Remember the movie National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation, when gambling fever consumes Chevy Chase’s character, Clark W. Griswold? He goes on a losing streak to beat all losing streaks while his son, Rusty, wins four cars by playing the slot machines. Maybe Clark would have done better if he had read Probability For Dummies! In this article, you discover the basic ideas behind slot machines and how they work, so that you can get past the myths and develop a strategy based on sound probability.

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. If it's possible to calculate the odds of winning the lottery, I guess the same can be done for winning a major jackpot at a slot. In other words, if we can gather data on the number of slot players in a given year in a city or casino and determine the number of major winners, then we can correlate that to a number, like 1 in 12,000,000.

Understanding average payout

When casinos advertise that their slot machines pay out an average of 90 percent, the fine print they don’t want you to read says that you lose 10 cents from each dollar you put into the machines in the long term. (In probability terms, this advertisement means that your expected winnings are minus 10 cents on every dollar you spend every time the money goes through the machines.)

Suppose you start with $100 and bet a dollar at a time, for example. After inserting all $100 into the slot, 100 pulls later you’ll end up on average with $90, because you lose 10 percent of your money. If you run the $90 back through the machine, you’ll end up with 90 percent of it back, which is 0.90 x 90 = $81. If you run that amount through in 81 pulls, you’ll have $72.90 afterward (0.90 x 81 = 72.90). If you keep going for 44 rounds, on average, the money will be gone, unless you have the luck of Rusty Griswold!

How many pulls on the machine does your $100 give you at this rate? Each time you have less money to run through the machine, so you have fewer pulls left. If you insert $1 at a time, you can expect 972 total pulls in the long term with these average payouts (that’s the total pulls in 44 rounds). But keep in mind that casinos are designing slot machines to go faster and faster between spins. Some are even doing away with the handles and tokens by using digital readouts on gaming cards that you put into the machines. The faster machines can play up to 25 spins per hour, and 972 spins divided by 25 spins per minute is 38.88 minutes. You don’t have a very long time to enjoy your $100 before it’s gone!

Odds Of Winning A Jackpot On A Slot Machine

The worst part? Casinos often advertise that their “average payouts” are even as high as 95 percent. But beware: That number applies only to certain machines, and the casinos don’t rush to tell you which ones. You really need to read or ask about the fine print before playing. You can also try to check the information on the machine to see if it lists its payouts. (Don’t expect this information to be front and center.)

The odds of winning any casino jackpot vary from one game to another, on different coin values for the different bets you place, and in some cases on a slot machine game with the same denomination but playing on different machines. In the typical slot machines the top jackpot for every reel would correspond to just one virtual stop. What this means is that the chance of the player hitting the jackpot in one reel is 1 to 64. If all the reels in the machine are set up that way, then the chance of hitting the jackpot symbol in all the 3 reels is 262,144. If the slot machine gives you more than two times the payout when you put in two times the number of coins, for example, you should max it out instead of playing single coins because you increase your chances of winning a bigger pot, and the expected value is higher.

Odds Of Winning Jackpot On A Slot Machine

Implementing a simple strategy for slots

Advice varies regarding whether you should play nickel, quarter, or dollar slot machines and whether you should max out the number of coins you bet or not (you usually get to choose between one and five coins to bet on a standard slot machine). In this section, you’ll find a few tips for getting the most bang for your buck (or nickel) when playing slot machines.

Basically, when it comes to slot machines, strategy boils down to this: Know the rules, your probability of winning, and the expected payouts; dispel any myths; and quit while you’re ahead. If you win $100, cash out $50 and play with the rest, for example. After you lose a certain amount (determined by you in advance), don’t hesitate to quit. Go to the all-you-can-eat buffet and try your luck with the casino food; odds are it’s pretty good!

Choosing among nickel, quarter, and dollar machines

The machines that have the higher denominations usually give the best payouts. So, between the nickel and quarter slots, for example, the quarter slots generally give better payouts. However, you run the risk of getting in way over your head in a hurry, so don’t bet more than you can afford to lose. The bottom line: Always choose a level that you have fun playing at and that allows you to play for your full set time limit.

Deciding how many coins to play at a time

When deciding on the number of coins you should play per spin, keep in mind that more is sometimes better. If the slot machine gives you more than two times the payout when you put in two times the number of coins, for example, you should max it out instead of playing single coins because you increase your chances of winning a bigger pot, and the expected value is higher. If the machine just gives you k times the payout for k coins, it doesn’t matter if you use the maximum number of coins. You may as well play one at a time until you can make some money and leave so your money lasts a little longer.

For example, say a quarter machine pays 10 credits for the outcome 777 when you play only a single quarter, but if you play two quarters, it gives you 25 credits for the same outcome. And if you play the maximum number of quarters (say, four), a 777 results in 1,000 credits. You can see that playing four quarters at a time gives you a better chance of winning a bigger pot in the long run (if you win, that is) compared to playing a single quarter at a time for four consecutive tries.

The latest slot machine sweeping the nation is the so-called “penny slot machine.” Although it professes to require only a penny for a spin, you get this rate only if you want to bet one penny at a time. The machines entice you to bet way more than one penny at a time; in fact, on some machines, you can bet more than 1,000 coins (called lines) on each spin — $10 a shot here, folks. Because these machines take any denomination of paper bill, as well as credit cards, your money can go faster on penny machines than on dollar machines because you can quickly lose track of your spendings. Pinching pennies may not be worth it after all!

As far as the casino industry is concerned, slot machine games are the most played games, yet, they are the least understood.

