20 Slot Machine Secrets Uncovered by a Casino Insider

Welcome to today’s article about ‘Slot Machine Secrets’. Are there really casino slot machine secrets? And if I learn what they are, will that allow me to win a boatload of money whenever I go to the casino? Well, let’s talk about that . . .

Once you finish reading today’s article, you will see some real ‘slot machine secrets exposed’, and perhaps be surprised about how cut and dried the whole thing is. 

Because it is. 

It’s just a numbers business like any other. 

And there is no real secret to it. 

The machines do what they do, and the humans who play them do what they do.

Essentially, there are two layers to the slot department in a casino – both online and land-based.

What I’m going to do in this article is talk about the ‘Layer 1’ slot machine secrets first. 

You may already know the kind of thing – why you should always bet the maximum coins, the difference between high volatility games and low volatility games, and so on.

If you know where to look, this is available on the internet, and I’m going to explore the most common ‘things you should know’ about slot machine play. 

There are almost certainly some new things for you to hear and see.

But then, we’re going to explore the real secrets. The ‘Layer 2’ stuff, if you like.

The things that Slot Directors do to make their casino floor more attractive, how they decide which machines to get, which themes to change and even look at part of an actual slot report that I used when I was consulting on slot performance with an unidentified casino in the USA several years ago. So let’s start with this:

LAYER 1: Secrets you probably know

Here are 10 well-known ‘good things to do to help you win playing slots’.

1. The more cartoony it is, the less it’s going to pay you.

The more entertaining a machine is, the less it pays out. 

Why? 

Because the entertainment is paid for from the slot machine’s win – which reduces the amount available to be added to the jackpot. 

And if the machine is based on a well-known TV series, or other celebrity icon, etc., the manufacturers take even more.

So instead of 95% of the coin-in going to the jackpot, only 85% goes there (these numbers are only examples). 

And when you’re talking about a jackpot that should be $20,000,000, that additional 10% represents $2,000,000, so the jackpot is reduced to $18,000,000.

Which is fine – that is to say, I’d be okay with an $18 million win (who wouldn’t?) – and after taxes it’s only about $10 million, and if you invest it wisely, that’s still going to generate about $40,000 a month – minus the 39% taxes, so only about $25,000 – and I would be totally thrilled with that - but it should be more. Much more.

2. Games with a high RTP pay out more (and more often) than games with a low RTP.

And what is RTP, anyway? 

RTP stands for ‘Return to Player’. It’s usually expressed as a percentage, like RTP = 92% - which means that over a billion spins, the game will return $92 to the player out of every $100 wagered in the machine.

A game with a high RTP pays back more than a game with a low RTP. 

Makes sense, right?

How do you find out the RTP of a game you’re interested in playing? 

It’s so simple, you may have never even thought of it. Google is your friend. 

If you enter ‘what is the RTP for a Buffalo Gold game’, you will get lots of answers –some (I’m looking at you Reddit), that are complete opinion pieces from guys who generally wouldn’t know a slot machine from a Honda Civic, and some that are excellent, well researched and totally accurate.

3. Set a budget for how much you’re willing to lose, and (for me) more importantly, how much you’re willing to win!

It’s critical that you have an amount you’re willing to win. How many times have you had a friend come to you and say some version of, ‘I was winning $200 and gave it all back’? 

Cash out when you’re winning the amount you bought in for.

4. This one is tied to the ‘Set a Budget’ one above. 

Do not chase your losses. 

Let me say that again because it’s really important.

DO NOT CHASE YOUR LOSSES.

If you lose the $100 you said you were going to play with, you must walk away. It’s the classic ‘don’t be that guy’ move to buy in another $100, then another until you’re stuck at $400 or $500.

And sometimes when you’re winning, you’ve got to cash out and walk away. 

The machine loves you, it’s hitting winners like there’s no tomorrow, but you hit your ‘I’m going to win $200’ number, so you must cash out and walk away.

It’s so hard to do, but you’re not going to keep winning forever. 

Either lose your budgeted number and walk away, or hit your ‘win’ number, cash out and walk away.

5. If the casino offers you a welcome bonus or some buy-in promotional free play, take it and increase the amount you can play with.

Those bonuses come from the casino’s marketing budget, and they are the classic something for nothing. Take advantage of anything they offer you.

6. If you’re winning a little, increase your bets as your bankroll increases.

This one might be a bit controversial. 

