First of all you should know that slot machines, as with many casino games, are a type of game for which there is no “winning strategy” - technically speaking they are a negative equity game, or –EV game for short. Unlike a game such as poker (against real opponents, not vs. the house) where proper application of skill can make a game profitable in the long-term, most casino games are designed to make this impossible.
The Wild Life bursts onto your screen in retro colour when you play with Spielo. This dated 5-reel real cash slot may not have the looks of a shiny new toy, but it has the class of a casino classic. Not to mention it roars with the heart of a lion, and pounds its hooves with the might of ten elephants.
Why Can’t I make a Consistent Return at Slots?
Let’s look at why, in the case of slots, there’s no way to make money long-term. For simplicity let’s imagine a game where there is only one pay-out, the “jackpot”, paid out for matching five symbols, of course the same logic will apply to complex modern machines as well. In this hypothetical machine there are five symbols available on each line and you need to match five of the same to win the jackpot on a $1 machine.
The lines are controlled by random number generators, and over time the five different symbols will come up equally often on each line. So the chance of hitting, say a cherry on one line is 1/5. The chance of hitting a cherry on the second line is also 1/5. Therefore the chance of hitting five cherries in a row is 1/5 x 1/5 x 1/5 x 1/5 x 1/5, or 1/3125, or 0.032%. Your odds of winning are better than this, as you can hit five bells, five whistles or five of any other set of symbols, so on this machine your odds of any set of five are actually 5 x 0.032%, or 0.16%. So once in every 625 spins of this hypothetical machine, you’ll hit your set of five identical symbols for the jackpot.
Now if the jackpot payout was $625, the machine would be a break-even proposition, as on average you’d pay $1 624 times without winning anything, and then you’d hit once in every 625 spins for the $625 prize, breaking even overall. Of course pay-outs are set by the casinos at a slightly lower figure, usually between 90% and 98% of this frequency, so for example if this imaginary machine was set for 95% pay-outs, the jackpot would actually be $594.
Of course you can get lucky and hit jackpot on your second spin, walk away and keep the money, technically making a profit. But long-term there’s no way to beat the law of averages, and the house edge will be sustained over any short-term variance in results. Rarely, certain machines are reported as paying out just above 100% over a given month, but this is again just the variance inherent in randomness, and will not be sustained over larger samples.
There’s a very nice little piece of software providing virtual testing of this principle, to be found here at Vegas Click. It simulates the return over one wager, over ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand and a hundred thousand wagers, of a bet subject to a house edge, and shows the returns expected in each simulation. Try it out for yourself - it’s cheaper than going to Vegas!
A slot machine house edge is known by casino managers as the “hold”, and hold percentages vary a great deal, and do tend to be smaller at more expensive slots, frequently found to be around 1- 3% at the five dollar slots. Of course, percentage of investment lost is not a real money figure, and you’ll still tend to lose more money in real terms at the more expensive machines, since you’re putting far more money through the machine each hour.
Why Play if There’s a House Edge?
Certainly you shouldn’t be playing in order to try to make sustainable returns. Of course many people enjoy the thrill of a gamble, even if they know or merely suspect that it’s a negative equity investment of their money. Of course, there’s always the chance you may get lucky, even astoundingly so, as some winners of multi-million dollar slots jackpots can certainly attest to. There’s also the enjoyment factor, and playing slots can be a cheap form of entertainment if you stick to a budget and if you actually do genuinely enjoy it!
What is the Exact Edge on a Particular Machine?
There’s an easy answer to this one – you frequently can’t find out. Certainly it’s against a casino’s interests to publish this information on the front of a machine, and I’m sure many gambling-happy players don’t even realise there is a real house edge, nor know the difference between a game of skill and one of pure luck. Monthly and annual reports are regularly published of the actual pay-outs for given machines, so do your research and you could get a good idea.
Certain states in the US require the pay-outs to be in a certain range (typically above 80%), and this can be discovered with a bit of trawling through your state’s gambling laws. For example in Nevada, the gaming board states that the machines must have a RTP of 73% while in Mississippi, it is 80%.
A good rule of thumb is that higher cost games tend to have a smaller house hold percentage, but it’s likely to always be at least 1-3 %.
You might also want to consider your likely loss over an hour of play at different denominations.
Busting Slot Machine Myths
As with many a casino game, myths and falsehoods abound, and there are many people who think they have a stone cold strategy for beating slots and other casino games. These people are usually either lying, or deluded. If they’re trying to sell you a system, it’s most likely the former. Unless you have some kind of technology which can control or damage a slot machine directly, you can’t beat the machine long-term.
Of course anything along those lines would be straight up cheating. There’s no wagering system which will allow you to beat the house edge in slots, although there are systems which will allow you to lose the minimum – with slots this essentially comes down to choosing machines found to have a smaller hold percentage, and playing maximum wagers at all times, to enable you to at least hit the full jackpot when your luck does come around.
Many people believe that machines run on hot and cold cycles. This is a myth, random number generators are programmed to function on individual spins, and there is no “machine memory” of previous spins, each one being an isolated event. The same principle applies to tossing a coin. Throwing ten heads in a row doesn’t increase the chance of hitting tails the next time. Each throw is an individual probabilistic event, 50/50 with a true coin.
