


The gaming industry is big business in the US, contributing an estimated $240 billion to the economy each year while generating $38 billion in tax revenues and supporting 17 million jobs.
What people may not realize is that slot machines, video poker machines, and other electronic gaming devices make up the bulk of all that economic activity. At casinos in Iowa and South Dakota, for example, such devices have contributed up to 89 percent of annual gaming revenue.
Spinning-reel slots, in particular, are profit juggernauts for most casinos, outperforming table games like blackjack, video poker machines, and other forms of gambling.
What about slot machines makes them such reliable money makers? In part, it has something to do with casinos ability to hide their true price from even the savviest of gamblers.
An important economic theory holds that when the price of something goes up, demand for it tends to fall.
But that depends on price transparency, which exists for most of the day-to-day purchases we make. That is, other than visits to the doctor s office and possibly the auto mechanic, we know the price of most products and services before we decide to pay for them.
Slots may be even worse than the doctor s office, in that most of us will never know the true price of our wagers. Which means the law of supply and demand breaks down.
Casino operators usually think of price in terms of what is known as the average or expected house advantage on each bet placed by players. Basically, it s the long-term edge that is built into the game. For an individual player, his or her limited interaction with the game will result in a price that looks a lot different.
For example, consider a game with a 10-percent house advantage which is fairly typical. This means that over the long run, the game will return 10 percent of all wagers it accepts to the casino that owns it. So if it accepts $1 million in wagers over 2 million spins, it would be expected to pay out $900,000, resulting in a casino gain of $100,000. Thus, from the management s perspective, the price it charges is the 10 percent it expects to collect from gamblers over time.
Individual players, however, will likely define price as the cost of the spin. For example, if a player bets $1, spins the reels, and receives no payout, that ll be the price not 10 cents.
So who is correct? Both, in a way. While the game has certainly collected $1 from the player, management knows that eventually 90 cents of that will be dispensed to other players.
A player could never know this, however, given he will only be playing for an hour or two, during which he may hope a large payout will make up for his many losses and then some. And at this rate of play, it could take years of playing a single slot machine for the casino s long-term advantage to become evident.
This difference in price perspective is rooted in the gap between the short-term view of the players and the long-term view of management. This is one of the lessons I ve learned in my more than three decades in the gambling industry analyzing the performance of casino games and as a researcher studying them.
Let s consider George, who just got his paycheck and heads to the casino with $80 to spend over an hour on a Tuesday night. There are basically three outcomes: He loses everything, hits a considerable jackpot and wins big, or makes or loses a little but manages to walk away before the odds turn decidedly against him.
Of course, the first outcome is far more common than the other two it has to be for the casino to maintain its house advantage. The funds to pay big jackpots come from frequent losers (who get wiped out). Without all these losers, there can be no big winners which is why so many people play in the first place.
Specifically, the sum of all the individual losses is used to fund the big jackpots. Therefore, to provide enticing jackpots, many players must lose all of their Tuesday night bankroll.
What is less obvious to many is that the long-term experience rarely occurs at the player level. That is, players rarely lose their $80 in a uniform manner (that is, a rate of 10 percent per spin). If this were the typical slot experience, it would be predictably disappointing. But it would make it very easy for a player to identify the price he s paying.
Ultimately, the casino is selling excitement, which is comprised of hope and variance. Even though a slot may have a modest house advantage from management s perspective, such as four percent, it can and often does win all of George s Tuesday night bankroll in short order.
This is primarily due to the variance in the slot machine s pay table which lists all the winning symbol combinations and the number of credits awarded for each one. While the pay table is visible to the player, the probability of producing each winning symbol combination remains hidden. Of course, these probabilities are a critical determinant of the house advantage that is, the long-term price of the wager.
This rare ability to hide the price of a good or service offers an opportunity for casino management to raise the price without notifying the players if they can get away with it.