Some players will tell you, ‘Absolutely don’t increase your bets as you’re winning’. They say it’s because you need to put the winnings aside so you will have something to leave with after you’ve gone through your initial budgeted buy-in. 

My view is that ‘I came to win $200. I’m going to play with everything I’ve got from my initial buy-in until I lose it all or win $200’.

It’s a bit of the classic ‘Paroli’ strategy. 

Is it going to guarantee a win? No, no system can do that. But I generally always use some version of it whenever I play. Philosophically, it’s your call. I know what I do.

7. Make sure you have the maximum bet in action if you want to win the maximum top award.

If you don’t have the maximum bet in action, when you hit the top award jackpot combination, you won’t get paid the maximum jackpot if you haven’t got the maximum coins in play. 

What you’re doing is loading up the big jackpot for someone else to win it.

8. Whether you’re playing online or in a land-based casino, make sure it’s with a reputable casino company.

There are some shady outfits running online casinos, especially in a non-regulated jurisdiction. Some land-based casinos operate outside of the regulators, too. 

You don’t want to be anywhere near them when your money is at stake.

9. High volatility games pay back less frequently than low volatility games, but when they do it’s for more. And it can be a lot more.

It used to be that you could sometimes separate them out into the high volatility games are the reels (called steppers in the business), and the low volatility games are the video games on the retail floor. 

So the players who want to win a big jackpot will play the high volatility games, knowing they may have to play for a long time before they hit anything big.

And the players who want to play for a long time, hit lots of bonus rounds, get some free play and so on, play the low volatility games that offer those things.

And the good news is that nowadays, it’s just a Google search away.

10. Try out new games online to see how to play them.

You can play many games online for free. All the major sites usually allow you to play their games for free.

It’s a great opportunity to see how the game plays, how to approach your free play, what the bonuses look like, what happens if I play the red box bonus versus the green box bonus, and so on. 

But be aware, the RTP on a free game online is always higher than the same game when you’re playing for real money.

LAYER 2: Real slots secrets

Okay – that’s the usual ‘seek and ye shall find’ info that’s on the internet if you look for it. Here’s the real ‘slot secrets’ that only the casino management guys know.

1. The Player’s Club? What’s in it for me - Why do they want me to join? 

What does the casino do with all that info they’ve collected from you?

They know your name, address, phone number, birthday, email address and all kinds of information about you.

If you’ve ever hit a jackpot of $1,200 or more, they have your Social Security number.

They have your zip code, how much your house is worth, if you’re married, where you work, your blood group – you name it, they know a lot. Okay – not your blood group. Usually.

And here’s what we do with it.

If you live within nine miles (14.5 km) of the casino, we think of you as ‘ours’. That means that within that nine-mile circle, you should be playing at our casino. 

And if you’re not, why not?

If you’re a small-time player, what we refer to as a retail player, we wouldn’t invest a lot of time or effort into helping you make the switch.

The reason is because 80% of the casino’s revenue comes from the 20% of the players who are the ‘big time’ guys. Who play the high volatility slots for the big money in the High Limit room or occasionally on the retail floor.

You’re the guy who comes once or twice a month, buys in for $100, maybe $200, plays for a little while, eats in the buffet and leaves.

Oh sure, you’re going to get some offers occasionally – a free wok, a free beach towel, the usual free play offers and perhaps some other stuff.

But if you’re a big-time player – buys in for a few hundred a couple of times a week, not a whale, but substantial, we will do our best to attract you with better offers.

More free play, entry into upscale tournaments, free gift certificates from Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdales, etc., free rounds of gold, dinner at the high-end restaurant – you know who we’re talking about.

And whichever player you are, the marketing department will include you in their ‘zones of contention’. 

And what exactly is ‘a zone of contention’?

It’s an area between us and our major competitor’s property, broken down by zip code, called the postal code in some places. 

Let’s say we know you like to play slot tournaments, and you usually come in to play for a couple of hours on a Wednesday night.

And this Thanksgiving, the marketing guys have put together a high-end ‘Give Thanks’ slot tournament. It’s scheduled for the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving.

The Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving is always busy in most US casinos.

We will offer you free entry into that tournament because we know you love tournaments, and you usually play a couple of hours on a Wednesday night.

Some places even send a slot host into their competitor’s property to find the good players and try to poach them - which in my opinion is a pretty dubious way to conduct your business. 