One myth with a modicum of truth to it is that the casino can alter pay-outs and other factors remotely. While untrue in the vast majority of cases, server controlled machines are gaining in popularity amongst casinos, although many establishments have rules about how and when settings can be changed, usually this only occurs between bouts of play, and a message should generally appear on the screen during the process, stating that remote control is in progress. For a non-server controlled machine to be altered in any way would involve physically opening the machine up and amending the EPROM chip within.
Further Advice for Playing Slots
Some games do feature a skill bonus round or skill component which can improve your odds. Of course these are also set up so as not to obliterate the house edge, so they aren’t going to be sufficient to give you a real long-term return, but the advice on how to play these rounds offered by the machines should usually be adhered to for maximum benefit.
Finally if you’re playing for fun (really the only reason to play slots), play slowly. You’ll save money.
How to win at slot machines? Is there a way to do that or it’s just pure luck? The answer is: it’s complicated. Slot machines are by their nature a game of luck and despite what you may read or heard, there is NO way to insure a win on slot machine.And yet, by using the information you can gather online you can significantly increase your winning odds.
By the way, by choosing to play slots online you are already half way there. Online slot machines payout rates are in general much higher than in land slots, therefore by playing real money slots online, you already have higher chances to walk way with some cash than in any brick and mortar casino.
Before we go deeper, here is a quick summary so you could skip to the part that interests you more:
- Picking the loosest slot machines.
- Using No Deposit bonus codes.
- Finding best Cashable casino bonuses with low wagering requiremnts.
- Understanding how online slots work.
Related Articles
Slot Machine Tips
1. Pick the Loosest Slots
Unlike in land casinos, where there is no official information on the return of the specific game, many online slots providers post exact RTP of each slot. It’s surprising how many players ignore this valuable information. You would never buy a jacket or laptop without checking it’s price, and you shouldn’t do that here as well.
It’s impossible to list the payout of all online slots, but we prepared an updated rating of Loosest Slot Machines available online. Below, you can also find links to loosest slots by software. In the end of the day, playing slot machines with 98% payout vs. 88% will be worth a lot of money.
2. Cashable Bonuses
Not all bonuses are actually beneficial. In fact, many bonuses will only bound you to various terms and lower your odds. However, due to fierce competition, there are some great slots bonuses available online, if you know how to pick them up.
In fact, some of the best online casinos offer welcome bonuses that will bring your expected RTP above 100%. Meaning, you will have have and edge over the house. How is that possible? Simple. Some solid and reputable online casinos are sure that due to their superb service and wide game selection, you will stick around and become a regular player. Therefore, they don’t mind loosing on your first deposits and offer great bonuses. Here you can find a list of Best Cashable Bonuses with lowest wagering requirements.
3. Online Slot Machines are Smarter
You probably heard the word RNG. If not, RNG or random number generator is the algorithm behind all slot machines; program that every time you hit “Spin” chooses which symbols to show. There are many myths surrounding it and many write that it can be predicted in certain way- well, that’s not true. It cannot. Still, there are certain features in online slots that can generate you an advantage.
Hitting “Spin” on land slots is like throwing a coin- it doesn’t matter what happened in 100 previous times, each time the chances are similar. Online slot machines are “smarter”. They do remember what happened before- that way the casino can shorten the periods of loosing and winning streaks and keep the payout rate closer to what its programmed, which is something they want (prevents one player from winning again and again and on the other hand, shortens the losing streaks and gives each player to win from time to time so he will keep playing).
Some might say here: “That doesn’t make sense. That way a player can sit each time till the slot machine pays and cash out and the casino will go bankrupt.” That’s not true of course. First, the casino set’s the payout below 100%, therefore in the long run, the house will keep a certain percentage of the total bets. Second, online casinos and slot machines are different. In land based casinos, only one player can play the specific slot at that time, but online, there can be dozen and even hundreds of players playing the same slot machine at the same time and although the slot would pay up, none of the players can know to whom.
So how we can still use it in our advantage and increase our chances?
How To Win At Wildlife Slots
Rule #1: Know when to stop. To be more precise: know when to leave the slot machine and move on to the next. If you hit the jackpot or had a nice streak (our thumb rule is that you reached 10 times your original amount)-that’s the time to move on. Personally, after getting a nice win, I make few additional spins and then move on. Eventually the slot needs to level up and after going *10 times up, i don’t want to be there to see that happens.
Wildlife Slot Online
The last tip, at least in this article is not easy to follow and we suggest it only for those with extreme patience and high bankroll (1000$/£/€).
How To Win At The Wildlife Slot Machine
Rule #2: Don’t switch slots every few spins. The idea behind this rule is similar to the previous one, but this part is harder. If you are playing one slot for some time, eventually it has to pay- so it’s better to stick to one slot machine till it pays. The problem here, as we stated before, is that you are probably not the only one that is playing this specific slot machine. That’s why you should go for slots that are less popular. How to find them- just avoid the ones that are most visible, not the ones at the top of the table.
I am not a very patient man and I rarely use this strategy. The only times i do use it is when I test a new online casino. Since the casino is new, I know that there are almost no players that visit it, combined with some not very popular slot, the chances are high that I am the only one that is sitting on this particular slot. With new casinos, 7 out of 10 times that I tried this method- it worked. And don’t forget, the payout rate of most online casinos is around 96-98%, so you don’t need much. You just need a little bit of patience to turn the odds in your favor.
Last and not least: Slots are not about making money, but fun and excitement.
Chck our best casino bonuses and 5 best payout casinos pages that will help you get started. Enjoy and Have fun!