Get to know slots and how they work. Slots aren’t exactly complicated — you select your betting. Learn all about slot machines. Discover how they work and tips for winning on them! Slot machine experts give you detailed information on all the secrets of. Loose slots are often talked about in articles titled ‘Slot Machine Secrets Exposed’ and other such things. Truthfully, I’m convinced it’s the casino marketing departments which are writing and promoting these articles, to begin with. You Have Less Chance of Winning Progressive Slots.
I’ve been playing slots for over a decade now, and when it comes to casino slot machine secrets, I’ve heard it all twice.
I put little stock in most ‘slots secrets,’ but that’s not to say they should all be dismissed. Over the years, I’ve found a few diamonds in the dirt, and I’d like to share those with you here.
As you might expect, the winning slot machine secrets which really work are based on common sense and logic, and not magical fixes or cheat codes.
Ready to find out 8 slots secrets which will help you win more often? Read on, young grasshopper…
The ‘Loose Slot’ Is a Myth
Have you ever heard people talking about ‘loose slots,’ or slots which are ready to pop at any minute because they haven’t been won for a long time?
Once you understand Random Number Generators and how they work, you’ll understand that such notions are a myth. Slots players are a superstitious bunch, I know, but the facts remain the facts, and every single spin of the reels has just as much a chance of being a winner as any other.
To be clear, it doesn’t matter if it’s the first spin of the day or the 1,000th. It doesn’t matter if $0.20 or $20,000 has already been played – you have just as much chance of winning on every spin. Game outcomes are determined by Random Number Generators, and there’s no telling when they may pay.
There’s just as much chance of landing a progressive jackpot after your third $0.10 spin as there is of landing it after pumping $10k through the machine. Don’t waste your time trying to find loose slots, no matter what experienced hands may tell you.
Loose slots are often talked about in articles titled ‘Slot Machine Secrets Exposed’ and other such things. Truthfully, I’m convinced it’s the casino marketing departments which are writing and promoting these articles, to begin with.
You Have Less Chance of Winning Progressive Slots
We’ve all seen the massive multi-million dollar progressive jackpot slots at some point. Games like Mega Moolah by Microgaming, Jackpot Giant by Playtech, and Hall of Gods by NetEnt tease us with the exciting possibilities of taking care of the bills forever. And it does happen for some lucky players – there’s no doubt about that!
However, all business is a game of risk vs. reward, and to be able to offer such massive jackpots, casinos have to do something to offset the risk. They manage the risk these huge progressive jackpots pose to their bankrolls by often offering a lower RTP on these slots.
In case you don’t already know, RTP stands for Return To Player, and is expressed as a percentage. Each slot has a set RTP which tells us how much of every $1 bet will be returned to players in the long term.
For example, Hall of Gods slot has an RTP 95.5%, which means that for every $100 bet on the game, $95.50 will be returned to players. Compare that to a high RTP non-progressive slot like Ugga Bugga by Playtech, which has an RTP of 99.07%, and it’s easy to see the difference.
While the chance to win a life-changing jackpot is tempting, you have to be realistic about the fact that it’s not likely. So, you’ll likely be better off playing the high RTP slot games instead.
Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, and not all regular slots have higher RTPs than progressive games. You’ll have to do some hunting to find the best payout slots.
When It Comes to Most Free Spins Bonuses the Odds Are Against You
I enjoy free spins on slots as much as you do, but when you actually sit down and analyze the small print, the truth is that you have very little chance of winning large payouts through free spins offers.
You see, most casinos control the risk these offers represent by adding in wagering requirements and conversion limits. Both of these stack the odds against you as a player. Let me explain.
Wagering requirements (also called playthrough requirements) are the number of times you’ll have to bet the bonus offers and sometimes anything you win, too. For example, let’s say you get 10 no deposit free spins with x30 and win $100. You’ll have to bet that $100 30x, a whopping $3,000 in bets, before you can withdraw it.
When conversion limits are added into the mix, things get even harder. These are hard limits on what you can withdraw no matter how much you win. For example, if a free spins bonus has a conversion limit of $1,000 and you win a $10,000 jackpot, you’ll only be able to withdraw $1,000 as cash.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to beat wagering requirements, and I’m not saying these bonus offers aren’t worth taking anyway. What I am saying is that you should adjust your expectations. Don’t see these free spins as tricks to winning on slot machines, because they aren’t – they’re promo offers to let you try the casino.