Casino managers are under tremendous pressure to maximize their all-important slot revenue, but they do not want to kill the golden goose by raising the price too much. If players are able to detect these concealed price increases simply by playing the games, then they may choose to play at another casino.
This terrifies casino operators, as it is difficult and expensive to recover from perceptions of a high-priced slot product.
Consequently, many operators resist increasing the house advantages of their slot machines, believing that players can detect these price shocks.
Our new research, however, has found that increases in the casino advantage have produced significant gains in revenue with no signs of detection even by savvy players. In multiple comparisons of two otherwise identical reel games, the high-priced games produced significantly greater revenue for the casino. These findings were confirmed in a second study.
Further analysis revealed no evidence of play migration from the high-priced games, despite the fact their low-priced counterparts were located a mere three feet away.
Importantly, these results occurred in spite of the egregious economic disincentive to play the high-priced games. That is, the visible pay tables were identical on both the high- and low-priced games, within each of the two-game pairings. The only difference was the concealed probabilities of each payout.
Armed with this knowledge, management may be more willing to increase prices. And for price-sensitive gamblers, reel slot machines may become something to avoid.
This article was originally published on The Conversation by Anthony Frederick Lucas. Read the original article here.
Playing on a slot machine can be tricky business. If you are in the initial stages of the game or a novice then you might need time to get familiar with the machine.
It is sometimes hard to decipher how to win on slot machines every time. This article can help you in finding a winning slot machine.
Every gambler looks for ways to trick casinos so that they can make the most on slot machines.
One of the toughest parts is to listen to the advice and sit through the good and bad. A number of casinos remain open to entertaining people. Many people are now pro at gambling and know tricks to win at slot.
You may have a plethora of options when it comes to choosing a casino. These top 7 qualities should help you in finding the best casino.
Before we go any further, you need to learn about the slot machine.
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Having three or more spinning reels, slot machines are gambling games. The reels have symbols that spin and randomly form a combination once a player has placed a bet.
When numbers are lined up in a sequence, it determines wins. These are called pay lines. An amount is then given according to the wager.
How to win at slots can sometimes be tricky. One of the tips that must be followed is to spend a substantial amount of time in order to get to know the machine and its pattern.
The question, however, remains how much time to spend at slot machines?
Keep reading to find some useful tips to win slots.
One of the mistakes that beginners make when they go online to win money is choosing the wrong slot machine. This might seem obvious but many tend to overlook it.
If you want to learn how to win on slot machines every time then you must choose the one that pays higher than other machines.
Return to the player that is RTP should be higher.
In order to find RTP, the easiest option would be searching for it online. Many websites are reviewing casino games and you can find one.
Volatility is an important factor when you have to pick a winning slot machine. This is also referred to as variance and or risk level.
It determines the level of risk that is involved while playing for real money. This also determines your winning probability.
If volatility is low then it means that you will win frequently. With high volatility, the wins are rare but they will be bigger than the low ones.
Slots that have high volatility are often exposed to risks as you are unable to determine the lucky spin to win money.
If you have not found a way how to tell if a slot machine is ready to pay then do not jump to a hasty decision. Spending all the money on gambling is not a good idea. These 10 tips can help you to avoid spending all your money gambling.
Online gambling is becoming a serious phenomenon that has made its strong presence recently. Online gambling is another way how to win at slots. There is a myth that is associated with online gambling which requires one to increase stakes to win the jackpot.
The truth of this myth can be determined here.
No matter how impressive an online casino is, they still are after your money. There are all legal and legit but you need to know how to tell if a slot machine is ready to pay.
You need to dig deeper in order to reach the winning slot. For this, you need to consider the slots that are not promoted. Check the ones that are on the third or fourth page.
In order to have the best chances to win the slots choose the smallest jackpots. The smaller is the jackpot, the higher the chances would be to win the game.
It takes so much time to create huge jackpots and as a result, you lose. This is the
Slot machines with video reels might look impressive but they pay less than the normal machines.
