• At first glance it seems online slot machines are a 100% game of chance. And they really are, at least in the terms of a single game round. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t influence your chances by using the right betting strategy and choosing the right game to play.
• Slot Machine Myths; Slot Machine B.S. Wrong info that's published elsewhere. Tips for increasing your chances of winning, and saving money. Odds of hitting the jackpot, progressive jackpots, and other jackpot topics. Skill-Based Slots. The scoop on the new games in which your results aren't entirely determined by chance.

Manage your bankroll. To built up a gaming strategy, the slot player must first of all decide on the.

I should start by distinguishing between a betting system and an advantage gambling technique.

A betting system is a means of raising and/or lowering your bets based on your previous results. Sometimes it might also involve quitting at a certain arbitrary point in your session.

An advantage gambling technique is a means of changing the odds of a gambling game so that they’re in your favor. This might involve raising the size of your bets, but not because of how muchyou’ve won or lost previously.

An example of a betting system is the Martingale System. It has no real application to slot machines, but it demonstrates the thinking behind betting systems well.

With the Martingale System, you double the size of your previous bet after every loss. You continue to do this until you win. This recoups the losses from your previous bets and puts you one unitahead.

Here’s how that might work in roulette:

You bet $5 on black and lose. You then bet $10 on black and lose again. For your third bet, you bet $20 and win. You’ve won back the $15 you’d lost on the first couple of bets, and you have a $5profit to show for your trouble.

The reason the Martingale System doesn’t work is because the probabilities don’t change based on what happened on previous spins of the roulette wheel. In the long run, your losses will stilloutweigh your wins.

Also, you’ll hit the betting max at the table faster than you think. Or you’ll run out of money to place on the next bet.

Here’s an example progression of the Martingale System:

• $5
• $10
• $20
• $40
• $80
• $160
• $320
• $640

Notice that it only takes 7 losses in a row before you’re betting a whopping $640 on a single spin of the wheel. Many roulette tables have a maximum bet of $500, which breaks the system.

But even if you’re playing at a table where the betting limit is $1,000 per spin, you’ll hit the betting limit after 8 losses.

An example of an advantage gambling strategy, on the other hand, is card counting in blackjack. Unlike a roulette wheel, a deck of cards has a memory of sorts. Once a card has been dealt, it’sgone from the deck until the dealer reshuffles.

Since a blackjack (a 2-card hand totaling 21) pays off at 3 to 2, you can get an edge over the casino by raising the size of your bets when a blackjack is more likely.

If you’re playing blackjack with a deck which has a relatively high percentage of aces and 10s left in it, you can raise your bets and get an edge because of that increased payout.

It’s a subtle distinction, but it’s an important one. Card counters aren’t raising their bets based on their previous losses. They’re raising them based on the actual probabilities changing.

In the long run, an advantage gambling strategy can make you money.

A betting system cannot make you money in the long run.

Everyone wants to win money when they’re playing slotmachines. After all, that’s the entire point, right?

But when you’re playing a game where the results aredetermined entirely at random, can you find strategies that work?

I was surprised to learn that some slot machine strategiesreally DO work, but others don’t.

Even the slots strategies that do work aren’t a foolproofway to win money. In fact, if you play slot machines long enough, you’re guaranteedto lose money. That’s just how the math behind the game works.

You’ll find more information about how to win at slotmachines that’s nonsense. I’ll dispel those myths first, and I’ll follow thatup with 7 slot machine strategies that really do work.

7 Slot Machine Strategies that Don’t Work

These are some of the worst slot machine strategies thatI’ve seen suggested. These don’t work, even though they can sometimes be anentertaining way to play.

1- Trying to Find the Loose Slots (at land based casinos)

Some slot machine games have higher payback percentages than others. That’s not the only thing that determines winnings and winners at these games, though. Volatility and hit ratios also matter.

Some slotmachine games have higher payback percentages than others. That’snot the only thing that determines winnings and winners at these games, though.Volatility and hit ratios also matter.

It’s possible to have a slot machinewith a higher hit ratio and a lower payback percentage than the one next to it.

It’s also impossible to tell theloose slots from the tight slots. The so-called clues that the so-calledexperts advise you to look for are all bogus. At land based casinos at least.