However, players are catching onto wagering requirements fast, and a new breed of casino is offering a new type of offer which can seriously improve your odds of winning slots. Let’s look at that next.
Free Spins With No Wagering Requirements CAN Help You Win More Often
While regular free spins bonus offers give you little to no chance of walking away with what you win, there are free spins with no wagering requirements, and you should grab them whenever you find them.
Casinos are always looking for a competitive edge over their rivals, and they’re also always living in fear of regulators. As of last year, many started offering free spins without wagering requirements for both of these reasons.
Now, these deals are worth taking! You’ll almost always have to make a deposit to activate them, but they significantly boost your chances of winning, and you’ll be able to keep anything you win.
For example, some casinos are offering 1 free spin for every $1 you deposit up to $50. The spins might only be worth $0.10-$0.25 per spin, but heck, a free spin is a free spin, and without wagering requirements to worry about, it’s all profit.
There are few bonus offers which actually work in the interests of players once analyzed closely. No wager free spins bonuses are one of them.
Check out our PlayOjo casino review if you’re interested in knowing more about slots without wagering requirements.
Bonus Features Can & Do Make a Huge Difference
One of the things I like best about online slots as compared to land-based ones is the features they offer. Free spins rounds, bonus wheels, picking games, expanding and sticky wilds, and mini-games of all kinds make online slots more interesting and potentially more lucrative.
Yet, there are also games which don’t have many features. A quick spin on many of the classic slots which are designed to replicate fruit machines will show you that first-hand.
Despite this, many of these ‘featureless’ games cost the same to play per spin. I’ve never understood why anyone would play a three-line game with one wild symbol versus an interactive game with multiple bonus rounds and special symbols for the same price.
Bonus rounds are designed to both entertain and help you win. I rarely emerge from bonus wheels and free spins rounds without at least something extra. Even if it’s just recouping previous losses, it’s still extra money in your pocket.
My advice is to take your time find slots with lots of cool bonus rounds and go for those with as much winning potential as possible. For example, if one game has a free spins round with 2x multipliers, and another game has a free spins round with 5x multipliers, I know which one I’m playing, provided all other things are equal.
Understanding Volatility Can Help You Win More Often
One of the biggest slot machine facts is that casinos make money on players who don’t have a clue about slots and how they work. If you understand concepts like RTP and volatility, congratulations, you’re already out ahead of the pack.
The concept of volatility can best be described as how often a slot pays. Low volatility slots pay a steady stream of smaller wins, whereas high volatility slots don’t pay as often, but tend to pay bigger amounts when they do. Medium volatility slots fall somewhere in the middle.
Understand the volatility of the game you’re playing is one of the best tricks to winning on slot machines. For example, if you’re playing a high volatility slot and haven’t won much in 20 or 30 spins, it might be a good idea to increase your bet size in anticipation of the inevitable payout, or cluster of payouts, that will come.
Remember what I said above about Random Number Generators controlling outcomes? You still can’t predict when a game will pay, but by understanding slot volatility you can get a feel for how often big wins might come, and what size the payouts are likely to be when they do come. You can then formulate your betting strategy based on this information.
You Can’t Cheat Slot Machines, So Forget About It
If I had a dollar for every time I’d clicked a page titled ‘How to trick a slot machine’ or ‘Beat the slots every time’ and laughed, I’d be a rich man. Without fail, all of these systems and slots cheats fail.
Do you really think multi-million, and sometimes multi-billion dollar companies hire amateur programmers who create games with bugs and flaws in them? I don’t, and if you think some random guy on the internet with a PDF for sale can outsmart Playtech or Microgaming, I’d advise you to think again.
The only people getting rich from such systems are the swindlers selling them. While there are bona fide casino secrets which you can use to improve your odds of winning, such as by better understanding how slots work, there are no sure-fire slots cheat codes or anything of the sort.
Don’t waste your time trying to find bugs in programs and ways to manipulate slots. Instead, learn more about how the games work, how you can manage your bankroll to maximize your chances, and which slots have the best odds. This information will help you win far more often than any black-hat slot machine secrets or tricks ever will.
