Best Odds Of Winning On Slot Machines
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- In fact, there are over 490,000 slots and gaming machines in Clark County alone (the county where you find Las Vegas). And they’re not just located in casinos. You can find slot machines in the airport, gas stations, and convenience stores. What is hard, though, is finding slot machines with the best payouts.
- If you’re in it to win it, one of the most popular questions you’ll hear from someone playing slot machines is, “how to find the slot machines with the best odds”? As simple as it may sound to answer, it’s not. Slot machines from a reputable casino use a special software called a Random Number Generator (or RNG).
Top 10 Slots with the Highest RTP – Play with the Best Odds By: Cat Marshall February 27, 2018 Whilst many people decide which slot to play based on the theme, special features or promotional offers, the savvy gamblers steer towards slots with the highest RTP.
On This Page
Introduction
The following table ranks the Las Vegas casinos according to the looseness of their video display reeled nickel slot machines. The returns are based on a sampling of five different types of machines. The data collected goes back as far as October 2001 so the information is a bit dated.
Las Vegas 5 Cent Slot Survey
| Rank | Casino | Average Return |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Palms | 93.42% |
| 2 | Gold Coast | 92.84% |
| 3 | Sahara | 92.81% |
| 4 (tie) | Bourbon Street | 92.63% |
| 4 (tie) | Imperial Palace | 92.63% |
| 4 (tie) | Slots a Fun | 92.63% |
| 7 | Key Largo | 92.60% |
| 8 | Western | 92.57% |
| 9 | Ellis Island | 92.56% |
| 10 | El Cortez | 92.56% |
| 11 | Orleans | 92.56% |
| 12 | Circus Circus | 92.56% |
| 13 | Gold Spike | 92.55% |
| 14 | Fitzgeralds | 92.54% |
| 15 | Fiesta - Rancho | 92.53% |
| 16 | Arizona Charlie's East | 92.51% |
| 17 | Barbary Coast | 92.50% |
| 18 | Terrible's | 92.49% |
| 19 | Arizona Charlie's | 92.49% |
| 20 | Hard Rock | 92.47% |
| 21 | Town Hall | 92.47% |
| 22 | Longhorn | 92.47% |
| 23 | Riviera | 92.23% |
| 24 | California | 92.14% |
| 25 | Lady Luck | 92.10% |
| 26 | Nevada Palace | 92.06% |
| 27 | Plaza | 91.94% |
| 28 | Luxor | 91.92% |
| 29 | Paris | 91.92% |
| 30 | San Remo | 91.88% |
| 31 | Excalibur | 91.84% |
| 32 | Palace Station | 91.84% |
| 33 | Ballys | 91.82% |
| 34 | Las Vegas Club | 91.76% |
| 35 | Four Queens | 91.75% |
| 36 | Texas Station | 91.71% |
| 37 | Casino Royale | 91.67% |
| 38 | Boulder Station | 91.55% |
| 39 | Aladdin | 91.5% |
| 40 | O'sheas | 91.48% |
| 41 | Hilton | 91.40% |
| 42 | Boardwalk | 91.28% |
| 43 | New York New York | 90.99% |
| 44 | Horseshoe | 90.96% |
| 45 | Sam's Town | 90.89% |
| 46 | Santa Fe Station | 90.87% |
| 47 | Flamingo | 90.86% |
| 48 | Golden Nugget | 90.85% |
| 49 | Stratosphere | 90.8% |
| 50 | Tropicana | 90.71% |
| 51 | Golden Gate | 90.64% |
| 52 | Silverton | 90.57% |
| 53 | Main Street Station | 90.56% |
| 54 | Westward Ho | 90.40% |
| 55 | Fremont | 90.37% |
| 56 | Castaways | 90.36% |
| 57 | Monte Carlo | 90.24% |
| 58 | Stardust | 89.97% |
| 59 | Frontier | 89.91% |
| 60 | MGM Grand | 89.81% |
| 61 | Harrahs | 89.32% |
| 62 | Treasure Island | 89.32% |
| 63 | Mirage | 89.3% |
| 64 | Caesars Palace | 89.05% |
| 65 | Mandalay Bay | 88.87% |
| 66 | Rio | 88.72% |
| 67 | La Bayou | 88.26% |
| 68 | Mermaids | 88.26% |
| 69 | Bellagio | 87.42% |
| 70 | Venetian | 86.66% |
| 71 | Airport | 85.02% |
Excluded Casinos
The Suncoast and Rampart Casino in Summerlin do not allow playing slots and taking notes at the same time. I can not include any casino that prohibits the method in which I gather data.