There is a reason why such slot machines pay less. Videos take long to display and while this is going on, the casino is not making money. This is the reason that such a slot machine is designed in a way that takes the money from players who are playing.
This is the reason that you should stay in the classic slot machine in order to get a big return.
This might not work when you are playing poker but for online gambling, you can trust other players. If the casino tries to trick you, other players can call it out. This is the reason that you should always check the reviews and ratings in order to find the truth about the game.
This would also tell you about the experience of the other players.
These are some of the tips that can help you in increasing the probability of your win. Your guide to gambling in Oz can help you in increasing your winning probability.
Manipulating slot machines in the past have questioned the probability of winning. Many players find it hard to believe if it is possible. However, with practice and familiarity, it is possible to manipulate slots.
You might be able to find how to win at slot games but at times you need to be aware of its working as well. If you are a frequent visitor to casinos then you must be familiar with the game and its rules.
There are some interesting facts about slot games that you must know.
Some of them are given below:
These are some of the interesting facts that are not widely known. People tend to believe the myths that have been created over the past years.
Each machine is different and you should be familiar with its working.
Being familiar would help you in making the pattern work. You can win on slots. You need to keep in mind the tricks and tips that have been told.
These are enough to help you in making a winning slot. So make sure you do your homework before showing up at a gambling game.
Now that you know so much about the slot machine, you should be able to pick the right one. This might be a tricky step but once you are through it you might know how to tell if a slot machine is ready to pay.
This article has made it easy for you to learn how to win on slot machines every time. Learn the tips and tricks so that you can hit the jackpot. With these aforementioned tips, you might be able to win the big hit.
Wouldn t it be nice to win BIG?
To find the latest articles and features that cover the whole gambling industry in Australia, check out our other blogs posts.
When you set for yourself an ambitious goal to win on slot machines every time, hard work and dedication are the key. You have to invest the time and patience to envision what you re looking for, as well as have a defined bankroll to invest in your tests.
First and foremost, we must point out the fact that it s impossible to win on slot machines every single time. Anyone claiming otherwise either works as a casino promoter or doesn t understand the mechanics behind slot machines. If it were possible to predict this, then everyone would win all the time, and the gambling industry wouldn t even exist, let alone earn billions of dollars every year. However, there is a ray of hope, so don t close this article yet.
The fact that there isn t some magical formula that you can use to win every single time doesn t mean that you re hopeless.
As you are probably well aware, slot machines are games with odds based on the mathematical probability. With that in mind, if you learn how these odds work, you just might be able to make a few bucks.
What we re really trying to say here is that with a decent understanding of how to recognise when a specific slot machine is going to pay off, you might increase your chances of winning. With a good strategy in play, you just might stand a chance.
We ve pored over countless slot machine tips and tricks websites to find a way to predict when a slot machine is about to pay out. After a lot of digging, we were able to compose a list showing the most effective strategies you can deploy to overcome the randomness of slot machines. So, in a nutshell, you have to:
We ll explain everything below, so stay tuned!
If there is one aspect to playing slot machines that every single players does need to be fully aware of, it is that each time you spin the slot game reels a random number generator will determine whether that spin will be a winning one or a losing one.
As such, in theory there is no way that any players can or will have the ability of knowing that they are about to experience a winning session or whether they are going to have a losing session, but there are some ways that players can increase their winning chances.
With that in mind, what this guide to playing slot machines is going to be taking a look at is the many different ways that some players will use to increase their winning chances, and believe it or not it is possible to dramatically improve your chances of winning when playing slot games.
What you should always be doing however is ensuring first and foremost that you are playing slot machines at a fully licensed casino site, for that way if you do experience a winning session then you are not going to experience any problems when cashing out and receiving your winnings, no matter how much you do go on to win.
At the risk of sounding obvious, this is an essential factor to consider when choosing a slot machine. The chances are that you probably heard about house edge, even if you haven t set your foot into a casino. But at the same time, you probably aren t quite sure what the term refers to. We ll try to clear things up a bit.
