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HOW TO WIN AT ONLINE SLOTS
By Joey Marino and Jody Nguyen
We have some good news to tell you and some bad news.
First, the good news: We’re gonna win!
And the bad news? We’re not gonna win every time we play.
You gotta know that up front, Mutts. We’ll have some wins and some losses, and that’s inevitable. This is the real world we’re livin’ in, not fantasyland. We play slots because we love hitting a big score on a small investment, but we’re also playing for fun. That means, Mutts, that you should never play with money you can’t afford to gamble with. If you are stressed out because you are playing on your rent money, you might start making bad choices, start playing scared. You can't do that, Mutts. Never chase your losses.
If you are playing mainly for fun, you should play the machines that are best for lasting a long time. But if you’re really going for a big win, and you can accept the fact that your whole deposit might disappear before you get much action, you should play a slot that’s got more big payouts and fewer of what we call the puppy pays.
You’ve Gotta Pay Attention to the Slot’s Pay Table
The pay table tells you how often that slot returns a big payout and how often it returns lots of smaller payouts. Here’s a Slot Dogg tip for you, Mutts: The more symbols there are, the more combinations they will make. And the more combinations that pay, the more small payouts you’ll see on the pay table.
But remember that you don't want to aim for such a big score that you use up your whole bankroll trying to hit it! Slot machines only rarely hit the top jackpots, so don’t play your rent money expecting to hit one every time. Think in advance about what kind of a win you'd be happy with, and when you hit it, consider stopping and enjoying your profits.
So, lots of symbols and win combos (and also lots of paylines) means lots of puppy pays. Now don’t get me wrong… A lot of days I go for the puppy pay slots because on those kinds of slots I can sit and play all night. You just can’t expect to have as many big scores on those types of machines.
Unless... Making Your Own Jackpots
Since I like to play for a score—a big return on a small investment—one thing I always look for on the slots that pay on a lot of combos and lines is the “Gamble” feature. On slot machines with this feature, all your wins can be gambled for double-or-nothing up to five times.
Playing those puppy-pay machines is great for getting hours of play in on a small deposit, but it can also be sort of like chasin’ your tail if you know what I mean. Round and round you go and you just never hit a big score. But that gamble button is a great way to go for a big score on a machine that’s otherwise a puppy-pay all-nighter. Check it out, Mutts: If you gamble a 10-coin payout five times and win all five double-or-nothings, you’ll turn that 10-coin hit into 320 coins! Now, you're talkin'!
If you're going for a score, check this out too: Look for the bonus slots where wins are tripled during free spins, rather than just doubled. That way, when you hit, you're lookin' at a win you can feel.
But Where Do You Find the Best Slots with the Best Bonuses?
Hey, am I just barkin’ into the wind here, Mutts? We already checked ’em out for you, so get on over to our Best of the New Online Slots reviews and Best Online Casino Bonuses page and look at the deals we found.
And we will keep updating these pages so come back often. You are part of the Pack now. I spend about 45 hours a day surfing the Web just to find these deals, so you don’t have to. We assume you’ve actually got a life and can’t spend this much time online. Me, I got nothin’ better to do with my time. You know what they say: It’s a Dogg’s life!
And Now: More On How Slot Machines Work, or... Slot Science 101
By Professor Joey “the Slot Dogg” Marino
Class is now in session, Mutts.
I’ll bet a lot of you Mutts don’t know how these bandits work, but I’ve been sniffin’ around these things a lot.
Old-Time Slots
The old-time slot machines were mechanical. You pulled the handle and the reels spun till they ran out of juice and came to a stop. The size of the housing and the wheel drums pretty much dictated how many symbols they could fit on each reel.
There would typically be something like 11 symbols on each reel. Since the reel could also stop on a space between two symbols, you could expect to hit the jackpot once every 22 x 22 x 22 = 10,648 spins.
That was then, Mutts, this is now.
Slots Today—A Different Breed
With today’s slots—whether you’re playing online or in a Vegas casino—there are no physical “reels” that spin. It may look like something’s spinning, but it’s just a video graphic—a cartoon animation, nothing more. The only reason they make it look like spinning reels is because that’s the slot tradition.
When you hit the spin button, that just starts up the cartoon so it looks like the reels are spinning and you get that same anticipation that got people hooked on the slots in the old days, waiting and hoping and praying that the reels would slow down at just the right speed to stop on a pay combo.
But here’s what’s really happening, Mutts. There’s a little computer chip that has a program called a “random number generator” on it. And that random number generator works by doing some kind of Chinese algebra problem, over and over again, each time coming up with a different set of numbers that are the numbers that really determine where the reels are going to stop. So while you’re watching that cartoon of spinning reels, the machine already knows the answer to whether you're getting a payout or not. The software is just makin' us wait to find out.
What this also means is that modern slots don’t have the physical restrictions of the old-time machines. They can not only put as many symbols on each reel as they want, but they can set them up for whatever hit frequency they want—no problem-o.
The “Payout Percentage”
Now listen up, Mutts, because this is important. Slots are programmed to return a certain percentage of all the money wagered in them. Since a computer program has the payouts set for every pay combo, and the program knows exactly how often each combo will hit, the casino can adjust the percentage paid out either by altering the actual payouts for one or more of the pay combos, or by changing the percentages of times the combos will hit.
Now, trying to get this information out of the casinos is like asking the Department of the Treasury for the combination to the main vault at Fort Knox. But one thing we do know is that every casino is gonna set their slot payouts at less than 100%. Hey, Mutts, they’re in the business of making money, just like us, right?