Provably Fair Slot Machines Can Ensure You Don’t Get Screwed Over
This is one the best kept slot machine secrets, at least by the casinos which don’t use Provably Fair Technology.
Have you ever played a slot machine and felt that it was somehow rigged or that the game learned your betting patterns and adapted to them? I’ve been there, and I can’t say for sure that it isn’t the case at some casinos. While most are fair and game payouts are indeed random, there are some rogue casinos which fiddle with the settings and cheat you.
Yet, you can take control of this situation and eliminate the possibility of cheating by playing ‘Provably Fair’ slots. You’ll have to be willing to play with Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency, but that’s a small price to pay for a guaranteed fair game which you can verify on the spot.
I’ve written about Provably Fair Gambling here, so if you’re curious to know more about how it works, this is well worth a read.
If you do opt for these slots, you’ll be able to take some control of the game outcomes by feeding your own number into the algorithm which determines game outcomes and will be able to verify game outcomes haven’t been tampered with.
If ever there was a tip for winning slots more often which I’d be 100% on board with, it would be this. After all, your chances of winning are exactly zero if the games are rigged from the outset. I fully endorse Provably Fair Slots and suggest you make it a priority to find out more about them and how to use them. You’ll be glad you did.
Summary
So, there you have it – 8 ways you can dramatically increase your chances of winning slots with no voodoo required. And I didn’t ask you for a dime to reveal my secrets, either.
Don’t fall for the scams which promise you the moon and deliver only disappointment. Stick to these sensible slots tips and tricks, and you’ll be in the green in no time.
Oh, and if you do score a progressive jackpot, our editor is happy to forward checks to me!
Did you enjoy this piece? Why not share it with your friends on social media or your favorite gambling forums?
Slot machine games are a lot of fun to play, and there is usually a game style for everyone. Some people like the classic three reel slots. Some people love the interactive adventure style games. Whatever your preference, you’ll always find something to love about slots. But wouldn’t it be great if you could love the game and win more often? Although we can’t promise you’ll win more money, we can explain some of the less obvious things about slot games so you can make better choices about what and how you play.
1. Are Slot Machine Games as Bad as the Gambling Experts Say?
You will find that many gambling books and articles caution you against playing slot machine games. Instead of slot machine games, they say you should learn how to play table games like baccarat and blackjack. While that advice may have been sound up until the 1980s and 1990s, slot machine games have become more player-friendly.
Gambling experts often compare the theoretical return to players on slot games to the theoretical return on table games. They make the table games look really good. However, there are four things you should remember when looking at these estimates:
- Actual results vary from theoretical results in all gambling games
- Table games requiring skill pay worse to unskilled players
- Modern slot game designs target very high theoretical returns to the player
- Competition between casinos pressures them to offer higher RTP than in the past
2. Casinos Can and Sometimes Do Change the Odds on Slot Machines
Casinos don’t like to change the odds on their slot games because regulations and game designs make this a tedious process. The games must be removed from service. Casinos make no money from slot games that are not in service. They need a really good reason to do this.
Even so, they do have the option of changing the payout offered by a game. If you ever play in a slot machine tournament, watch the casino employees set up the games. The machines are reprogrammed and prizes are not awarded by the machines.
To remain competitive casinos in one region may offer better slot game RTP than casinos in more popular places like the Las Vegas Strip.
3. Player Reviews are not Always Trustworthy
Although you should read player reviews of casinos and games, not all reviews are helpful. Even honest reviews can become outdated. The best reviews include a publication date. Travel websites often share member reviews based on their local experiences and vacations.
Seek a consensus across multiple review sites for popular casinos and games. Read more recent reviews from verified site members. But remember that these reviews are just opinions, not facts. Individual players’ experiences may not represent actual average results.
4. Theoretical Return to Player is Just One Way to Value a Game
While a good slot game boasts a 98% RTP, that doesn’t guarantee you will win more than on an older game with a 92% RTP. You could win $5000 on the old game and lose $1000 on the new game.
Slot games are designed to be as random as possible but there are other ways to judge them. Experts also look at the volatility of the game.
Although there is more than one way to define volatility, most experts say a game is more volatile if it pays fewer but larger prizes. They estimate volatility by recording bets and results on a timeline. But those estimates can vary for good reason.