In a nutshell, the house edge is the mathematical advantage that casinos have over their patrons. This built-in advantage is expressed as the percentage of the player s bet that the casino keeps as profit. In other words, casinos always earn money over the long term, hence the saying the house always wins . In this case, the house refers to the casino, and you can see for yourself why it always wins.
However, not all is lost, so don t fall into despair yet.
Although it s statistically impossible to beat the house in the long run, it s still possible to win. That s where RTP kicks in. RTP is the polar opposite of the house edge.
Remember how the house edge is used to describe the percentage of the player s bet that the casino keeps as profit? Well, RTP is a figure in percent that represents how much a slot machine will pay back to players in the long term. In other words, if the house edge on a particular slot machine is 10%, then the game would have a theoretical RTP of 90%.
A detailed explanation on how the RTP works is shown in this video:
The average RTP for slot games is in the range of 92 96%, so every slot with an RTP of 95% or above is fantastic. Even a few percentage points can make a lot of difference over thousands of spins. That s why it s always a good idea to find out the slot s RTP before you start spinning the reels.
Finding out which RTP a specific slot machine has shouldn t be difficult. There are plenty of websites that review the latest slot games and their respective RTPs.
Volatility is another critical factor to know when it comes to choosing an online slot game. Volatility or variance measures how much and how often you can expect to win during your playing sessions.
If a slot has high volatility, that means the wins are less frequent but more significant in size. While high volatility slots can pay off substantial amounts, you might need more time and money to win those lucrative prizes. However, when the reels line up correctly, you might be looking at some life-changing jackpots that made the long dry spell worth it.
Here are some of the slots that have high volatility:
On the opposite side of the coin are the low volatility games that pay out more frequently, but the wins are smaller in size. We re not, by any means, saying that it s impossible to win big with low volatility slots. It s just when you do win, the sums are not on the same scale as the ones available with high volatility games.
It s all up to you if you are patient enough to risk your money and wait for the big bucks, then high volatility games may be a better option. On the other hand, if you don t want to take those risks and prefer playing games where you win something every couple of spins, then go for the low volatility slots.
To sum up, there isn t such thing as bad or good volatility it s just a question of the player s preferences and his or her gambling style.
One way to increase your chances of winning is by taking advantage of the casino promotions. Virtually every casino operator offers bonuses to maintain the existing customer base and lure new customers in. These bonuses come in many forms free money, free spins, cashback, and so on. Even that one free spin can be the boost you were looking for.
Needless to say, these bonuses will eventually expire. But while they last, make sure to make the most out of them. With that in mind, there s no reason why you shouldn t dig around and take advantage of different promotions. Don t stop at the welcome bonuses every experienced player continuously hunts new freebies.
You should also look for no deposit bonuses. These bonuses give you the chance to try out a specific slot game without having to deposit your own cash. They are hard to come by but well worth the search.
All the top gaming establishments offer multiple bonuses to their players, so you ll be spoilt with choices. If you are a high roller, you should check out the site s VIP packages. Often, the casino rewards its most loyal players with exclusive offers.
The one strategy that may players will adopt when playing slot machines online or via their mobile devices to have a somewhat better chance of winning, is by always making use of casino bonuses when they sit down to play.
The range of types of bonuses that players will always be eager to make use of will always be the bonuses on which there is the very fairest set of terms and conditions, that will not restrict their game play or the amount of cash that they could end up winning and cashing out at any time.
Free no deposit bonuses are always going to be the most sought-after bonuses by slot players who will trawl the web to hunt down those bonuses and claim as many of them that they can at different new casino sites that they come across.
The main advantage of course about using a no deposit and free no risk casino bonus is that players are never going to be putting any of their own funds at risk when using them, and with a little bit of luck in playing could wins some rather large amounts of cash at any time too.