Location Averages
The next table shows the average return by location.
Returns by Region
| Location | Average Return |
|---|---|
| Off strip | 92.07% |
| Downtown | 91.66% |
| Strip | 91.47% |
| Total | 91.74% |
The above sign can be found across the street from the Palms. Although I did the study Anthony Curtis published it in the LasVegas Advisor, which is how it become well known. The'..' in the sign encompases quite a bit of information,which was conveniently left off the sign. Actually the study only says that the Palms had the lowest nickel video slotsof the casinos surveyed in Las Vegas. The small print at thebottom says, 'Independent study conducted between November2001-February 2002 on Austin Powers, Fortune Cookie, Reel'em In, and Wheel of Fortune games. They left off LeopardSpots, and the study began in October.
Observations
There seemed to be no truth behind slot placement myths. Machines on the end of a bank did no better on average than those in the middle. There was also no correlation between return and proximity to such things as the main door, table game pit, high traffic areas, and low traffic areas.
Most casinos were very consistent in their slot returns.If one nickel machine had a return of x% then all others like it also returned x%. However some casinos did mix up loose and tight machines, most notably Treasure Island and the California casinos.
Methodology
A kind and anonymous source provided me with par sheets for the games in question. The EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) chip is what tells the machine the order of the symbols on the reel, in some cases how the stops are weighted, how much each winning combination pays, and any other pertinent information about how much the machine pays.It is up to the slot manager to select which EPROM chip to order according to the return percentage desired. On atypical game there might be about 8 different possible return percentages, ranging from about 85% to 98%.
Each of the different par sheets has five sets of distinct reels. On video display slots the stops are not weighted; in other words all stops are equally likely. The distribution of each symbol on each reel is what determines the theoretical return of the machine. For example a higher paying machine may have more of the higher paying symbols.
On the machine itself three consecutive symbols arevisible on five different reels. By comparing actualobservations of results to the par sheets it is possible todetermine which reels the machine uses, and thus which par sheet and which return. There are various three-symbol combinations that appear in at least one but not all par sheets. So if one of these combinations occurs on an actualmachine it narrows down the possible par sheets. By playingenough the player can narrow down the possible par sheets tojust one.
Hollywood casino charlestown win loss statement. To help identify the unique combinations I wrote a computer program for each game, which had the exact reel order of all 5 reels of all the par sheets. The program then counted the number of par sheets with each possible three-symbol combination. If the number was greater than 0 and less than the maximum then that combination was identified along with the associated par sheets it belonged to.
It is then a matter of simply playing the game and comparing the outcomes to the list of partially unique combinations. It only takes about 5-10 plays per machine to narrow down the possibilities to just one par sheet.
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The averages in the table are actually an average of averages. For each kind of machine at each casino I took an average return. Then I took the average of these averages over the five kinds of machines I tested for.
Slot Machine Definition
There is some confusion about what constitutes a 'slot machine' or 'slot.' My definition, and that of most gamblers, is a gambling machine with either actual spinning reels or video representations of the them.
People in the gaming business and regulators generally refer to a slot machine as any gambling machine, including reeled slots, video poker, video keno, video blackjack,etc. For purposes of statistics both casino managers and regulators combine all the electronic gambling machines together. For example, the Slot Chart in Casino Player magazine and reports by the Nevada Gaming Control Board do not isolate just reeled slots but consider all electronic games a 'slot.' Therefore my return percentages should not be expected to agree with those reported by the casinos or regulators. As far as I know mine is the only source to isolate just the return of reeled slots.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Rob Feldheim for helping with the slot play and record keeping. Rob helped me with most of the casinos on the east side of town and part of downtown. I would also like to thank par Sheet Pete (not his real name)for providing the par sheets, without which this project would not have been possible.
Internal Links
Go to slot machine appendix3B (Jean/Primm slot returns).
Go to slot machine appendix 3D(Henderson slot returns).
Go to slot machine appendix 3E(Las Vegas quarter and dollar slot returns).
Go to slot machine appendix 3F(Montreal slot return).
Go back to slot machines.
