I have spent the last couple of decades playing slot games, writing about slot games, working with slot games, working for casinos – both online and brick-and-mortar – and so I feel qualified to speak on how slot games really work. There are a lot of people out there, and maybe you are one of them, who fall into two opposing camps when it comes to slots. The first of these is the group who is sure that slot games are rigged, you’ll never win anything on them, and they are a complete waste of time. The second camp is a more optimistic bunch, who think that you can win big on slot games, but only if you crack the secret code that Big Casino doesn’t want you to know about.
As with most things in life, the truth is somewhere in the middle, so let’s take a closer look at the real ways you can win at slots.
1. Understand How Slot Machines Work
Before we get into strategies, let’s focus on just how slot machines work. Don’t worry, I know it’s a potentially boring subject so I’ll keep it simple. Ye Olde Slot Machines used to have symbols printed on spinning reels, you would pull the lever and the symbols would line up in a row. Depending on how many symbols on a reel and the value of each symbol, you could estimate the chances of winning. Modern slots – online or offline – use computers and RNGs (Random Number Generators) to determine every spin outcome. A dice is an example of a random number generator, and the electronic version works the same way, outside the control of the casino. If you are playing online slots you can quickly find out the RTP or Return to Player of a slot, and you should know that this can be manipulated, albeit in an above board way. But we will get to that in part 6 below.
2. Learn About Slot Payouts and RTP
As mentioned above, each slot machine has a built-in return to player (RTP) percentage, indicating how much of what you put in is paid back out to players over time. For example if a slot game has an RTP of 96%, this means that if you put a million dollars into this slot over a million spins, you will get back $960,000 – or very close to it. While it’s not always possible to know the RTP of a machine in a land-based casino, this is very easy to find out for online slots, as you can either check out review sites or else click the ‘i’ symbol on the game to get the details. Remember, the RTP is calculated over tens and hundreds of thousands of spins, so doesn’t really have a huge impact if you are only playing a slot for a short while. For longer sessions it’s worth knowing though, and as you will have guessed, bigger is better. As a general rule of thumb, for online slots 96% is ‘par’. Anything higher than this is good, anything lower not so much.
3. Pick Slots With the Best Odds
You can’t influence all that much about your slot play, as mostly it’s just about hitting the spin button and hoping for the best. Your most important choice comes before that, when you are deciding which game to play. We will get onto ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ slot machines in the next section, but let’s leave that aside for now. There are two factors you really need to consider when it comes to getting a return from your slot gaming session: RTP and volatility. We have already discussed RTP, so look out for games which offer a return of more than 96% to maximize your chances. The other factor is volatility (or variance), which is about the frequency and size of payouts. Low volatility slots have regular small returns, high volatility slots make you wait longer but the payouts can be bigger, and medium volatility is somewhere in between. For short sessions or if you are short on coins you should probably go for low volatility games if you want to get some good play time. If you are prepared to wait it out and are hunting big wins, then go for a higher volatility game.
4. Avoid the Hot Slot Myth
There is always a lot of chatter on gaming forums about ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ slots. There always has been since slot machines were invented, that’s why people would pounce on a machine that hadn’t paid out in an age with the thought that it must be due at any moment. It’s like if you flip a coin 7 times and it comes up heads every time, the next one has got to be tails, right? Right?? Well unfortunately the coin doesn’t know that, and each flip of the coin has no connection to the one before. It’s called the gambler’s fallacy and it’s human nature to look for these patterns, but it won’t help you win. The slot machine is the same as the coin in that it doesn’t know what that the previous 100 spins gave a fantastic/disappointing return. The next spin will be just as random as that last hundred, and the past is no help in predicting the future when it comes to slot gaming.
5. Take Advantage of Bonuses and Free Spins
There are a lot of casinos out there – as you can see from our 100+ social casino reviews – and they all want you to sign up with them. As an incentive, those casinos will offer welcome bonuses, promos, free spins and plenty more besides. These are all great for players, the key is to take full advantage of them. First off, make sure you know how a particular bonus works. Not understanding playthrough is a common mistake, but this is when the bonus is frozen until you have played through a certain amount. So if you got a bonus of 1,000 coins, you may need to play through that 1,000 and then whatever you have left is what you get to keep. Playing bonuses on slots with high RTP and low volatility is a good way to max out your chances of success.
6. Are Slot Machines Rigged?
This conspiracy theory has done the rounds for years: slot machines are rigged so that the casino always wins. The truth is that casinos don’t need to ‘rig’ slot games and machines, because math does the work for them. Let’s go back to our old friend RTP again. If a slot game has an RTP of 95% it means that over millions of spins 95% goes back to the players, while 5% goes to the casino. That’s where the expression ‘the house always wins’ comes from, folks! These games come from software providers that send out the same game to dozens of different casinos, the casinos are licensed, so are the game providers – there is just no sensible reason for anyone to rig the games. If you’ve had a streak of bad luck on a slot game, first off you are probably playing a high-volatility game, and second, it’s just bad luck!
BUT! And there is a ‘but’ here. Many modern online slots have variable RTPs, so individual casinos can choose whether to set a higher or lower RTP on a particular game. If you have a particular slot game you love, you may find that some casinos offer better returns to player on that game than others.
7. Use Gaming Strategies Carefully
For as long as casino games have existed, casino gaming strategies have existed alongside them. Martingale, Fibonacci, Labouchere, D’Alembert – the list is long and they sound impressive, but approach with extreme caution. If a slot has an RTP of 95% it doesn’t matter what strategy you use, that 95% is not gonna change. While using some of these strategies may result in short-term gains, they won’t change anything over the long term. Let’s face it, if these strategies really worked as well as they are supposed to, casinos would be out of business by now! If you really want to take a closer look at some of these gaming systems then check out this post, but you have been warned.
I reckon the best strategy is to test out free versions of different games to find ones you enjoy playing and which suit your style of play. With free slots you can often jump straight to the bonus round too, and playing that will let you see how generous the bonus game for that particular slot is. Go over to our demo slots pages and test out a few to see if anything ticks your boxes.
8. Understand Big Jackpots and Progressive Slots
If your slot gaming needs a bit of extra spice, then look out for games offering jackpot prizes. There are two different types of jackpots offered by online slots: fixed and progressive. Fixed jackpots are, as the name suggests, fixed amounts which can be won at any time. Progressive ‘pots are those which build up over time by taking a tiny percentage of every spin amount on a particular game or group of games. These jackpots can grow indefinitely and so are the ones responsible for record-breaking slot jackpot wins. Like any other win, jackpots can be triggered on any spin of the reels, although some of them are set up to increase the percentage chance of a win for those selecting the max spin amount. And of course, jackpot games are normally high volatility slots so a lot of patience is required.
9. Can You Really Win at Slots?
The last question is one of the most important, and of course the answer is yes. If you hit on a jackpot then you have beaten the house and will be able to walk away a big winner. But you can still be a winner without needing to score a massive jackpot win. How? Well, not by trusting in dodgy systems or hot and cold slots. But if you play smart, choose the right games, and take advantage of special offers, promos and free spins you can certainly get ahead of the game. A little bit of luck will help, and at the end of the day slot gaming is about having fun rather than making money, but you will certainly be able to enjoy some winning spins along the way.
