• Is It Good To Stop A Slot Machine Without
• Is It Good To Stop A Slot Machine Crossword Clue
• Is It Good To Stop A Slot Machine Near Me
• How To Win At Slot Machines
• How To Pick A Winning Slot Machine
• Is It Good To Stop A Slot Machine Cost

Do you play slot machines?

I throw a few tokens in these things and they make loud noises.

What most people don’t know is that slot machines are big business.

Slot machines and other video gambling options are a big bulk of the dollars earned by casinos.

Did you know that most Midwestern Casinos make the majority of their revenue from these games?

Slot machines make up a little bit less than 90% of their annual profits.

The big question is this:

Should you play slot machines?

I don’t think so. Let me tell you why:

Why Slots?

Reel spinning on slot machines is big business for casinos. Their profits exceed other gambling games like video poker, blackjack, and other games.

What is it that makes slot machines such big moneymakers?

Slot machines have the advantage of masking their true cost to the player than other gambling options.

When a player drops a 25 cent coin into a slot machine they think that is the cost of their game. The player couldn’t be more wrong. Let’s take a look at the real cost of playing slot machines:

The Real Cost of Slot Machines

There’s an economic theory known as, Law of Supply and Demand. This law says that the value of something is in higher need the consumer price falls. If you flood the market with something, the demand is going to fall.

This theory completely depends on a term called price transparency. This idea is for the everyday purchases we make on everyday purchases. This common type of spending is along the lines of grocery stores and Amazon purchases.

The types of items that fall under price transparency are food items, Amazon purchases, and other household and consumer goods.

What doesn’t fall under this category is services rendered that we don’t know the final cost of.

Think doctor’s appointments and car repair work. You just can’t know the final cost of the replacement of your radiator. There are too many factors involved like labor and wait time on the part(s).

Slot machines are an even iffier outcome than the final bill of your car’s repair. This is true because we don’t have a way to predict the true cost of our wagers at slot machines.

And this throws the idea of supply and demand out the window.

Casinos determine the price of the average or projected house edge on every wager placed by gamblers in their casino. This is also viewed by casinos as the long-term edge built into every game they offer.

For an average gambler, their small time frame playing the slot machine will bring a “price” that is a lot different than the original 25 cent coin dropped into the machine.

Let look at an example:

Let’s assume the slot machine has a 10% house edge. (This is pretty normal for slot machines.)

This 10% house edge, in the long run, will earn the casino % of all the money played on that machine.

Let’s say the machine has $100.00 played on it over 200 spins.

The payout would be $90.00 to the gambler and $10.00 to the house.

From the casino’s point of view, the price it charges to play the slot machine is 10% of what the long-term spending of the players.

From the player’s point of view, they see the cost of play by what they spend per s[end. If they put in a dollar to spin the slot machine once and it doesn’t payout, the slot machine costs $1.00 to play. Not the 0.10 to win (the casino’s win).

You’re asking yourself, so who’s right?

They both are correct.

The game has collected $1.00 from the player. The casino has factored in that 90 cents of that $1.00 will be paid out to other gamblers.

Still following?

Good.

A person gambling on a slot machine could never realize this, The player will most likely only play that specific slot machine for a couple of hours. That time sent on that machine will give the player big hopes of a huge payout to balance their time spent playing.

At this approach to playing, the slot is almost fruitless. It could quite possibly take one person years of playing that exact slot machine to finally hit a big.

That’s not a good use of time.

Playing the Long Term

The cost that the gambler views when playing a slot machine is based on the view of their time spent playing the slot machine in the casino. The casino is looking at the long term payout of the slot machine to players while the player looks at the 1-2 hours they will commit to playing the machine.

The ability to see the long term approach casinos take to slot machines is an advantage most veteran players are able to see. Let’s take a look at an example to make this theory a bit more clear.