We never did anything like that, but we did have an approach made by such a person at one property in California where I was the Casino Operations VP.

2. What are they up to down the street?

Casinos review other casinos’ slot floors to monitor changes. 

What new machines have they added, which machines are being replaced, what they’re adding more of, how much do their video poker games hold, and so on.

For example, when I was the Director of Gaming Ops at the Santa Ana Star just outside of Albuquerque In New Mexico, I would audit our #1 competitor, Sandia, once a month and see what they’d been up to. 

Which games had been moved, what new games had been added and so on. For me, it was a fascinating way to see how their business was changing and how they were responding to their players’ differing playing habits.

Every month, I would make a slot map of their floor, detailing which machines were where, the denominations, the game themes and so on. At first it was a challenge, not writing stuff down, relying on my memory (they were not bashful about letting me know that they were very unhappy about me writing stuff down).

And then I discovered the voice memo on my phone. And life became so much easier!

3. How would I kKnow the hold percentages of their video poker games?

Here’s something you can use if you like to play video poker. The pay table will tell you what the hold percentage of the game is. 

Take a look at this table:

Paytable Full House and Flush	Return to Player (RTP) amount
9/6	99.54%
9/5	98.45%
8/6	98.39%
8/5	97.30%
7/5	96.15%
6/5	95.00%

It details the hold percentage of a ‘Jacks or Better’ video poker game.

But all the various video poker variants control the hold percentage of the game by manipulating the pay table.

They do it by adjusting how many coins it gives away for a full house and a flush.

If you check the pay table, you will know how much the game is set to hold.

4. How does the slot guy decide which machines go and which ones stay?

And then of course, my usual Saturday night was spent walking our casino floor from about 9 pm until 1 am to see what was going on. Where are we busy? Where is it slow? Do I have good staff coverage? Are my players getting the right level of service from my team? How about the beverage service?

Prior to 9pm, it’s dinnertime and not that busy.

I would be in my office with slot financial reports, reviewing the results of each slot bank to see which machines were doing well, which were struggling and so on. 

5. How do you do a slot review, anyway?

Here’s how I would use this particular report. 

It’s sorted by column L, Net Win, but can be sorted by any of the column headings.

It is the one I liked to use the most, but there are many more. 

All the games are a 1¢ video game from Konami – a well-known and popular manufacturer, originally founded as a video game company in Japan in the 1970s, now based in Las Vegas and in Sydney, Australia. 

I always liked Konami games – great graphics, fun themes, pretty much bullet-proof, so very little down-time due to malfunctions or repairs.

And our players loved them, too.

The way I numbered my machine’s bank location was how I was taught – the machine closest to the front door was number 1, and then it would progress chronologically anti-clockwise through the rest of the bank.

Why would you do it that way, you may ask. 

Well, the answer is because that’s how my mentor did it, and the sun rises in the East. Any questions?

Let’s talk you through this ‘trailing 6-months’ report – this one’s a bit unusual, and very interesting:

Take a look at the last game on the report, it’s Theoretical Win (how much it should be winning based on how much play it’s getting) is $114,000. But its actual win is only $41,000.

Wow – why so different?

Because the machine is only holding 4.0% when its par hold is 11.2%.

So it’s paying out a lot more than its par would indicate it should be.

This is not unusual at all, although over a 6-month period it isl.

This report tells me how the games on Bank 12 are doing compared to each other, and the bank as a whole is outperforming the other games in the ‘Liberty’ section, based on the Section average WPMPD (win per machine per day) of $521.

The other banks in the Liberty section are winning an average of $326 per day. 

And btw – the ‘Util’ column lists the amount of play the game gets per 24-hour day. So the last game is in action an average of 27.8% of the day – which is equal to about 6.5 hours. 

And yes, the game has the longest play per day of any game on the bank. 

Of course it does – it’s paying back a lot, so the players can play for longer than the other games.

So what can I do to fix it underholding by more than 50%? How can I change it so we win more? What would I do about that game underholding by so much? 

And the answer is nothing. 

Most players’ view of value is ‘how long did I get to play’? And this machine allows them to play for a lot longer than usual. 

It’s a good theme, it has good play in a popular location, and it’s supposed to hold more than double what it is currently holding.

Will it ever revert to the mean? That is to say, will it ever be holding 11.2%? 

It might, but it might not. 

Some folks will tell you that it ultimately will hold more than 11.2% so that the hold percentage will get back to 11.2%. 

