have the exact same results as the last spin.

Actually that would be a pretty cool random jackpot idea—award a jackpot for landing exactly the same symbols in the same places as the previous spin.

The point is that, yes, the RNG does take precious spins into consideration. And if you were to go back in time and hit Spin on an online slots game or slot machine, you would get the same results on the next spin as you did the first time.

But there are two sides to this. While the RNG considering previous spins keeps the same results from being landed, this also means that it keeps the online slots game or slot machine from paying out the same jackpot too frequently.

This is a part of balancing the payout percentage of an online slots game or slot machine: the previous spin consideration of RNGs keeps the spins varied and also keeps the payouts from going crazy, paying out too much or not enough.

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I was doing some more thinking about one of the online slots games that I wrote about yesterday, Cashapillar. And while it is visually speaking a lovely online slots game with all the graphics and style that players come to expect from a Microgaming online slots game, there was still something about the game that bothered me.

Finally I realized what was bothering me so much. The paylines. All of them. There, to me at least, are too many paylines.

Think about it. Cashapillar has one hundred paylines. If a player is wagering only $0.01 per payline that still makes the cost of one spin $1. For some online slots players $1 is a lot for a single spin.

For other online slots players, the nickel and quarter players, the cost is even more. For the nickel online slots player the cost of a single spin is $5; and for a quarter player the cost is $25 per spin.

Compare that to what they would be paying per spin if they were playing a standard twenty five reel online slots game: $1.25 for the nickel player and $6.25 for the quarter player.

When comparing the two that is quite an increase.

What bothers me is that with those one hundred paylines, players can expect to run through their bankroll a lot faster, and potentially wind up wagering money that originally had not intended to just so that they can keep on playing.

And players do stand to lose more money faster when playing a one hundred payline online slots game than they would if they were playing the standard twenty five payline game.

Slots games are designed to take your money over time. Some take faster than others, but that is usually a result of the game’s payout percentage and odds. An online slots game with one hundred paylines is definitely going to take your money faster purely because of the paylines alone.

So while Cashapillar is a fun online slots game to play and visually amusing, it will be an online slots game that I play for fun since I do not want to spin my money away too quickly.

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Online slots and slot machines are a bit tricky when it comes to your slots betting to payout chances. Naturally, a slots player would have to be tricky in return in their slots strategy to help compensate for it.

Let’s say that you are a nickel player, meaning that you wager a nickel per payline. But you are a player who likes to play with multiple coins per payline. So in effect you are more of a quarter player because you are wagering closer to a quarter on a payline.

So you would think that the online slots game or slot machine that you are playing would recognize the increased wagering, and, recognizing the increased amount of wagering, payout accordingly like a quarter slots game would.

You would be wrong in thinking that. Remember that the house wants to hang on to every little bit of an edge that they can. It does not matter that online slots and slot machines are built to have an edge to take more money than they payout.

Even though the online slots game or slot machine is able to accept larger wagers because of multiple coins, it does not mean that it will payout on a larger scale.

So what should you do in terms of your slots strategy?

For starters look at your own slots betting. How are you betting? You say you are a nickel player, but you are wagering five nickels per payline, which is actually wagering a quarter per payline instead.

Look at your total bet per payline. If the number of coins you are betting has you betting a quarter per payline then you are not a nickel player. You are a quarter player.

And you want that quarter payout scale you will not find it betting multiple coins on a nickel slots game. But you will find that payout scale on a quarter machine while only wagering one quarter per payline.

The point is that you have to adjust your thinking about your own slots betting in order to proper work out your slots strategy. This means, in terms of slots strategy, looking at your slots betting and what you are betting in total per line rather than what coin you are betting.

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I often come across some commonly asked questions in relation to slots and slots strategy. Probably two of the most common inquiries is whether there is a way to tell when an online slots game is going to give up its jackpot or which online slots game pays better than the rest.

In regards to the first question, imagine that you could log in to your player account at your favorite online casino. You then click over to the list of online slots games, and you start checking on this one and that one. Finally you find one, make a few wagers and you have enough to pay all your bills this month and some left over. Naturally the leftover bit goes back into the slots game.

Sound too good to be true? Well it is.

Unfortunately there is no indicator that lets players know when an online slots jackpot will drop. If there were people would be playing all the time, there would be no incentive to work, and online casinos would run out of money and then close. And then you would have to work.

The thing to remember is that while an indicator would be nice, these are games of chance, not ATMs. They are meant to be played. And maybe you will win and maybe you will not. That is the point of a game of chance. And slots are the king of games of chance.

As for the second question about knowing if one online slots game pays more than the rest, there is a bit of an answer for that one.

Online slots games have payout percentages. A game’s payout percentage tells the player how much of the total wagers made by all players is paid back to players in winnings and how much goes to the online casino.

For example, if an online slots game has a payout percentage of say 90%, it means that 90% of the total wagers is paid out in winnings and 10% is kept by the casino.

But here is the thing with payout percentages. They do NOT mean that 90% of your own wagers is paid back to you. It just means that 90% is paid out in total.

The percentage that is paid back to players could come in the form of lots of little payouts or several large payouts.

Generally the higher the payout percentage the more that online slots game pays back. As part of a slots strategy, players can do a bit of research and find an online slots game with a high payout percentage and play that game.

But keep in mind—and in your slots strategy—that it does not necessarily mean that you will be the recipient of the entire percentage. Above all online slots games are games of chance—all you can do is make your wager, set the reels to spinning and hope for the best.

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