Joe, who just got paid, heads to the casino with 100.00 to play on slot machines over an hour on Saturday afternoon. Joe has three possible endings for the day:

1. Joe loses all his money and goes home with less money he started the day with.
2. Joe hits the big jackpot on a slot machine and goes home with A LOT more money than he started his day with.
3. Joe breaks even and leaves with the 100.00 he started with.

Obviously Joe would like to come home with big winnings on his time spent playing slots.

But the second choice for Joe’s time at the casino is to come home breaking even.

He got to the casino with $100.00, played for an hour, won a little and left with his $100.00.

No harm, no foul.

Unfortunately, the first scenario is more likely than the other options.

More players lose than win.

This is essential for the casinos to be profitable businesses.

And they are more than profitable; they’re hugely profitable.

The big jackpots are paid by all the other gamblers that have lost money on those slot machines. Those losses = one big payout on almost all slot machines. That is the basics of the slot machine business

You’ve heard the saying “You win some and you lose some”?

In the case of slot machines, it’s more like “You win one and they lose a lot”.

It’s almost like the biological term symbiosis.

If there were no losers, there would be no big payouts on slot machines for the casino.

The casino would get a bad reputation for having no winners — which is a death sentence for casinos.

What most players don’t see is the long term payout on slot machines in casinos. Slot machine gamblers do not sit down with the mindset that I have to play this exact machine for X amount of spins to get that big jackpot. They want the immediate gratification of the big win.

If this was the mentality of most players the would be able to see what that first spin was worth. If slot machine players could see the cost of playing slot machines I think there would be a steep decline in the popularity of slot machines would see a steep decline in casinos.

No Slot Machines? What Should I Play?

I have given you plenty of incentive to stop playing slot machines.

But what should a regular slots gamblers play instead?

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There are a plethora of games that have better odds of winning.

Here are my top 3 games to play at casinos instead of slot machines:

1. Blackjack- Blackjack has much better odds of winning than casino slot machines. Also known as 21, this traditional table game favorite is one of the most popular card games at casinos. Your odds than slot machines. There are plenty of how-to sites on the internet about how to play, and more importantly, how to win! Give it a try.

2. Poker- Poker is probably the most infamous game when people think of gambling games. The house doesn’t have much at stake because players are playing against each other with their own money. It’s a great game to play, only if you have a great poker face. Look it up, you’ll have a blast playing poker instead of wasting your money on slot machines.

3. Craps- Craps is a dice game where players bet on where their dice throw where they will land on the table. Its a lot of fun, better odds than slot machines, and there is usually a lot of excitement around the craps tables. It is a great way to get to know people.

Finally

I have gone over how slot machines work, how the casino odds work, and why that one winner is piggybacking off all the time other players have wasted their money.

In the short run, slots are fun, but you are rarely going to hit that big jackpot everyone dreams about.

You now have the information you need to know why you should stop play slot machines. Try some of the table games. They are fun, have better odds of winning and you will likely walk away with more of the casino’s money in your pockets.

I would love to hear your thoughts on playing slot machines in casinos. Please feel free to leave a comment or questions below.

One of the most common questions you’ll see about anything in the casino gambling industry relates to “honesty”. You’ll see this question asked about every casino game under the sun. You’ll also see it asked about every casino, especially the online gambling sites.

In this post, I want to address this specific question:

Are slot machines honest?

How Do You Define Honest?

When I use Google to look for a definition of honesty, I see some of the following definitions listed:

• “Free of deceit and untruthfulness”
• “Sincere”
• “Morally correct or virtuous”
• “Fairly earned, through hard work”

I think most people are thinking of the first definition when they ask whether slots games are honest. They want to make sure they’re not being cheated. In this context, the answer is yes, slot machines are honest. I’ll explain why in detail in the rest of this post.

In the second context, where “honest” means “sincere”—I’m less sure. Are the casinos sincere when they want you to think you’re able to win money? I think so, but they know in the long run, anyone who plays slots long enough will lose all their money.

In the third and fourth contexts, I’d have to say that slot machines are NOT honest. Slot machines are closer to morally neutral than they are to sinful, but you might have a different belief system about such things. It’s hard to say that slots don’t appeal to one of the seven deadly sins, though (greed).

