Understanding Casino Slot Machines
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In a previous article, we explained the general differences between Class III and Class II slot machines. Most of our coverage here will be about ‘Class III’ machines since those are the type you’re most likely to encounter in a major casino jurisdiction (Las Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City) or online. Understand slots basics and play online casino games for real money! Learn about online slots features and improve your online gaming experience at Slots.lv.
- Understanding Online Casino Slots Basics Online casino slots have become enormously popular over the years, and much of their success can be attributed to their simple gameplay. To play, all you need to do is pull the lever (or push the “Spin” button) to set the reels in motion.
- If you are new to the idea of playing slot machines, it is important to understand how to read a slot machine before you head out onto the floor and begin playing the slots. One thing that should be understood is that although slot machines may look as though they are all the same, that is not the case.
Introduction to Understanding Advantage Play Slots
The point is some slot machines can exist only in the offline mode in land based casinos, and it’s impossible to get them online, although we hope it’s just for now. Then, there are slot games with progressive jackpots are unfortunately unavailable in play “for fun” mode.
As a slot machine enthusiast, have you heard intriguing rumors of the secret world of advantage players? Perhaps you saw the “Susan B. Anthony” used to reward a poorly treated casino reviewer at the end of the third Ocean’s movie? Here, I separate fact from fantasy. Let’s start understanding advantage play slots.
This article has the following sections:
- Introduction to Understanding Advantage Play Slots
- What’s an Advantage Play, Anyway?
- Understanding Advantage Play Slots #1: Game Themes
- Understanding Advantage Play Slots #2: Team Approach
- Understanding Advantage Play Slots #3: Modern Casinos
- Sooner or Later, Advantage Plays Stop Working
- Summary of Understanding Advantage Play Slots
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What’s an Advantage Play, Anyway?
In the gaming industry, an advantage play occurs whenever a gambler improves their odds of winning using gameplay knowledge not ordinarily available.
To help understand the general principle, consider a common non-gaming example: Credit card programs. Credit card companies exist offering cash-back for purchases. Chase Sapphire and Capital One Silver come to mind. Perhaps you’ve seen the television commercials with Samuel L. Jackson?
A credit card advantage play of such programs is to figure out how to make many, and I mean a lot of purchases to maximize cash-back. For example, perhaps you pay your rent or mortgage with that credit card.
Instead of paying directly with a credit card, which typically isn’t possible, you could find a reputable company that pays your rent or mortgage by check while you pay for the service via credit card. If the cash-back exceeds the small fee for the exchange, it’s an advantage play.
Or maybe you’re an entrepreneur with an Amazon fulfillment business. Perhaps you buy several items, put them together as a nice kit, then sell the package on Amazon. Why wouldn’t you purchase those single items with a cash-back credit card? If you sell at high-volume, you could push $10,000, or a whole lot more, through that credit card each month.
An advantage play example from the gaming industry, for table games, is card counting. This form of advantage play has a long and rich history. There’s even a major motion movie about blackjack card counting from 2008, 21.
But we’re interested in advantage plays involving slot machine casino gambling. In the next sections, we’ll work toward understanding advantage play slots, including my own relatively unique perspective for the modern casino environment.
Understanding Advantage Play Slots #1: Game Themes
The most popular slots advantage plays discussed online are about specific slot machine game themes. Every game theme has gameplay rules, which might have loopholes of which players can take advantage.
The essential approach to game theme advantage plays usually occurs during gameplay, although not always, which I’ll discuss in a moment. Class II competition-style slot machine game themes typically include a decision point for the player where there is a right or wrong answer.
Advantage players figure out in advance which answer is correct, sometimes only after extensive effort and research.
The difficulty with this approach is the assumption that it’s also an advantage play which applies to Class III Vegas-style games of chance at non-tribal casinos as well as Class II skill-based games typically only available at tribal casinos.
Do gameplay advantage plays exist for Class III slot machines? Once, they did. It was even somewhat prevalent, even as recently as 30 years ago. But, today? Not really.
What is my justification for this position? It’s based on thorough gaming regulations, including state-by-state testing of all game themes by independent laboratories. Very, very few game theme loopholes make it through such rigorous testing. See Advantage Play Against Slots (AP Heat Advantage Play) by Eliot Jacobson, Ph.D., published on March 6, 2017.
But I didn’t state that Class III slot machine advantage plays don’t exist. I said, they don’t really exist. What did I mean by this?