But here’s something you might not know: There are government gaming commissions that actually publish the payout percentages for all of the casinos in Las Vegas, Reno, Mississippi—everywhere. And, if you know where to look, you can also find this information for the online casinos. And I’m going to tell you where to look, Mutts: right here!
Just go check out my Best Online Slot Payouts page and you’ll see the type of stuff this Dogg’s been digging out to help you make the money. The info in my charts is based on the actual payouts the casinos made on their slots—not some theoretical percentage based on their types of slots and payouts. Occasionally, you’ll see a payout percentage of more than 100%, but you can be sure that’s because some lucky dogg hit a big jackpot that month, not because all of their slots are cranked up to put them out of business.
One really important thing you should know is that the online slots pay better overall than the slots in live casinos. That’s a fact, Mutts!
And you know why? Because the online casinos don’t have to pay a couple thousand employees’ salaries every week, and they aren’t pouring expensive booze down the throats of all their customers 24 hours a day for free.
Do you have any idea how much money Caesars Palace in Las Vegas pays its dealers and cocktail waitresses every week, to say nothing of the pit bosses, the floor men, the surveillance crew, the cashiers, bellhops, hotel clerks, lounge singers, janitors, maids—and we haven’t even gotten to the high-paid personnel like the casino managers, shift managers, marketing reps, hosts, business managers, and about sixteen levels of vice presidents?
Most of the online casinos are just much more efficient gambling businesses, with relatively low overhead expenses.
And what’s important to us about all this is that in the long run, if we play slots that give back a higher payout percentage, the overall results of our play will be a lot kinder to our bankrolls. We’ll keep more of our profits when we win, and we’ll lose less on our losses when we lose.
The “Hit Frequency”
When I used to do most of my playing in Reno, I was always looking for the “loose” machines. I’d spend an hour or so just watching other people play, especially when I saw a new type of machine. If I saw lots of payouts, that’s the machine I’d pick. Even today, this is how most slot players choose machines in live casinos. We all like getting paid frequently because it means we’ll last a long time, even if the pays aren’t all that big.
Today’s 9- and 15- and 20- and 25-payline slots actually have much higher hit frequencies than slots used to have. Casinos learned that slot players were looking for these “loose” machines, so they designed these new multi-line machines with all kinds of “wild” and "scatter" symbols and other special features that would crank up the hits.
But if you play these machines that pay on 15 or 20 different zigzag line combos, the fact is that lots of your hits will actually be less than your bet! If you’re betting on 15 lines, with five pennies per line, that’s a 75-cent bet on every spin. You might be hitting a pay combo on half or more of your spins, but a lot of those pays will be for 10 cents, 25 cents, 50 cents, less than you bet.
So, I always devote a certain percentage of my total slot play—about 10% to 20%—to playing on machines that have a lower hit frequency. These machines pay less often but when they pay, they pay much better. I use these machines to take a shot at a big score now and then, and when it pays off, I’m one happy Dogg.
Choosing an Online Slot—the Slot Dogg’s System
I’ve got it down to an art form, Mutts, so listen up!
1) Payout Percentage: I look at the casino’s slot payout percentage. (And I do this before I go to Reno too.) If I see one casino is consistently paying out 95% to 97%, and another casino is always paying out 92% to 94%, you know where I’m putting my money. It’s a no brainer. You’d think the dumbest flea-bag in the kennel would figure this one out, but you know what? Most people never even look at this stuff!
Now I’m not saying that I never play in a casino that has a lower payout percentage, but they’ve gotta have something else going for them, like a great bonus offer. I might play at some 92% return joint if they’re giving me $200 in bonus money—and sometimes they do!
But, the first thing I look at is what I call the raw bucks angle. What percentage of my dollar are they giving back in payout, and how many dollars are they giving me in bonus?
2) Hit Big or Last Longer? Next I must decide if I want to play a loose slot—where I’ll last a long time—or a tighter slot, where I’m willing to risk going broke, but I can score a nice win if I get lucky.
This decision is entirely based on my mood, my attitude, and the state of my current bankroll. And this is always a decision you’ll have to make for yourself. I can show you what the recent payout percentages are, and I can steer you to the best bonuses. But you’ve gotta decide exactly how much you feel like gamblin’ right now.
What I can help you with, however, is telling the loose slots from the tighter slots so you don’t end up gambling when you feel like lasting, or vice versa. Here’s the scoop:
The more symbols there are on the reels, the more lines you can play, and the more combos the machine pays off on, the more frequently you’ll hit. These are all the factors that make for a loose, long-lasting, play-all-night slot.
On the other hand, the fewer symbols there are on the reels, the fewer lines you can play, and the fewer combos the machine pays off on, the bigger not only the big payouts tend to be, but the bigger the smallest payouts are too! This is a tight machine where you might go broke fast, but you have a better chance of hitting a big score when you hit.
And one more way to go for a big score: Don't always bet the minimum! Bet big on one of those 9- or 15-line slots. You hit a bonus screen or some free spins when you're betting big on one of those machines, and Mutts, you will have the happy experience of a payout you can feel. For more winning advice on slot strategy, see the tips at Online Slot Strategy, another online slot player's site that knows the score.
And Don’t Forget to Keep Runnin’ with the Dogg Pack!
Before you ever play in an online casino, you make sure we're giving them a top rating in our Independent Online Casino Reviews.
I do everything I can to protect my money online, and you have to protect yours. I won’t steer you wrong, Mutts. We're giving you the straight dope on these joints and every casino we recommend has earned our recommendation by treating us and every other online player we know fair and square.
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