In the UK, slot machine games, also known as the fruit machine games, are some of the most sought after games at the land based casinos, and in the US, where they were first played in the 1890’s, they continue enjoying prominence and popularity among the players!

Australia, where they are referred to as Pokies, has more slots per capita than the US though, and while not at the same level as Australia, slot machine games continue to receive game time across different European countries and different gambling hotspots in Macau.

Online, hundreds of millions of bettors continue playing video slot machine games, as casual players through different social media application or for real cash at the different online casinos.

But even to those who have devoted their free time playing slots; the different slot terms, how they work, and the odds of winning the jackpots remain in the dark!

Is it possible to win playing slots jackpot?

Probability Of Winning Slot Machine Jackpot

The first and popular question that most of bettors ask is ‘Can I win the jackpot games?’ Right after this, they’ll ask ‘Is there a strategy or secret to winning big?’

It’s natural enough for any player to want to win! What’s the point of playing anyway? Is it not to experience the thrill and big wins that come with the video slot games?

Can I win while playing the jackpot slot games?

Sometimes, yes! All the payoffs as indicated on the video slot game actually represent your chance of winning. Any slots player who very often plays the game will increase his/her chances of winning and a reason to celebrate. But we are yet to see someone, besides the woman who won €1.75 million who while playing the same video slot game in a month, defied the odds of 625million:1 and won the same game twice in a row!

Odds Of Winning Jackpot On Slot Machine

Is there a strategy or a secret to winning big?

Let nobody lie to you that they used a well worked out formula to win the video slot games! With rare cases, 99% of the slot machine games purely rely on chance. The results are determined by the Random Number Generator, and there’s nothing the casino or bettor can do to influence how the numbers are generated.

To this popular question, there isn’t any magical strategy or formula to increase your chances of winning! Only cross your fingers and pray lady luck is on your side!

What are the odds of winning a casino jackpot?

The odds of winning any casino jackpot vary from one game to another, on different coin values for the different bets you place, and in some cases on a slot machine game with the same denomination but playing on different machines. Casinos don’t usually advertise the odds of the different games and neither do they post them on the different machines.

Therefore, the best that we could do to estimate the odds of winning the different jackpot is to compare different games, offered at different casinos. For the estimate, we focused our attention on the United Kingdom market, where the casino average payouts are made public by the UK Gambling Commission for bettors to see.

The percentages are different from one casino to another but the overall look of the paybacks look like this: Slot machines normally pay higher percentages if you place bigger bets. Below are some average house edges and returns, based on the information that we gathered from the UK Gambling Commission.

Take note that the percentage of bets returned to the bettor as winnings increase as the size of the bet gets bigger. Gamblers who choose to go for the more expensive jackpot games get a larger portion of their wager back, and also stand a better chance of winning.

Does this mean that players should focus on placing bigger bets? No! By playing the more expensive game and get a larger portion of the bets you place back, but at the end of it, lose more money as you’ll be taking a bigger risk. The best thing to do is to let your bankroll guide you, and also avoid betting more money than you can afford.

Modern Video Slot Odds

Most of the modernised slot machines don’t have 10 numbers on each reel and most of the slot games, both at the online and land based casinos, have at least five reels as opposed to the traditional three reels. This means that the developers and programmers are always dealing with more complex machines, featuring hundreds if not thousands of stops, symbols or random numbers on each reel.

Below are some of the factors that are always considered when modern video slot odds are determined:

• When the slot machines are on video, the programmer can choose to make the reels as long as he/she needs them to be. If for example, to achieve the right odds the programmer requires a slot reel to feature a sequence of 1000 symbols, then he/she will have to program a 1,000 symbol reel.
• However, in the land-based casinos, it difficult for the programmer to fit the 1000 symbols in the mechanical slot machines. Therefore to achieve this, the programmers use what is referred to as the ‘Virtual Reel’. Thanks to this feature, the slot machines at the brick and mortar casinos with the small reels can act as if they have more symbols. For example, the programmer could tell the machine ‘Any time the RNG software stops on number 7, stop on the jackpot symbol. Any time it stops on numbers 5, 3, 1 or 9, stop on the first bar.’ By programming the machine this way, the highly sought symbol that triggers the jackpot can only appear once after several hundred or thousands spins. This plays a huge role in determining the odds of the jackpot. A good example was in 2003 when the world record jackpot of Megabucks machine paid out a mind-blowing $39 million. According to IGT, the company behind this game, the odds of winning the jackpot were approximately 1 in 50 million.

The Free Spins & Bonus Factor

Almost all the modern video slot games, including jackpots, have bonus events which come in different forms including the spinning of a bonus wheel as with Mega Millions; Pick’em bonuses as seen in Jackpot Party and you can check out free spins on our favourite sites at a number of highly recommended online casino operators.

During the bonus round, you have the chance of accumulating credits without spending any extra cash thanks to the in-game free spins bonus round. This has to account for while setting the game’s odds and paybacks during the regular reel spins. But how do the free spins contribute to the game’s overall jackpot?

Odds Of Winning Major Jackpot On Slot Machine

One of my friend, who happens to be a programmer told me that one of the games he has developed has a 90% RTP; 60% of this comes from the general reel spins, 30% comes from the different in-game bonuses, including the free spins and the remaining 10% comes from the house.

So how do you increase your odds of winning the casino jackpot?

Below are rules of thumb that every bettor should follow to increase their chance of winning while playing video slot games.

• Always choose games that you understand better
• Make the most of the casino bonuses and offers to boost your bankroll. Most sites powered by NetEnt have free spins offers and deposit offers
• To ensure that your bankroll goes further, reduce the number of coins that you bet on each line and increase the number of paylines. This increase your chances of winning the bet