This includes playing the machinesat the ends of the rows. Someone claimed in a book a long time ago that this iswhere the casino managers put the loose machines to attract customers.

Any modern casino manager will tellyou that this is no longer the case and probably never was.

In online casinos the situation isdifferent as due to some regulations many online slots providers are forced topublish official RTP data. That’s one of the biggest advantages of playing real money slots onlinevs brick and mortar casinos and it’s insane not to use it. Just check our list ofLoosest online slots to find out more.

2- Always Bet Max Coin

In some cases, the maximum jackpot can only be won if youplay for the maximum number of coins. This isn’t always the case, even thoughsome slot machine “guru’s” advise you to always bet max coins.

On games where the jackpot doesn’t change based on thenumber of coins you bet, betting max just means you’ll lose money faster.

One exception to this is video poker. On all video pokergames, if you bet fewer than 5 coins, the top payout is reduced significantly.

3- Play Higher Denomination Games

Yes, in general, higher denomination games have a higherpayback percentage. This doesn’t mean your probability of winning is better.

Usually, it just means you’ll lose more money faster.

Here’s an example:

You have a dollar slot machine with a 96% paybackpercentage. To calculate your expected loss per hour, you multiply the dollartimes the number of spins per hour by the house edge (4%, which is 100 minus96%).

An average slot machine player will make 600 spins per hourat $1 per spin, or $600 per hour. 4% of that is $24 per hour in average losses.

Switch to a quarter machine with a payback percentage of92%, which is a significant difference in payback.

Now you’re looking at 600 spins at a quarter per spin, or$150 per hour in action. You’ll lose an average of 8% of that over time, whichis $12 per hour.

Even though the payback percentage on the higherdenomination machine is much higher, you’ll still lose more per hour playingthe higher denomination game.

4- Setting a Win Goal and a Loss Limit

Setting a win goal and a loss limit isn’t a bad idea, but itdoesn’t improve your probability of walking away a winner. I first read aboutthis strategy in a book called John Patrick’s Slots.

The idea is that you start with a session bankroll — $100,for example. You set a goal to win a percentage of that bankroll. 20% might bean appropriate goal, so your win goal might be $20.

You might also set a loss limit of 20%, which is also $20.

You’d sit down at the slot machine game and play until youwere down to $80 or up to $120 then quit.

You could move on to another machine or just call it anight.

The problem is that having these arbitrary starting andstopping points does nothing to change your odds of winning and/or losing.

You should think of your time on slot machines as being justa slice of one much longer session that lasts over your entire career ofplaying on these games.

5- The Zig Zag Method

The zig zag method involves finding slot machine games wherethe symbols are stopped where a winning combination is ALMOST lined up, but notquite. Since you can view the symbols on the reels above and below the mainpayline across the center of the machine, it’s easy to see how a near misswould form a kind of zig zag pattern on the machine.

This was never indicative that a game was about to pay out,even when the machines were mechanical in nature.

Now that they’re all powered by computer programs calledrandom number generators, this is even truer.

6- Cheating at Slot Machines

Some people think that cheating at slot machines is aneffective strategy for winning.

It’s not.

It’s an effective strategy for going to prison, though.Cheating at gambling is a felony in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Sure, you can read entertaining stories about clever slotscheaters, but most of them end with the main character serving time.

That’s not winning.

7- Keeping Your Slots Club Card Out of the Machine

The players’ club at the casino tracks your play with a cardthat you insert in the machine before starting to play. This has nothing to dowith whether the game pays out or not.

ALL slot machine games are programmed to have an edge overthe player.

That edge is ALWAYS much higher than the 0.3% or whateverthat the casino is paying back in rebates and comps.

The casino wants to incentivize you to play more. That’s whythey offer these freebies.

They have nothing to do with whether you win or lose,because in the long run, you’re guaranteed to lose anyway.

Anyway, enough about slot machine strategies that don’t work– let’s talk about some slot machine strategies that DO work.

7 Slot Machine Strategies that Do Work

The painful truth is that slot machines are mathematicallydesigned in such a way that a player can’t beat them. The math behind the gamesjust works that way.

Think about it this way. Suppose a slot machine has 1000possible outcomes on a spin.

Now suppose that if you bet a unit on each spin and gotevery possible outcome, you’d win 920 units.