I’m not sure anyone could (or would) consider money won on a slot machine “earned” or to have anything to do with “hard work”. It’s a game of luck. If you win, then you got lucky—it has nothing to do with working hard or being smart.

I’ll explain more about that later in this post, too.

How a Slot Machine Works Mathematically

Answering the question “are slot machines honest?” begins with learning how the games work mathematically. The math behind the games is easier to understand than most people probably think.

The first concept to understand is basic probability. When someone says “probability”, they’re talking about the mathematical likelihood that something is going to happen. That “something” is called an event.

The probability of an event is always represented as a number between 0 and 1. An event that will always occur no matter what has a probability of 1. An event that will never occur has a probability of 0. An event that will occur half the time has a probability of 0.5.

For simplicity’s sake, and to make understanding the concept easier, I just used whole numbers and decimals in the previous paragraph. But probabilities are almost always expressed as percentages or fractions.

How to Express Probability as a Percentage

You’re watching the evening news, and the meteorologist says there’s a 50% chance of rain tomorrow.

That means it’s just about as likely to rain as it is to not rain.

Here’s another example:

You flip a coin. You have a 50% chance of it landing on heads. You also have a 50% chance of it landing on tails.

If you add the probabilities of all possible events together, you always get a total of 1 (or 100%).

Probability is the mathematical engine that makes gambling games possible.

How to Calculate a Probability

Here’s how you calculate a probability:

You take the number of ways an event can happen. You divide that by all the total events possible (including what can happen and what happens if it doesn’t.)

You’re rolling a single six-sided die. You want to know the probability of getting a 6.

There are 6 possible outcomes. Only one of them is a 6.

The probability of getting a 6 is 1/6.

Another way to express that is using odds, which can be useful when calculating whether a bet is expected to be mathematically profitable or not.

Odds expresses the number of ways something can’t happen versus the number of ways it can happen.

In the six-sided die example, the odds of getting a 6 are 5 to 1. You have 5 ways of NOT rolling a 1, and only 1 way of rolling a 1.

If you want to calculate a probability that includes the word “or”, you add the probabilities of the events together.

If you want to calculate a probability that includes the word “and”, you multiply the probabilities by each other.

You want to know the probability of getting a 1 or a 2 on a roll of a six-sided die. The probability of each is 1/6.

1/6 + 1/6 = 2/6

You can reduce that to 1/3.

Here’s another example:

You roll 2 dice. You want to know the probability of getting a 6 on both dice. The probability of each is 1/6.

1/6 X 1/6 = 1/36

Applying Probability to a Simple Hypothetical Slot Machine Game

But how does all this apply to the honesty of slot machines?

I’ll use a super simple hypothetical slot machine game to explain how this probability affects the integrity of the game.

This super simple game has 3 symbols on each reel—an orange, a lemon, and a cherry.

The probability of getting a lemon on the first reel is 1/3.

The probability of getting a lemon on the second reel is also 1/3.

In fact, it’s the same on each reel.

But the game only pays off if you get 3 of the same symbol on each reel.

The probability of that is 1/3 X 1/3 X 1/3, or 1/9.

Let’s suppose the payoff for getting 3 lemons is 4 for 1.

And let’s suppose the payoff for getting 3 cherries is 3 for 1.

Finally, we’ll suppose the payoff for getting 3 oranges is even money.

• The probability of winning 4 coins is 1/9.
• The probability of winning 3 coins is also 1/9.
• The probability of winning 1 coin is also 1/9.
• The probability of winning nothing is 6/9, or 2/3.

Now let’s suppose you’re putting $1 in on every spin, and you play 9 spins, getting every possible result once.

You win 4 coins once. You win 3 coins once. You win 1 coin once. That’s a total of 8 coins you’ve won.

But you’ve inserted 9 coins into the game.

Where did the extra coin go?

In the pockets of the casino, that’s where.

By setting up the payoffs so that they’re lower than the odds of winning, the casino sets up a situation where it’s guaranteed a mathematical profit over the long run.

