Slot Questions

snorky

Well-Known Member
#1
I have no background on slots, other than occasionally using slot credits given from the casino, so I could be wrong on my assumptions below...

My mother is a mid aged Asian woman. She is very superstitious and therefore believes in hot and cold streaks. She also doesn't believe in swiping in a player's card for comps, because she believes the payout is set to decrease once she plays rated. I understand that there is no such thing as streaks and that the payout would be the same playing rated or unrated. I just have no way of convincing her superstitious nature. She loves to play penny slots, which usually results in a small loss every casino trip we make. Fortunately this is only for leisure (an expensive one if you add up all the frequent trips!).

My question is what action should I take to make sure she gets the best of her leisure in slots? Are there actually "looser" slot machines. Is there even a strategy to it? She doesn't play the traditional slot machines, but rather the ones with monkeys, animals, and I don't know what other creatures they put on there. I can't ever convince her to stop playing slots, because she enjoys it. I also can't convince her that it's all random and that even hitting the jackpot, the machine is still the same.

She's also been asking me to look up slot strategies online (thank god she doesn't know how to use a computer), and I just tell her it's all a scam. Maybe I am wrong and that there is a way of beating (or losing less) in slots... Maybe there is a way in abusing comps at a machine that pays close to 100%?

Thanks!
 

Finrod

Active Member
#2
Looser but still a loser

Fairly consistantly, higher denomination slot machines have better payout than lower denomination machines, but they are all losers. Penny machines are a great way to kill time with a small investment, but very seldom will you walk away a winner. There are plenty of published strategies for slots playing, but you have to realize you are playing a losing game all the time.

My recommendations:
-play the highest denomination machine your BR can stomach
-Put enough in the machine to ride out at least 100 max bet spins to stand a chance of making something back
-Put your card in the machine! About the only long term +EV thing associated with slots are the comps you earn on your card
 

Lonesome Gambler

Well-Known Member
#3
What?! If she's playing penny slots, why recommend playing the highest denomination slots she can afford? Say she plays 1000 spins at a penny machine, playing 5 coin. The machine is awful and has an 80% hold. She expects to lose $10.

That sucks, but how about if she plays a "great" slot machine with a 95% hold? This one is $5 a spin at max coin, so now she has $5000 in potential action (already asking for trouble), and she can expect to lose $250 over the same period of time.

If she were playing rated, she would get more comps in the latter scenario, but she's already made it clear that her interest is playing the slots themselves, not accumulating comps. I agree 100% that she is missing the only long-term "value" that she can get from these machines, but it's likely a moot point.

Still, recommending that she play a higher denom machine is a very bad idea if she's currently content wasting her money on penny slots (even if their hold is higher).

Edit: I also just saw the part about 100 max spins. No no no no. Slot machines are based on independent trials. Your expectation is the same at 1 spin as it is at 100 spins. In fact, the fewer spins she can play, the better. This is for two reasons: 1) she has a lower negative expectation, so she'll lose loss in the long run, and 2) she's more at the mercy of short-term variance. This is the only way to "win" at these things—getting lucky.
 

shadroch

Well-Known Member
#4
You need to read the payout table. Some video slots offer bonus games that are only won if you are playing a certain amount of coin. It would suck to hit a combination that awarded a bonus game with 45 coins played but only have 27 in the machine.
Most reel slots (the traditinal slots with three reels) pay a bonus for hitting a jckpot with max coins played- The Popular Wheel of Fortune bonus spin is only won with max coins played.
Video slots- the type with multiple lines and digonal wins and such - generally don't require max coins for the bonus but some do.
On a recent Vegas trip, I lined up 5 7symbols only to discover that to put the 7symbols in play, you needed to be betting at least 45 coins while I was only betting 27. That oversite cost me a few hundred dollars.
Your mothers biggest mistake is not playing with a card. The payouts don't change one iota but she is missing out on everything the casinos club offers- free meals, free rooms, cashback, ect, ect.
Her best bet is to find out if there are bonus days where the casion offers double points or sometimes even more and play only on those days. Many casinos have special offerings for those over a certain age- some are 50, some are 55, some are 62.
An educated consumer is the casinos worst nitemare.
 

Sucker

Well-Known Member
#5
snorky said:
Maybe I am wrong and that there is a way of beating (or losing less) in slots...
Well - yes; but probably not all that useful at penny slots. There actually ARE a few poker machines out there in which someone playing PERFECT strategy will actually be playing at +EV. But these machines are EXTREMELY hard to find, and out of respect for the people who ARE exploiting them, I cannot publicly say WHERE to find one.

