How Slots Work
- Slot machines work the same way. Slots usually have three reels but sometimes also have five reels. The reel is the image that spins in the front of the machine. It has multiple symbols on it, and if you line up certain combinations of symbols, you win money.
- Slot machines test your luck and intuition, and, despite the simple rules, they are not boring in the slightest. Slot machines use catchy music, fun graphics, and interesting symbols to hold the player’s attention. But how slot machines work?
There are a lot of myths relating to how slot machines work and most are based on the way the the original games worked. In the early days of slot machines they were simple mechanical games where each symbol had exactly the same chance of appearing on each spin. This made it very easy to work out the odds of winning.
Slots work in cycles of wins and losses Completely untrue as each and every spin is random from one another. It is just as likely to win from five spins in a row as it is to lose from five spins in a row. You could win two big payouts consecutively or go 10 spins with no win at all. The first in a series of videos explaining how slots, both online and land based, work. This video gives the basics of how slots work as well as dispelling a. Slot Machines Have Progressed a Lot. At casinos you will find modern slot machines that look the same as the old machines. But if you think, the way how slot machines work has not progressed at all, it’s really like that. It’s just the design that is the same. The working principle is much different from what it was before.
For example if a game had nine symbols on each reel you had a one in nine chance of getting any particular symbol or a one in 729 chance of getting the three jackpot symbols. The fact that reels could only accommodate a certain amount of symbols resulted in much lower jackpots than you would find today. To offer bigger jackpots the slot makers turned to computer technology. This started the transition to the modern day slot machine.
How Slots Work
Today there are no purely mechanical slots found in any casino so the math listed above no longer holds true. We still see articles where the odds are explained as above and this is one of the reasons why this myth has perpetuated. So how do slot machines really work?
All modern day slot machines work in the same way. This might seem strange considering there are thousands of game variations and many different categories that slots can fit into. The basis of all of the slot machines you can play today both at traditional casinos and at casinos on the Internet is the random number generator or RNG.
The random number generator is the heart of a slot machine and is used to control all outcomes on the reels. When you press the spin button or pull the handle a number is instantly generated. This number corresponds to a certain group of reel positions. The outcome is decided as soon as you activate the reels so the actual spinning is purely for entertainment purposes.
Many players think that three reel classic slots have better odds of winning because you can calculate the payout based on the amount of symbols on the reels. This was true when slots were first invented but today this is incorrect as the reels can have hundreds or thousands of virtual stop positions that you cannot see. This mixed with blank reel sections and symbols control the games payout percentage.
Video slots work in the same way although they rarely have blank reel positions. Instead the virtual reels can contain hundreds or thousands of symbols. The position and number of symbols on each virtual reel control the games overall payout percentages. The symbol positions never change unless the payout in changed.
Each and every spin has exactly the same chance of winning. The odds of winning do not change based on the amount of coin in or the amount of spins played. This is one of the most important aspects of how slots work. Every spin is random but the odds of getting big wins are lower than the the odds of getting small or no wins at all. This is due to the symbol positions on the virtual reels.
Most amateur gamblers believe that if a slot machine hits the jackpot, then it immediately goes ‘cold’. They also believe the opposite is true; if a machine runs cold for hours, then it’s ‘due’ for a big payoff. But if you look inside modern slot machines, you learn the cold hard truth. Every single pull of the lever has equal odds of winning, and those odds are steep.
Since the earliest mechanical slot machines, gaming manufacturers have weighted the machines to tweak the odds. If you look closely at the reels of old machines, you’ll find many more blanks and low-scoring symbols than pots of gold, especially on the third or final reel. This creates the famous ‘near miss’ effect.
Modern slots have replaced the gears, cranks and stoppers with precision step motors and random number generators (RNG). When you pull the crank on a modern slot, a built-in RNG selects three numbers between one and 64. Each number corresponds to one of 22 spots on the three reels. The trick is that half of the numbers between one and 64 correspond to blank spots and only one random number matches the jackpot symbol. The odds of nailing the jackpot are 1/64 x 1/64 x 1/64 or one in 262,144.
The lever is just for show. Three internal step motors spin each reel and stop them precisely at the positions chosen by the RNG. Still feeling lucky?
How Slots Machines Work
Return vs payback
There is no such thing as a ‘loose’ or ‘tight’ slot machine. In modern casinos, slot machines are programmed to deliver a precise return percentage, somewhere around 95 per cent. That means 95 per cent of the money that goes into a slot machine is paid back out to the players and the casino keeps the rest.
But here’s where things get tricky. The return percentage is not the same as the payback, which is the actual amount of money you win or lose during each gambling session at a slot machine. If you sat down at a slot machine for eternity and pulled the lever an infinite amount of times, your payback percentage would be exactly 95 per cent. Likewise, in a casino full of gamblers, the collective machines will pay back roughly 95 per cent of the total money gambled during the course of a day.
Unfortunately, you are only one person and you don’t have infinite pulls. So your odds of winning are equally good or bad every pull. You could lose all day and that doesn’t mean the machine is rigged. And it doesn’t mean that the guy who wins the jackpot found the ‘loose’ machine. He just got very, very lucky.
Top 5 Facts: Gambling stats
1) Big jackpot, big odds
The odds of winning the jackpot on a ‘progressive’ slot machine like Megabucks is one in 50 million, although if you are that one you’re likely to become very rich.
2) ‘Easy’ money
68 per cent of people who gamble at Las Vegas play the slot machines most often. And there’s a large target market as nearly 90 per cent of visitors to Las Vegas gamble.
3) The house wins
In the United States, gaming was a $92 billion industry in 2007, double what it was a decade ago. And in the UK, there were 143 casinos as of 31 March 2009.
4) United States of Slots
Even though Nevada is widely considered the gambling state, there are 37 US states with some form of legalised electronic gaming device like slot machines or video poker.
5) Vegas’ most wanted
The Nevada Gaming Commission maintains a list of 35 people who are not allowed in any casino or gambling establishment. Only one of them is a woman.
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