Of course, most modern slot machines aren’t quite this simple. They have more symbols on each reel, for one thing. For another, the probability of getting a particular symbol might be different from the probability of getting another symbol.

For example, you might have a 2/3 probability of getting a pear, and only a 1/24 probability of getting a cherry.

What Happens in the Long Run vs. the Short Term?

By manipulating the payoffs and the probabilities of the symbols, the casino can guarantee that over a long period and many spins, they’ll profit.

But in the short run, a player might win a big jackpot or lose several times in a row.

That’s the nature of random events. In the short run, anything can happen. In the long run, the numbers get closer to the theoretical probability.

This is obvious when you look at it with an extreme example.

On an infinite number of spins, your average loss per spin will mirror the mathematical expectation.

The closer you get to an infinite number of spins, the closer you’ll get to the mathematical expectation.

Do Slot Machines Cheat?

The casinos don’t need to cheat to make a healthy profit.

The slot machine designers and manufacturers don’t need to cheat to make a healthy profit.

In fact, in well-regulated jurisdictions (like Nevada), games are thoroughly audited for fairness. When they’re auditing a game for fairness, one of the things they check is whether a game has a jackpot that’s impossible to win.

That’s the main concern many players have when they ask if slot machines cheat.

Does the game have jackpots that are impossible to win?

The short answer in almost every case is no, they don’t.

But you have no way of knowing what the probability of winning that jackpot is. Slot machine games have opaque odds and probabilities. The results are generated by a computer program called a random number generator (RNG).

The only people who know the exact settings for that RNG are the designers and the casino managers.

In fact, you could be playing two identical slot machines located right next to each on the casino floor and have different odds of winning. Not only is this legal, it’s common.

Does that sound like cheating?

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By the strict letter of the law, it’s not.

Is It Good To Stop A Slot Machine Near Me

Is it honest?

I’d say yes. Having two games next to each other offering different odds is intentionally misleading. It’s legal, but it’s not sincere in any way.

Online slot machines are no different, except that in some cases, these games HAVE been known to cheat. But not reputable casinos and not reputable software providers.

How do they cheat?

They set up games which are impossible to win.

The reasons baffle me. You stand to make far more money in the long run if you offer an honest game.

Even an idiot can tell after a while that he’s never going to win a rigged casino game on the Internet.

But otherwise smart people will continue to deposit money and wager it at a breakneck pace if they’re winning something every now and then, even if they’re showing a net loss over time.

That’s how gambling works.

What About Video Poker Games?

You need to understand immediately that video poker games are NOT the same thing as slot machine games. They look similar on the surface, but the math and the gameplay couldn’t be more different. And the philosophy behind these games is different, too.

Here’s why:

A video poker machine uses a random number generator that duplicates the odds found in a 52-card deck of cards. You know the probability of getting a specific symbol. Any specific card has a 1/52 probability of appearing.

A card of a specific suit has a ¼ probability of appearing. A card of a specific rank has a 1/13 probability of appearing.

Payback Percentages and the House Edge

Knowing this enables mathematicians and computer programs to calculate the actual payback percentage for these games.

What’s a payback percentage?

It’s the percentage of each bet that’s paid back to the player on average in the long run. It’s the opposite of the house edge.

On a slot machine, you have no way of calculating a game’s payback percentage. It’s impossible, because you have no way of knowing the probability of getting a specific symbol.

But on a video poker game, you can calculate all the possibilities. And since you know how much the game pays out for various combinations, you can add the expected value of each to get an overall payback percentage for the game.

And you know what’s even better than this?

The payback percentages for video poker games are significantly higher than the payback percentages on slot machines in almost every case.

Even the worst video poker game usually has a payback percentage of 95% or so. But the better games offer payback percentages in the 98%+ range. Some (rare) games have pay tables which offer a slightly positive game for the player, like 100.2%. But those numbers assume perfect strategy on your part.

