Slot Machine Facts and Fiction

Fact

• There are loose machines; they will pay out more than others, but knowing where they are is virtually impossible. Furthermore, a high payback doesn’t guarantee each player a good return, rather it indicates a better return from the machine over its entire lifetime.
• Each spin in determined by a random number generator meaning that each spin is an individual independent occurrence with no relation to the outcome of the previous spin.
• This means that strategies may be useful in terms of controlling ones bankroll, but you are never going to tease a machine into paying out through a strategy.
• It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been playing a machine for, it is as likely to pay out on the first spin as the hundredth.
• Some slot machines follow patterns for higher payouts; the result of the spin can not be effected by a player, however what he does in the advanced stages of the game may be learned. When a slot machine, or fruit machine pays out in the non-initial stages it is due to the players skills and not the machine.

Myth

• Slots have a time when they are ready to pay out. This is a myth that has been instilled in slot players the world over but it is simply not true: a machine is never ‘due’ to pay out, it never decides that its box is full. The payout is based solely on the result of the random number generator that provides the machine with its reel results. These results are completely random and are unaffected by the last time the machine paid out.
• The patterns and sequences of a slot machine can be predicted. Not True! The RNG that provides the results of the slot machine take all possible combinations of results and randomly selects one; predicting this outcome is impossible.
• You’re more likely to win if you only put in one coin at a time. This is not true; the money system and the random number generator have nothing to do with each other. If you’re going to win the jackpot, you’re going to win the jackpot irrelevant of how many coins you put in.
• Pulling the arm yields higher wins than pushing the button. Simply not true, again the RNG is unaffected by the means of operation.

Essentially slot machine myths arise because people want to believe, but once you understand that the results of a spin are created by an RNG that is not effected by any thing other than itself you will be on the way to being able to separate the plausible from the implausible.

Rene Hewett - News Reporter