Utilizing an Effective Slot Machine Strategy

It is not impossible to win playing slot machines.  While it is true that the house will always have the mathematical edge, having a strategy will reduce the house’s advantage.  The first thing to do is join the casino’s slots club/player’s club.  It is free to enroll and usually the initial membership will entail a certain dollar amount of free slot play.  The other advantage to joining a slots/player’s club is that the card will track your playing habits and you will receive awards based on those habits.  Awards can include discounts on meals, lodging, event tickets and even cash.

Bet within your limits

If you have $100 you are willing to spend on slot machines then the best strategy would be to stick with nickel or penny machines.  Consider that if you play a $1 slot machine at five credits per spin, you will be able to make 20 spins, maybe a few more if you hit some small wins.  Twenty slot machine spins will probably take about 10-15 minutes, so that is not very long if you are looking to kill some time.  Conversely, if you take that same $100 to a penny slot machine you can make 2,000 spins at five credits per spin.  If you are looking to kill time, those 2,000 spins will take about 12 hours.

Video versus Physical Slots

A physical reel can hold about 20 symbols and a physical slot machine cannot really accommodate more than three reels.  On the other hand, a video slot machine does not have these limitations. A video slot machine can theoretically have an infinite number of symbols and reels.  The Random Number Generator (RNG) in a video slot machine can, and is, programmed to give certain symbols a different chance of coming up that is totally unrelated to the number of symbols. For example, the slot machine might have one star symbol out of ten symbols, but the RNG might be programmed to only have that star symbol land once out of every 20 random spins.  The resulting consequence is that less likely combinations can be programmed.  Therefore, the less likely it is to hit those combinations, which allows the casino to be able to afford to pay out for them.

With physical slot machines progressive jackpots of six and seven figures are nearly impossible, but they are quite easy to program into a video slot machine’s RNG.  As with any gambling, spending big money can lead to big rewards, but remember with slot machines your money can disappear more quickly than with any card game, so choose your machine and denomination wisely.