But that’s not true. 

Because past events have no bearing on future events with inanimate things like slot machines. 

Eventually, the game should be holding 11.2%, but there is nothing to indicate that it will get there by winning more than the 11.2% it’s supposed to hold.

Remember I was only a consultant at this casino with no final decision-making authority, and my recommended course of action with this game was . . .

Be patient, grasshopper, be patient - because right now, this game is helping my players feel good about playing at our casino, and it’s likely to improve its hold percentage going forward.

6. How did you decide which new games to buy, and which old games to change out?

As a general rule, the way the slot floor is managed goes like this:

Let’s say you have 1,000 machines (for easy understanding). 

There are 250 of each denomination, so 250 1¢ games, 250 5¢ games, 250 25¢ games, and 250 $1 games. 

The first step is to look at the coin-in for each denomination. 

In theory, they should all have about the same amount of play, and as we fine-tune the floor, that’s one of the final goals.

The $1 games would always outperform the others by a couple of points, so that is a given. 

But (to make it easy to explain how it works), let’s say the 25¢ games are outperforming the other three by 10%, and the 5¢ games are underperforming the others by 10%.

Of course, it’s never that simple, but you get the idea.

That’s my players telling me they like to play 25¢ games more than they like to play 5¢ games.

Then I look at the performance report that tells me which 25¢ game themes are getting more play. And which 5¢ games aren’t getting as much play as the top 5¢ games.

And it’s never about win/loss. Ever. It’s always about coin-in. 

And yes, you’re absolutely right. 

They vote by hitting the ‘SPIN’ button.

And then I make the decision to change out some of the 5¢ games that aren’t doing well for either better-performing 5¢ games, but more likely to add better-performing 25¢ games.

Depending on how much budget I have left, out of 250 x 5¢ games, I might convert 10 of the least popular 5¢ themes and add 7 of the best-performing 25¢ game themes and 3 of the best-performing 5¢ themes. 

Or perhaps convert 10 of the worst performing 5¢ games to 10 of the best-performing 25¢ games with no additional 5¢ games.

The more 25¢ games I add, the more diluted the coin-in will be, so you have to be careful about what you add and which themes you change out.

It’s a fascinating and enthralling juggling game, and I loved doing it. 

It was the most fun part of my job – spending a lot of time thinking about what I should do next, and then seeing what actually happened after I did it. 

Such a great feeling when I got it right.

I’d go to the casino about 4pm-ish, check in with the slot supervisors and manager(s), check with the Table Games guys to make sure everything was okay, check the Title 31 reports for any big players in house and so on, and by 6:30pm, I would be in my office.

(Title 31 is a government-mandated report that documents anyone making a cash transaction in excess of $10,000 within a 24-hour period).

And then came the fun part - figuring out what changes I wanted to make to our slot floor, all while listening to old blues records, or Robben Ford, or sometimes old Motown or 1980s Top 40, with a cup of coffee. 

I always seemed to be more creative with my casino floor when I did the reviews with music on.

The only other guy in the management offices on the weekend this late would be the Food and Beverage VP, listening to the Rolling Stones, Talking Heads and sometimes the Clash, or Debbie Harry.

And at some time during the night, we’d meet somewhere to touch base. 

‘How’s the buffet doing?’ ‘It’s busy’. ‘I thought so – the slots are rocking!’ 

It’s one of those things you learn over time. The buffet and the slots work in tandem. If the buffet is having a busy night, the slots are, too. 

If the slots aren’t very busy, the buffet won’t be either.

7. And where do they put most popular machines?

Ah yes – slot machine placement. 

I’m sure you’ve read the opinion pieces from guys who never worked in a casino – the high paying games in the back of the casino, the high paying games in the front of the casino and so on – all kinds of voodoo to see here.

Here’s my philosophy on where the best games go.

There is a limited amount of money in my budget to buy new machines. 

And a limited amount to change the game themes on poorly performing older games.

So how do I decide what goes where?

Casinos spend quite a bit of time looking at the traffic flow and patterns across our casino floor. Which slot areas have the most play, and which don’t? 

There are certain areas of the casino that are the most popular for slot players. 

A well-known casino designer called David Kranes once said, ‘people like to run away TO home’.

And he was absolutely right. 

They want to get away from the day-to-day problems they face at home and find an escape that offers them all the comforts of home, without the stresses and challenges.

So I place the most popular games in the places that the players like the best. 