Some slots have progressive jackpots that increase incrementally as players play the game. In other words, the more money is wagered on these slots, the higher the pot becomes. Most players get hooked on progressive slots due to the potentially lucrative returns. However, the considerable disadvantage of the progressive slots is that, in most cases, they are all linked together. And because a lot of people will be chasing that huge jackpot amount, your odds of winning on these games are lower.
If you want to find more about progressives, check out this link:
That also goes for the odds of winning smaller amounts on these games. That s why it might be more profitable to stick to games with a fixed maximum payout, and avoid progressive games with mind-boggling jackpots, as crazy as that might seem.
It s unrealistic to expect that a slot machine will award you with huge wins if all you wagered was $0.2. Even if a jackpot hits you, you might not be able to cash it out because your wager amount was too low. Your bet may determine your winning odds at slots.
Slots payouts are proportional to what you wager in the game. Although we strongly advise against spending vast amounts of money on gambling, you shouldn t expect huge wins if you don t make higher bets.
While betting more can be risky, it also helps you to win more. The higher the risk, the greater the reward. After all, gambling is all about the risks. If you decide you want to play a bit riskier, don t blame the outcomes later.
Progressive jackpots are one type of jackpot slot players can spend hours, days, weeks and even months trying to win, but sadly they are the type of jackpots on offer on some slot machines that rarely get won.
In fact, I have seen some slots offering a progressive jackpot that haven t been won in years, and as such players do need to be aware of the very real risks to their bankroll if they choose to get stuck into playing such slot machines.
However, to increase your chances of winning one of those illusive jackpots, you are going to have to track down and play some of the slots that guarantee their respective jackpots are going to be won when they reach a certain value.
The way to play such slot however, is to only ever set about playing them when they are very close to their guaranteed jackpots amounts, for those jackpots are going to be won very soon, and you never know you could be the luck winner of one of them when you to choose to play that way.
Fruit machines are designed in a very different ways to slot machines in general, for they have been designed to go through cycles which could be any number of base game spins, but at the end of the cycle of spins they are legally required to have paid out to players their pre-set pay-out percentage by way of stakes compared to winning pay-outs.
That does of course mean that over the years savvy slot players and very experienced ones have developed many ways of winning and winning big on any type of fruit machine, by playing them in a certain way.
One way is to simply sit in a bar or cafe for example and watch other players playing a fruit machine, and when enough cash has been lost on a fruit machine they will then start to play it but in such a way that they can force its jackpot or a series of high valued winning pay-outs.
The way the often do just that is each time they spin in a winning combination they will take the gamble option and keep on gambling until they either lose or win the jackpot, when the RTP of a fruit machine gets so low when it is nearing the end of its play cycle a fruit machine will do whatever it needs to do to increase that RTP, and the easiest way is for it to award a jackpot or several of them on the trot.
A fixed odds slot machine will give you a rather range playing format, and one in which you are required to try and guess just which winning combination will spin in, as there are lot of different ones that are guaranteed to spin in on each spin you play off.
Obviously, the odds of winning one of the higher valued winning pay-outs is much lower than the spinning in one of the must smaller winning pay-outs, so do keep that in mind if you choose to play these rather fun to play slots.
You can t really beat the house; it s statistically impossible. To increase your odds of winning, chose the slots that have a high RTP, the volatility of your preference, and come with a decent bonus. It might not be a foolproof way to win money on slots, but it can most certainly help you make more profit.
So, do you think it s possible to always win at slots? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comment section below.
Most research on compulsive gambling focuses on the psychological, biological, or even moral profiles of gambling addicts but the real problem may be the slot machines. MIT anthropologist Natasha Dow Schull recently won the American Ethnological Society s 2013 First Book Prize for her new work, Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas, which explores the relationship between gamblers and the technologically sophisticated machines that enable and encourage them to bet beyond their means. Schull, who spent fifteen years conducting ethnographic research in casinos, gambling industry conventions, and Gamblers Anonymous meetings in Las Vegas, explained to me over the phone, Addiction is a relationship between a person and an activity, and I see my book as compensating for the lack of research into the object side of the relationship. With alcohol research, for instance, there has been a focus not only on the alcoholic but on the alcohol itself. With gambling, the focus is most often on the person. It s essential to broaden that.