What I meant by this are the several circumstances where advantage plays can exist, if you want to expend the effort to find them. Just keep in mind that any serious advantage player carefully balances energy and cost with potential profit.
Put another way, figuring it out must be worth it. Some enterprising online individuals claim to have figured out a few game theme loopholes and share them freely. See Analyzing 4 Different Slots Advantage Play Methods by Randy Ray, published on May 11, 2019.
A few, usually new, audience members will ask my opinion for the best slot machines to play. My serious reply is those machines on which you win. Most of my audience agrees. In my opinion, looking for mistakes in game themes that made it past gaming regulators is a waste of time given how rare this occurrence has become.
However, lots of slots players think what casinos want them to think: Play your favorite slot machine game theme because, since it’s your favorite, you’ll win. Such an attitude from your casino isn’t gambling advice. It’s only marketing.
We’ve discussed game theme decision points and game theme loopholes, but there’s more. Another advantage play is to find slot machines with specific game themes played somewhat. A previous player could have paid for getting a slot machine closer to paying out.
A typical example is progressive slot machines with a must-win-by maximum jackpot. This amount is typically unknown. But extensive observation by an advantage player (AP) could allow them to figure it out, so they then only play progressives close to this limit.
The advantage play approach to progressive slot machines requires a great deal of patience to accomplish. If you’re interested in learning more about this approach, see my articles on progressive slots winning strategies:
Understanding Advantage Play Slots #2: Team Approach
Serious advantage players are typically part of closed communities. When an AP figures out how to take advantage of a slot machine, whether progressive, Class II, or otherwise, they are quite naturally secretive about it.
As I’ll discuss in a later section, many advantage plays are somewhat fragile. They are undoubtedly expensive in either time or money, sometimes both, to figure out. Therefore, APs will protect them like an investment.
But APs sometimes can’t figure out an advantage play without a team. Or they figure out an advantage play, as with a bank of networked progressive machines close to its jackpot limit, where every seat should have a team member sitting in it for the best chance of a return on investment.
Advantage players have figured out the cheapest way to learn a new advantage play is to watch known advantage players, then do what they do. These APs swoop in at the last moment to try to profit, such as taking one of those seats at an about-to-win bank of progressive slot machines.
Finally, it’s human nature to brag about our accomplishments. APs can and do make this mistake, but perhaps less often as they gain more experience at advantage plays. However, a regular slots player might put two-and-two together after observing an experienced AP winning. After all, most casinos are typically open to the public.
Another aspect of the team approach is the distraction it can provide. As mentioned previously, card-counting has a rich history. In the early days, one of the difficulties with card-counting was casino recognition from past winning sessions.
What was the card-counting APs response? Disguises. With modern casinos and a requirement for government-issued IDs, disguising an individual is very limited unless you happen to have an identical twin.
But you could explain the advantage play you’ve figured out to a team of trusted individuals, perhaps family members. They could then perform the advantage play for a pre-determined profit share.
Understanding Advantage Play Slots #3: Modern Casinos
With modern-day casinos and gaming regulations, slot machine advantage plays have undergone a sea change. It’s no longer possible to drop coins with a complicated pattern, which might cause a win, if that advantage play ever worked in the first place.
Using terminology from the Ocean’s 13 movie, a “Susan B. Anthony” con doesn’t matter any longer because U.S. casinos no longer use coin-operated slot machines. But that doesn’t mean advantage plays no longer exist. It means they’ve changed with the times.
Around 2012, slot machine manufacturers started offering operating systems to help casinos handle larger crowd sizes with ease, efficiency, and a smaller workforce. One of these innovations was a central computer server hardwired to every slot machine.
With it, casino operators could reduce their army of slots mechanics to a much smaller, and therefore cheaper, group. Instead of the mechanics changing the odds of winning every one to two weeks as needed to meet state gaming requirements, the computer server could do it electronically several times a day.
In this way, the casino saved money in two important ways: a smaller workforce devoted mostly to machine maintenance and a vast improvement in their ability to meet financial performance metrics from multiple weeks to several times daily.
Yes, slot machines still operate randomly under these new casino operating systems. But because the odds of winning can be remotely adjusted several times daily. Therefore, the odds of winning, while still random, are different before and after. And one is better than the other.
The task of the modern-day slot machine advantage player is to figure out which is which. Are the best odds in the morning, afternoon, or evening? Is it on busy days at the casino or non-busy days? On a holiday evening or the morning day after a holiday?