Which are the little backwater slot aisles away from the main aisles, but close enough to be ‘involved’.

Because I know if the games are getting a lot of play, I’m going to win more money than if they’re not getting a lot of play. 

And the more popular games attract more players. So it’s kind of a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’.

8. How did you order new games from the vendors?

Every quarter, I usually had about $250,000 to spend on new slot machines. Which would give me 10 or so new machines. And new themes could run anywhere up to $3,000. For the year, I would have about $1.5 million to spend on new slot product.

We would go to the G2E show in Las Vegas in the autumn and see all the new games offered by the vendors. And plan out how we would spend the money – new games we would order, new themes to replace the older, poor performing themes.

Often, we would ask the vendors about new games they had sold to other casinos. 

And they would tell us which games were doing well and make suggestions as to what we might want to buy. Never talk about financial performance, how much a game is winning etc, but just how it’s performing compared to the other games on the other casino’s floor.

We became partners – because they’re not going to recommend I spend my money on a bad game. 

They want their games to do well on my casino floor. 

Because if I order games they have recommended that don’t do well, I won’t be ordering any they recommend in the future.

And we would always be aware of how the vendor’s business was doing. 

For example, it was a pretty standard practice that all the vendors would offer a discount for multiple orders. 

There was a well-known and popular Australian company who decided one year to give no discounts for multiple orders because their games were performing so well. 

We told them that at some point in the future, their performance would start to drop off, and I had a long memory.

Or the American heritage company that had overpromised and underdelivered for a couple of years. You really want me to buy your product now when you have failed me for more than a year and a half? You better sharpen your pencil!

And now we have online casinos, and where are the popular games? They’re usually in featured spots on the landing page of the website where the players are going to see them first. 

9. Why do slot machines have buttons now, not a handle anymore?

When the machines were called ‘one-armed bandits’, the ‘one arm’ referred to the handle that the players had to pull to activate the reels in the old-fashioned mechanical machines.

When Aristocrat debuted the first computer-based video games in the mid-1990s, we quickly realized that if we activated the machine with a ‘SPIN” button, we could run the games faster.

And that some players didn’t like pulling the handle.

It didn’t take long for the handles to go the way of the horse and buggy.

So now, the Random Number Generator in all the video games knows the combination of symbols it’s going to display as soon as you hit ‘SPIN. 

The machine could easily just reset the combination on the screen in less than a second.

But the machine manufacturers make it look like the video game ‘reels’ are spinning. 

Because that’s what the human playing the machine likes to see.

It’s slower – but still faster than the handle.

And why would we like the games to be faster?

That’s right – the more games that are played, the more money the casino wins.

10. Things that make you go Hmmmm . . .

There is no way to tell if a machine is due to hit. 

We humans like to see patterns – even if there isn’t a pattern to see.

And that includes the slot players. 

The thought process goes something like this: ‘The lady who just left this machine played for over an hour and didn’t get much – it must be due to hit’. 

Not so fast, Maestro!

On a 5-reel video game, there are over 34 billion combinations. So no, it’s not due to hit. 

Because it would take 14,000 years to go through those 34 billion combinations.

Yes, 14,000 years. No kidding. It’s Only A Loan . . .

The casino always wins. No, really. We always win. Maybe not today. Or tomorrow. 

But as dear old Frankie told me when I was just getting in the business, ‘Don’t worry if they’re killing you today, kid. It’s only a loan, and they will bring it all back to you. And then some.’ And he was right. It’s only a loan . . .

Except for the one guy who took his jackpot money and bought a new pickup truck with it. 

Or the lady who paid off her mortgage with the monster jackpot she hit.

Neither of which concerned me at all. I was happy for both of them.

Because even with those jackpots, the numbers at the end of the year were where they were supposed to be. Those big winners were factored into the slot math that was in the budget.

And the beat goes on . . .

Conclusion

So there you have it – the real ‘slot machine secrets exposed’.

My two cents is that the most important slot machine secret is to have a set-in-stone budget and stick to it.

And that includes a loss amount and a win amount.

Once you get to the ‘win’ amount, cash out.

And if you get to the loss amount, don’t chase it. That’s a recipe for catastrophe.

And be realistic about your win amount. 

You’re simply not going to win $5,000 from a $100 buy-in. 

So be realistic and understand that playing slots (and the table games, too) is all about having some great entertainment and enjoying your playtime.

And as always, good luck!