Alice Robb: Why should a cultural anthropologist study gambling?
Natasha Dow Schull: Games are a great window into culture. They indicate what the populace is anxious about or is seeking out. The fact that people are being drawn to individual machine consoles rather than high-volatility, intense social games tells us a lot about the risk and volatility that people feel in the world, in their lives think of the financial crisis, the culture of fear around terrorism, the environment, global warning. It makes sense that people would seek out games that allow them a sense of control and predictability.
You don t think about gambling as that kind of a game. You would think it s about thrill and risk, but actually slot machines provide people with a sense of safety and certainty.
In 1967, the anthropologist Erving Goffman described gambling as the occasion for character contests in which participants could demonstrate their courage, integrity and composure under pressure. Today, our anxieties are very different, and with slot machines we re seeking a sense of safety and routine the opposite of what Goffman describes.
AR: How does gambling promote a sense of security? Isn t gambling about risk?
NDS: When gamblers play, they re going into a zone that feels comfortable and safe. You re not playing to win, you re playing to stay in the zone a zone where all of your daily worries, your bodily pains, your anxieties about money and time and relationships, fall away.
One addict I interviewed described being in the zone :
It s like being in the eye of a storm Your vision is clear on the machine in front of you but the whole world is spinning around you, and you can t really hear anything. You aren t really there you re with the machine and that s all you re with.
New kinds of machines are key. With multi-line slot machines, say you put in a hundred coins. If you re betting on 100 lines of play, you ll always win something back. If you put in 40 coins and get 30 back, that s a net loss, a false win , but the machine responds as if you ve won: The lights go off, you get the same audiovisual feedback. Almost every hand, you get the same result there are no dry spells.
AR: You say that people want to get away from their fears about money and people. So why escape by spending money in a casino that s full of people?
NDS: In order to get away from the burdens and anxieties associated with monetary value and interactions with other people, you have to work within those mediums and convert them into something else. To get away from money, you have to play with it; gamblers spoke about how money became currency for staying in the zone.
And even though there are people around, it s still very anonymous. You set yourself up alone in a machine-like pod and everything blurs away the other people are just a kind of necessary background. People seem not to be able to do that on the couch alone. A lot of the gamblers I talked to would play on hand-held machines at home in between their sessions at the casinos, but they couldn t achieve that zone as readily.
AR: Why are slot machines so much more addictive than more traditional forms of gambling?
NDS: Even though slot machines are considered to be a light form of gambling due to their relatively low stakes, ease of play and historical popularity with women, they are actually the most potent. There are three reasons why: Playing on slot machine is solitary, rapid, and continuous. You don t have interruptions like you would in a live poker game, waiting for cards to be dealt or waiting for the other players. You can go directly from one hand to the next there s no clear stopping point built into the game. You don t even have to stop to put bills in the machine; the machines take credit or barcoded tickets.
AR: What do new gambling machines say about our relationship with technology?
NDS: The cultural history of gambling in this country follows alongside technological advances not only because technology make these new kinds of machines possible, but because we ve become comfortable interacting with and even trusting computers and machines.
You can see that in the revenue: 80 percent of revenue in Las Vegas comes from individual encounters with slot machines rather than social forms of play around a table. Whereas in a place like Macao which has far greater revenue from gambling than Las Vegas it's the exact opposite: 80 percent is coming from table games, because people have a distrust of computers and machines.
AR: How could your work affect the public conversation on gambling?
NDS: States around the country are considering gambling as way to increase revenue in the recession and it s the revenue from machines that they re anticipating. I think this is a very dubious proposition since, as I show, these devices are so clearly problematic. Machines are designed to draw people in and sometimes do so in deceptive ways; their design affects all players, not just a small group of addicts. Legislators need to understand how these machines work.
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