Modern casino operating systems have much more excellent control over slot machines than ever. While this slot machine control is by a computer, the computer is itself controlled by humans. And humans love to tinker. And humans also make mistakes.
Rather than explain my winning slots strategies based on casino business practices here, I’ll refer you to my many website articles and podcast episodes on that topic.
Sooner or Later, Advantage Plays Stop Working
The types of advantage plays are effectively endless, but they all have one common disadvantage: Sooner or later, they stop working. Why? Because sometimes an advantage play is a disadvantage for someone or something else.
If a business practice is an advantage play, or even if it’s going too well, it’s not uncommon for that business to shut it down. Sometimes, there’s also a time limit on how long it lasts, making it more of a promotion than a business practice.
Because individual advantage plays stop working eventually, successful APs keep working on the next advantage play. For APs, figuring out advantage plays is a never-ending process.
But, as with most situations, there’s an advantage play for this, too. Some advantage plays go unnoticed because they are not dramatic. Any disadvantage to the casino is so small that it goes unnoticed.
Put another way the weakest advantage plays last the longest. One massive jackpot would be wonderful, but does it matter if it takes a year or two to make the same gaming profit at a much less noticeable level? Being less noticeable now is better for future advantage plays.
Some advantage plays are a change in perspective. Casino operators see a reduced workforce and daily performance metrics as their advantage play. That some modern APs, such as myself, have turned those business practices on their head doesn’t matter.
As I’ve previously mentioned, advantage players consider the time and cost of an advantage play versus its potential profit. As advantage players, casino operators make these same calculations with their millions or billions of dollars in gaming revenue.
As with card-counting, casinos adapted to players using that advantage play. In return, card counters wore disguises. Then casinos added more decks. Players figured out the math for using packs of decks.
And so it went, back and forth, until we now have casino surveillance of card games pattern recognition, automatic shufflers of a large number of decks, or even infinite decks,
Slot machine advantage plays, although more secretive, have already had to deal with counter-responses from casinos. While casinos had good business reasons to switch over from coins to ticket-in, ticket-out readers, doing so had a major impact on coin drop sequence advantage plays, whether they were effective advantage plays or not.
Modern slot machine advantage plays which currently work will stop working because casinos will develop counter-measures or change their business practices for some other reason. They do that, you know.
I’ve seen this happen. For me, some significant advantage plays went away after nine months. But I responded by figuring out the next advantage play. That’s what all APs, modern or not, do.
And maybe the new slot machine advantage plays I’ve figured out and used successfully, my winning slots strategies, will work at other casinos for you. I’m sharing them for two reasons. First, I have a (well-paid aerospace engineering) day job, which prevents me from using my winning strategies elsewhere, outside of an occasional weekend getaway.
Second, I’m doing that thing which APs do. I’ve determined that it is an advantage play to share this information with you. With enough time and effort, there is a potential profit in serving a community of slots players. I hope so, anyway. I’ve got massive student loans to pay.
Summary of Understanding Advantage Play Slots
Advantage plays have always been a bit mysterious because sharing them is counter-productive to winning at slots when using them.
But sharing is caring, so I’ve written this article on understanding advantage play slots from a modern-day perspective.
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Online casino slots have become enormously popular over the years, and much of their success can be attributed to their simple gameplay. To play, all you need to do is pull the lever (or push the “Spin” button) to set the reels in motion. Game icons are fixated onto the reels, which spin their way to new combinations with each play. If you see matching icons lined up in a row, you win a payout—that's if you play online slots for real money.
Understanding Casino Slot Machines
This is the most basic explanation of how slot games work, but in reality, they're more complex than that—especially since they've transitioned to the online realm, where there are endless possibilities to enhance gameplay with innovative new formats. In order to help you better understand how online slots games work, we've compiled this comprehensive online slots guide, which touches on all the elements you'll find in our slot games, including everything from game symbols to free spins sessions.
Online Slots Symbols
Game symbols are the icons that spin vertically with each round. The goal of the game is to land matching symbols on a payline, and with most online slot games, paylines begin on the first reel. There is always a minimum number of matches needed to trigger a payout, and the more matches you get, the bigger the payout is for each game.
As you play our online casino slot games, you'll notice that there are some game symbols on the reels that act differently than the standard ones. These are your wilds, scatters, bonus icons and multipliers; each one benefits you in unique ways.
Wilds
A wild symbol can transform into any of the standard game icons in order to complete a winning line. For example, if you land Q-Wild-Q on a payline, the wild becomes a Q and you get paid for landing three Qs. Some wilds have additional capabilities, such as expanding wilds which can run up and down the entire reel, and sticky wilds, which trigger a free re-spin while staying in place.