The BEST way to make money at slots: Find a machine (any machine) with a progressive jackpot in which the jackpot itself is large enough to overcome the house edge. First, go to the Gambler's Book store (or look it up online). There are a few books which will tell you how to determine the proper jackpot sizes.

Another way to make money at slots (which also takes a significant amount of scouting): Look around for the different promotions; some places have certain days and/or times in which they give out as much as 10x points. This can make it +EV to play.

snorky said:
Maybe there is a way in abusing comps at a machine that pays close to 100%?
There is ONE slot machine that has recently been approved by the Gaming Commission that's actually a game of SKILL, where you play holdem against the computer! It's called "Heads-up Texas Holdem". The Bellagio, Mirage, Cosmopolitan; and a few other places have this machine. Many of the top pros, although they can't seem to actually BEAT this machine (at least not for MUCH) are playing it and getting really GOOD comps.

I play the machine myself, and I can't beat it either, but I'm pretty sure that the comps are making it +EV for me. The way I look at it, however - as long as I can stay close to even on this machine, it's probably the best possible learning tool there is!

Getting back to the subject of your mother - Because of the fact that she's very superstitious, I'm thinking that maybe video poker is not going to work for someone like her. Does she have the discipline to ALWAYS play the correct strategy, or will she play hunches? If this is going to be a problem, maybe she should stick to progressives that require NO skill at ALL. There are plenty OF them
 
#6
Many people play penny slots at max bet/max lines. This is often $4.50/spin. You can play many higher denomination machines at a lower max/spin. $1.25 for a single line quarter machine at 5 coin is one example. I would print up a video poker strategy table for the best VP payout and teach her to find them. She might even start making money. Progressives on these machines can make them an even higher +EV than with out if the progressive gets high enough.
 
#7
Recognizing there's no +EV strategy for slots the strategy is in minimizing -EV per trip.

Yes higher denom slots will hold less as a % of all action but you'll be churning a lot more through the machine per hour then on a penny slot. Stick to the cheaper slots. But beware of penny slots if the tendency is to play max lines/max bet. These can turn into $5 slots and you could be better off playing a simple 3 reel quarter slot.

Can you find a clever way to get her interested in club cards? Perhaps going someplace during a promotion can get you small tangible reward rather quickly. Some places enter you into a free slot tournament if you play on their card.

Find a strategy that's fun and slows the play down a lot. Like don't put in more credits than you play per spin. Use the handle. Cash out a ticket on every win. Walk the floor scouting for the loose slots. Camp the loose machine that someone else is playing until they leave. If you can find something like that in a voodoo book it could have some credibility. The point is how can you find ways to encourage and make more entertaining slow slot play?
 

snorky

Well-Known Member
#8
Thanks for all the tips. I don't believe my mom would find fun in trying to hit the progressive or finding +EV video poker slot machines. She actually just play reels and play 1 credit of the maximum # of lines. This usually ranges anywhere from 25 cents to 50 cents per spin.

Most Interesting Man said:
Recognizing there's no +EV strategy for slots the strategy is in minimizing -EV per trip.

Yes higher denom slots will hold less as a % of all action but you'll be churning a lot more through the machine per hour then on a penny slot. Stick to the cheaper slots. But beware of penny slots if the tendency is to play max lines/max bet. These can turn into $5 slots and you could be better off playing a simple 3 reel quarter slot.

Can you find a clever way to get her interested in club cards? Perhaps going someplace during a promotion can get you small tangible reward rather quickly. Some places enter you into a free slot tournament if you play on their card.

Find a strategy that's fun and slows the play down a lot. Like don't put in more credits than you play per spin. Use the handle. Cash out a ticket on every win. Walk the floor scouting for the loose slots. Camp the loose machine that someone else is playing until they leave. If you can find something like that in a voodoo book it could have some credibility. The point is how can you find ways to encourage and make more entertaining slow slot play?
As an advantage player (or I try to be) myself, I find it really hard to convince her to drop the superstitious thinking. I suppose this is probably the way she was raised to believe. It would be like convincing your typical ploppy in blackjack about the myths in hot/cold shoes/dealers and bust cards. I will try and find a way to convince her of some "voodoo method" that slows down her pace in slots. :grin:
 
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