How To Play Slot Machines: Part 3.

STRATEGIES FOR PLAYING SLOT MACHINES:

The popularity of the slot machine is largely due to their ease of play, it is a simple matter of pushing a couple of buttons, or pulling a lever, and the rest is down to luck, no skill needed. The slot machine player has no influence over the outcome of a spin, over which combinations appear on any one spin, or when the jackpot will be won. There is no way of pre-determining when a machine will be on a pay-out streak (or ‘hot’) or on a losing streak (or ‘cold’).  There are still some things that can be known about the machine, and it is important to read the glass in order to learn what type of machine you are playing. The three main types of slot machines with reels are the buy-a-pay, progressive and multiplier versions.

Buy-a-Pay Slots: with these types of machines it is never recommended to play anything less than the maximum, where each coin ‘buys’ a particular set of symbols, or a pay-out line. So for example, just playing one coin at a time may mean that the player can only win when bars come up, whereas two coins will allow them to win if bars and cherries come up and a third coin may allow the player to win with bars, cherries and 7’s. You can imagine the frustration felt when only one coin is played and the jackpot comes in, if the jackpot is on 7’s, as they usually are, and the player walks away with nothing. Another variation on the buy-a-pay machines are the ones that allow each coin to activate a winning line, so the first coin may mean that you win if three symbols come in across the middle, a second coin may mean a win on the diagonal payout line, and so on. For the machines that use coins to activate pay-out lines the player can win on all symbols, but players lose if they only buy one pay-out line and the symbols match on a line that they have not paid for.

Progressive Slots: when playing on a progressive slot machine you should always play the maximum wager, this is how you win the full jackpot, if you do not play the maximum and the jackpot comes in you will still win, however it will not be as much as it would be if you would have got had you played the maximum. Progressive jackpot machines are linked to other machines in a network each coin played into each machine has a certain percentage taken off and placed in to a jackpot pool, and is then won by the first jackpot hit on any machine where the maximum bet was placed. If you do not play the maximum amount you had just as well play on another machine as you will not get the benefit of playing for the collective jackpot, which is the main feature of these machines. Some progressive jack-pot payouts have been huge; the record stands at $39,710,826.26 on a $1 progressive slot machine in Las Vegas.

Multiplier Slots: on these machines the pay-out are returned in relation to the value of the coin that has been played, unless the jackpot is hit. So for example, if you are playing at a machine that accepts up to five coins at a time and for on one coin the return for getting three cherries in a row is ten, then if you play two coins you will get twenty for a win, three coins will win you thirty, four wins forty and five wins fifty. At the same machine, getting three sevens may pay 500 for one coin, 1000 for two coins, but could jump all the way to 100,000 for the full five-coin maximum. This is why it is important to read the glass in order to establish if this is the case prior to playing anything less than the maximum number of coins.

If you can only play with fewer coins than the maximum wager, then your best bet is to opt for a multiplier where the difference between coins is marginal. The best solution however, is to play at a machine that allows you to play the maximum number of coins but within your budget, a $0.02 machine for example. Tailor you play to machines that you can play full-tilt and within your budget.

With video slot machines what appears to be a low value machine can actually cost quite a lot to play. For example, some of these machines have 20 pay-lines and let the player enter 25 coins per line, so even on a penny machine; the maximum bet is still $5- quite steep I think. Regular players of video slot machines will make sure that they cover every pay-line before they choose to opt for a greater number of coins per line. But again, video slot machines that are linked up to a network for a progressive jackpot will usually require the player to place the maximum bet in order to be in with a chance of winning the jackpot.

MANAGE MONEY WISELY:

As with all casino games the key consideration for having a good time is to ensure that you manage your bankroll efficiently, something that is quite hard to do with slot machines as they seem to invite you to keep adding more and more coins. The games are so fast that they consume money a lot more easily than other games; blackjack for example can last for an hour when playing with $5, whereas $5 at a slot machine will usually go in the space of minutes.

An approach to money management when playing slots is to divide your allocated bankroll into smaller portions, and play the smaller amounts one at a time. For example, if you go to a casino and want to spend two and a half hours, but you only have a bankroll of $100, then split it into five groups of $20 and allow yourself to play with one lot per half-hour. If you happen to be up at the end of one half hour session, then pocket this money and start the next set on time. If you lose it all within the half hour allocation period, then that session should be considered as over.

It may seem strange to plan a budget when gambling, but it really does help the gambler to stick within the limits that they can comfortably afford.

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