5. Past Results Really Do Not Predict Future Performance
This expression is familiar in corporate earnings estimates but it’s also equally true in slot game reviews and volatility estimates. Past results may differ considerably from future results.
Just because a slot machine game paid someone a lot of nice wins for the past three hours doesn’t guarantee it will pay you handsomely. Your results are determined randomly, as were theirs, but there is one way players can mathematically bend this rule.
6. Your Style of Play Affects Your Overall Outcome
Although you cannot alter the results of individual spins you can decide how you play each slot game. Your playing style affects the chances of your walking away a winner or loser. Here are a few ways this is so:
- You can commit to leaving a game after winning or losing a certain percentage
- You can commit to leaving a game after playing a certain amount of time
- You can play only the smallest possible bets
- You can play only the maximum possible bets
These are money management techniques. Savvy slot game players use these methods habitually. Your chances of winning any given spin doesn’t change. Most people play slot games longer than they should, and the casinos expect that.
In other words, the disciplined player is more likely to walk away with money than the undisciplined player. It doesn’t matter how much money you win if you put it all back into the game.
7. You May Get Into Trouble When Recording Your Slot Game Jackpot
YouTube is loaded with videos that players have shared of their jackpots and new games. But casinos have become wary of this practice and may ask you not to record your slot games. They have a very good reason for doing so.
In 2016 gambling industry experts revealed that a Russian gang had cracked the random number generator algorithm on some older but popular slot machine games. The criminals bought old slot machines and reverse engineered the random number generators. Then they built a supercomputer to analyze video recordings of the slot games.
Casinos that have been affected by or warned of this scheme and have implemented policies against recording games. Don’t take it personally if casino staff asks you to stop recording your results.
8. There Is No One Right Way to Gamble on Slot Games
There are several schools of thought as to what is the best way to gamble on slot games. Unless you’re part of a criminal syndicate with a supercomputer helping you, the results on slot machine games are always random enough to be unpredictable.
Instead of maximizing your chances of winning you should concentrate on managing your money. That doesn’t mean you can’t play aggressively. It just means you should budget your time and your money so that you don’t blow through your bankroll in 15 minutes or less. Playing the slots is not like buying car insurance. You cannot get a free quote.
9. Don’t Bet Money on Extra Games
Unless you are just curious about how those extra bets work, don’t take them. Some slot games offer you special secondary bets after you win a prize. These secondary bets usually pay less often than the regular games. Bonus games don’t require you to bet extra money. The bonus games award you extra prizes on the basis of your original bet.
10. Always Look for the Total Bet Window
Before you spin the reels, any time you start playing a new slot game look for the “Total Bet” window. It may be named something else but this is the total amount one spin costs you. You may have to multiply three values together to determine the total bet:
- Number of coins per bet
- Coin value
- Number of active pay lines
People sometimes start playing a slot game without realizing the person before them left the game set to Max Bet, which on some games can run into a lot of money.
11. Class II “Slot” Games are not Real Slot Games
You’ll find a lot of great slot machine games in Native American casinos. Some or all of the games in that casino may look like slot games but they are really bingo games. In other words, the result of your bet is determined by an electronic bingo game and a virtual slot game is simulated to give you that slot game look and feel. Real slot games that determine results based on spins of the reels are designated as Class III games under U.S. gambling law.
12. Most US Slot Games Require No Skill
Many gambling experts are quick to say that there is no skill to playing slot games. That is not always true. There are indeed so-called “skill stop” options on some slot games, but these games are rare in US casinos. Skill stop slot games are popular in countries like Japan.
Slot Machine Secret
You are more likely to find a true skill stop option in an interactive bonus game. But even there, many US casinos only offer slot games that simulate interactive play. Unless the slot game rules explain how to use a skill stop option, just assume the “Stop” button is there to control the animations and not the game results.
Conclusion
While playing slot games is a lot of fun for many people, it’s to your advantage to understand how they work. You don’t need to know math and computer programming. Just think about the effects you see as entertainment. The casinos do have to compete with each other so they have some incentives to offer better returns to players, but they are still hoping to make a profit. Hence, you want to be disciplined, manage your time and money, and focus on having a great time.