But even the best slot machine games usually have a payback percentage in the 95% range. The more common games slip down into the lower 92% or so range.

Expected Hourly Loss Rates in Slot Machine Games vs. Video Poker Games

What does this mean to your bankroll?

Let’s look at how much money you can mathematically expect to lose playing 2 different games:

We’ll start with an average slot machine game with a 94% payback percentage. You’re playing for $1 per spin, and you’re making 600 spins per hour. You expect to win 94% of each bet back, which means you expect to lose 6% of each bet.

6% of $600 is $36, which is the amount the casino expects you to lose on this game on average over time.

Then we’ll consider a 9/6 Jacks or Better game which you’re playing with perfect strategy. The payback percentage for this game is 99.54%, which means the house edge is 0.46%.

We’ll assume you’re playing a quarter machine and betting 5 coins per hand. You’re putting a little more money into action on each bet–$1.25. Most video poker players are as fast as slot machine players; they play 600 hands per hour. That’s $750/hour in action.

But with a house edge of 0.54%, your expected loss on that kind of action is only $3.77.

That’s right.

How To Win At Slot Machines

Playing slots costs you 10 times as much as playing video poker.

Video poker offers other advantages over slots, too. One of these is the skill element. You might not want to think about what you’re doing when you’re gambling.

But if you’re anything like me, you want to be able to at least exert a little bit of control over your destiny.

In video poker, you get to do that. The decisions you make playing each hand have a direct effect on your bottom line.

Play your hands well, and you’ll be playing one of the best gambling games in the house.

Should You Play Slot Machines at All?

This is a legitimate question. Should you play slot machines at all?

Here are some pros and cons of playing slots:

Pros:

• You can win bigger jackpots on slot machine games than any other gambling game except maybe keno. If you’re looking for a life-changing jackpot, like you’d see if you won a lotto drawing, slots are the way to go.
• They require little in the way of attention or effort on the part of the player. This suits some temperaments just fine. Relaxing in front of the spinning reels seems like a good deal for a lot of people.
• They’re available in an endless variety. You can find a slot machine game with any theme you can imagine. Love Elvis Presley? You’ll find a slot machine for it. Play Dungeons & Dragons when you were 12? There’s a slot for that, too. The themes and games are almost endless.

Cons:

• They offer some of the worst odds in the house. The house edge for slot machines vary widely. Some of them might offer good odds, but most of them have a house edge of between 5% and 10%. This isn’t awful. After all, roulette has a house edge of 5.26%. The problem is that slots play so fast that you can easily put more money into an action than you thought you could.
• You can’t figure out what the odds are. I have a philosophical problem with slot machine games. No other casino game is opaque about your odds. You can calculate the house edge for any table game in the casino. You can calculate it for video poker, too. But you’re never given the information you need to figure out the house edge on a slot machine. This is unacceptable to me.
• They’re designed to be addictive. Slot machine manufacturers spend millions doing research into what kinds of stimuli are going to put most people into the “flow” state. Flow is great if you’re interested in personal productivity at work, but if you’re playing a gambling game, it’s awful. No other casino game is as addictive as a slot machine.

Conclusion

Yes, slot machines are honest—in a manner of speaking, anyway. Casinos don’t make claims about slot machines that are blatantly untrue. If a game has a maximum jackpot of $1 million, you do have a chance of winning that much money.

How To Pick A Winning Slot Machine

What you don’t know is how likely or unlikely it is to win that amount.

Is this disingenuous on the part of the casinos?

I think it is, at least to some extent.

Is It Good To Stop A Slot Machine Cost

But all casino games have math behind them that puts the odds in the casino’s favor. That’s just the nature of the games. Slots are no different in that respect.

No matter which casino game you play, if you stick with it long enough, you’ll eventually lose all your money.

The only exceptions are certain games that can be played with advantage techniques, but that’s another subject entirely.

The only way for you to get an edge against a slot machine game is to cheat.

In most jurisdictions, cheating is blatantly illegal. You’re better off learning to play poker at an expert level, or learning how to count cards in blackjack.