External Links
The main-stream media has covered this study in depth. Here are links to some articles.
- Turning'em loose, an article that appeared in the Las VegasReview Journal on May 19, 2002, about the possible effectsof this study.
- One-Armed Bandit or Robin Hood? , an article by myself for Contingencies Magazine explaining the methodology, results, and weaknesses of the study.
- Play by the rules and the one-armed bandits will still win. Boston Globe article about slot machines, in which my Las Vegas survey is mentioned and my advice quoted. (cache)
Written by: Michael Shackleford
In a modern slot machine, the odds of hitting a particular symbol or combination of symbols depends on how the virtual reel is set up. As we saw in the last section, each stop on the actual reel may correspond to more than one stop on the virtual reel. Simply put, the odds of hitting a particular image on the actual reel depend on how many virtual stops correspond to the actual stop.
In a typical weighted slot machine, the top jackpot stop (the one with the highest-paying jackpot image) for each reel corresponds to only one virtual stop. This means that the chance of hitting the jackpot image on one reel is 1 in 64. If all of the reels are set up the same way, the chances of hitting the jackpot image on all three reels is 1 in 643, or 262,144. For machines with a bigger jackpot, the virtual reel may have many more stops. This decreases the odds of winning that jackpot considerably.
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The losing blank stops above and below the jackpot image may correspond to more virtual stops than other images. Consequently, a player is most likely to hit the blank stops right next to the winning stop. This creates the impression that they 'just missed' the jackpot, which encourages them to keep gambling, even though the proximity of the actual stops is inconsequential.
A machine's program is carefully designed and tested to achieve a certain payback percentage. The payback percentage is the percentage of the money that is put in that is eventually paid out to the player. With a payback percentage of 90, for example, the casino would take about 10 percent of all money put into the slot machine and give away the other 90 percent. With any payback percentage under a 100 (and they're all under 100), the casino wins over time.
In most gambling jurisdictions, the law requires that payback percentages be above a certain level (usually somewhere around 75 percent). The payback percentage in most casino machines is much higher than the minimum -- often in the 90- to 97-percent range. Casinos don't want their machines to be a lot tighter than their competitors' machines or the players will take their business elsewhere.
The odds for a particular slot machine are built into the program on the machine's computer chip. In most cases, the casino cannot change the odds on a machine without replacing this chip. Despite popular opinion, there is no way for the casino to instantly 'tighten up' a machine.
Machines don't loosen up on their own either. That is, they aren't more likely to pay the longer you play. Since the computer always pulls up new random numbers, you have exactly the same chance of hitting the jackpot every single time you pull the handle. The idea that a machine can be 'ready to pay' is all in the player's head, at least in the standard system.
When you hit the slot machines in a casino, you'll have dozens of gaming options. Machines come with varying numbers of reels, for example, and many have multiple pay lines.
Most machines with multiple pay lines let players choose how many lines to play. For the minimum bet, only the single line running straight across the reels counts. If the player puts more money in, he or she can play the additional horizontal lines above and below the main pay line or the diagonal lines running across the reels.
For machines with multiple bet options, whether they have multiple pay lines or not, players will usually be eligible for the maximum jackpot only when they make the maximum bet. For this reason, gambling experts suggest that players always bet the maximum.
There are several different payout schemes in modern slot machines. A standard flat top or straight slot machine has a set payout amount that never changes. The jackpot payout in a progressive machine, on the other hand, steadily increases as players put more money into it, until somebody wins it all and the jackpot is reset to a starting value. In one common progressive setup, multiple machines are linked together in one computer system. The money put into each machine contributes to the central jackpot. In some giant progressive games, machines are linked up from different casinos all across a city or even a state.
Some slot-machine variations are simply aesthetic. Video slots operate the same way as regular machines, but they have a video image rather than actual rotating reels. When these games first came out, players were very distrustful of them; without the spinning reels, it seemed like the games were rigged. Even though the reels and handles in modern machines are completely irrelevant to the outcome of the game, manufacturers usually include them just to give players the illusion of control.
These are only a few of today's popular slot variations. Game manufacturers continue to develop new sorts of machines with interesting twists on the classic game. A lot of these variations are built around particular themes. There are now slot games based on television shows, poker, craps and horse racing, just to name a few.
To learn more about modern slot machines, including strategies to increase your chances of winning, check out the links below.