That game would have a payback percentage of 92%.

You could win in the short run because of variance, but inthe long run, you’ll eventually lose.

Still, here are some strategies for winning that might workfor some people some of the time:

Strategies For Playing Slots

1- Treat Slot Machines as You Would the Lottery

Most people who play the lottery don’t buy 600 lotterytickets per hour – even if they’re playing the scratch and win tickets.

If you treated slot machines the way you do the lottery,you’d make far fewer spins and lose far less money in the long run.

If and when I play slot machines, which isn’t often, I put$5 or $20 into the highest denomination machine I can find. I’ve even put a$100 bill into a $100 machine once.

I then get a spin, 4 spins, or 5 spins – some really lownumber.

Win or lose, I walk away quickly.

Since you’re playing higher denomination machines and makinga minimal number of spins, you’re putting variance to work for you. If you winbig and walk away right then, you at least have the possibility of being alifetime winner.

Of course, to stay a winner, you have to resolve to neverplay again.

Otherwise, the house edge will eat away at your bankroll.

You’ve probably heard someone say that compound interest isthe most powerful force in the universe.

Think of the house edge in casino games as being likecompound interest on steroids.

2- Switch to Video Poker

Video poker looks like a slot machine game, but it has somedistinct advantages.

The first of these is that the odds of getting specificcombinations are a known quantity. You have no way of knowing the probabilityof getting 3 cherries on a payline, but you do know (or can find out) that youhave a roughly 1 in 40,000 chance of getting a royal flush on a Jacks or Bettervideo poker game.

Since we know the odds of getting specific hands and thepayouts for those hands, we can actually play a game where we know what thehouse edge is. It’s impossible to estimate the house edge for slot machines,because we can never know with any degree of accuracy the probability ofgetting certain combinations.

And the best thing about video poker machines is this:

With the right games and the right pay tables (orsituations) you can face a game where you have the edge instead of the house.

That’s an entire blog post itself, though.

3- Don’t Play Slot Machines at All

I’m a big fan of a StarTrek movie from 1982, The Wrath ofKhan. In it, we learn about a training scenario called the Kobayashi Maru,which is a no-win scenario. It’s a test of character to see how a commandtrainee deals with failure.

Kirk, of course, doesn’t believe in the no-win scenario, sohe re-programs the simulation to make it possible to win.

Slot Machine Strategies That Actually Work

I’ve already recommended that you don’t cheat on slotmachines. That would include hacking their random number generator program.

The only way to beat a no-win scenario, in my book, is tonot play at all.

Go find other games where you can win. Poker is a goodchoice. Video poker is, too. Blackjack might eve be the game that’s the mostfun to beat. Counting cards is easier than you might think.

4- Find “Banking” Slot Machines

Some slot machine games bank a certain percentage of theaction that goes through them. Some combinations release the amount that’sbanked.

Some players will leave money “in the bank” on suchmachines.

If you can spot those, you can often find yourself in apositive expectation situation and win some money.

The problem is that such games are increasingly hard tofind.

5- Always Use Your Player’s Club Card

Using your player’s club card won’t make you a winner, butyou will get a percentage of your action back in the form of rebates and comps.

The only disadvantage to using a player’s club card is thatthe casino will advertise to you in the mail.

They also organize your rewards into tiers – you get biggerrewards the more you gamble. It can be tempting to gamble more to get to thenext level, even though you’re not getting enough in rewards to make such amove profitable.

6- Find Progressive Jackpots that Are Way Higher than Their Usual Average Jackpot when Hit

The size of the payouts is one of the factors thatdetermines a slot machine game’s payback percentage. The higher the payouts,the better the payback percentage.

Slot Machine Strategies Penny Slots

With slot machines with progressive jackpot, there’s no upper limit, so you could (theoretically) wind up in a situation where the expectation for the game is positive.

The probability of hitting the jackpot doesn’t change.

But the expected value is based on the probability ofhitting the jackpot multiplied by the size of that jackpot.

7- Just Have Fun and Stay within Your Budget

The one strategy for winning at slot machines is the easiestone – play whichever game you want, for whatever you want to spend on it, havefun, and don’t worry too much about winning or losing.

As long as you understand that – in the long run – you’retrading money for entertainment, you’ll be a winner without any “slot machinestrategies” at all.