Scatters
Normally, game icons must land side by side in order to trigger payouts, but scatter symbols are an exception to this rule. They can land anywhere on the reels and still trigger a bonus, such as a free spins session, a cash payout or bonus round.
Bonuses
With some online slot games, only scatters trigger the bonuses. But with other slot games, there are additional bonus symbols, which award something extra, like a cash prize or bonus round. For an example of a slot game that has both scatters and a bonus, check out Animal Wilds slot.
Multipliers
Why settle for a standard payout when you can multiply that payout by three times, five times, or even more? Multipliers significantly boost your return by multiplying payouts by the number shown in the symbol.
Paylines
For the majority of slot games, matching icons can't just land anywhere—they must land on a payline in order to be considered a win. These invisible lines go from the first reel to the last reel in various orders. The most basic payline is a simple horizontal line that goes left to right.
Paylines have a direct impact on win frequency, as having more paylines included in a slot game increases the odds of landing matching icons on them. That being said, you pay for each payline, so the cost per spin increases with the number of paylines included by players.
Betting Level
Your bankroll will dictate what kind of real money slots games you can play as well as the betting levels for them. While some slots simply ask you to choose how much money you want to bet per round, others let you pick the number of coins you want to wager per payline and the coin denomination, creating a more custom experience.
Let’s take Catsino slot for example. In this 5-reel, 50-line slot, you can wager up to 10 coins per payline, and your coin denominations include: $0.01, $0.05, $0.10, and $0.25. That means, you can wager a minimum of one penny per line for $0.50 rounds, and a maximum of 10 quarters per line for $125 rounds.
Another way you can alter your betting level is through the “Select Lines” button, which lets you choose how many paylines to activate. Just be mindful, when you start playing with just a handful of paylines, certain bonus features (expanding wilds, for example) lose their benefits. You should also be aware that certain jackpots are only available when betting the maximum number of coins. Simply check the game's paytable to see what betting minimums are required.
Progressive Jackpots
Most slot players dream of triggering progressive jackpots. These are the massive payouts that are funded by a percentage of incoming bets placed on the game. You'll see them advertised in the tens of thousands at the top of the game screen.
There are a few different ways to trigger a progressive jackpot. We'll cover each one, but it's important to read the rules of the game before starting in order to ensure you know exactly what's required to be eligible.
Random Progressive Jackpot: Some slots include Random Progressive Jackpots, which means the award is given out randomly at the end of any given spin. A Night With Cleo is an example of a slot game with a random progressive jackpot.
Top Line Progressive Jackpot: These jackpots are offered as payouts for winning the top combination of a game. Strike Gold is an example of a slot game with a Top Line Progressive Jackpot.
Bonus Feature Progressive Jackpot: Newer slot games are starting to include progressive jackpots as awards triggered through a bonus feature. Gold Rush Gus has one of these jackpots; it’s one of the four rewards given out through the Treasure Chest Bonus.
Bonus Round
A bonus round takes you to a new screen, where you get an opportunity to boost your bankroll by completing a challenge. The challenge coincides with the theme of the game, making the experience more engaging and interactive than simply spinning the reels. Robin Hood slot, for example, has a bonus round called Marian's Prize, where you attempt to locate Robin Hood's Merry Men behind “Wanted” posters. The more times you're able to do this without uncovering the Sheriff of Nottingham, the more money you end up with.
Understanding Casino Slot Machines Videos
Free Spins
Understanding Casino Slot Machines -
Free spins let you spin the reels and collect payouts without having to stake any of your bankroll. These are often triggered by landing scatters, and the more scatters you land, the more free spins you get. One of the best online slot games tips out there is to thoroughly examine the free spin situation, as free spins with multipliers—that can also be retriggered—are the most valuable free spins out there.
Understanding Casino Slot Machines Game
Some new slots are getting creative with their free spins. With Gold Rush Gus, there are two ways to get free spins: one is through landing scatters and another is through a no-win outcome. The free spins triggered by scatters come with a 2X, 3X or 4X multiplier.
Understanding Casino Slot Machines Pdf
With the exception of progressive jackpots, these basic elements are included in mostreal money slots online. Knowing how slot games work not only gives you a better understanding of slots in general, but also provides insight on how valuable a game is based on its bonus features. Browse our slot selection and see how many bonus features you can get in a single game for the full online slot games experience.