Slots, slot machines, Fruit machines

First off online casino slots machines are not "fixed". When you press the spin button a random number is generated that decides where the reels will stop. This means each press has an equal chance of winning - if the machine has just payed out the odds of it doing so again are just the same as if it hasn't paid out for ages - its purely chance. This doesn't mean that the odds of the reels stopping on each element in the reel are the same though. Getting the jackpot far less likely than 3 cherries and the odds are calculated so that over time the casino will win, that said slots are still your best chance of winning really big at an online casino.

When you press spin a random number is generated by the Random Number Generator(RNG), this corresponds to a position on the Virtual Reel Table.

Most real world slots machines and even there online counterparts have 22 stops - this means there are 22 positions in which the reel can stop. So there are 22x22x22=10648 possible combinations. If each wheel has 1 jackpot symbol the odds of getting the jackpot would be 1 in 10648. Because casinos wanted to give jackpots bigger than 10000 x they had to come up with a new system or else make the reels bigger and bigger or add more reels to create more possible combinations. This is known to affect players as when you have bigger or more reels the chance of winning apppears greater to the player and so they are played less. And so the Virtual Reel Table was created, it allowed slot machine makers to give large jackpot on machines of a small physical size with only a small number of positions on 3 wheels. Because the reels of an online slot machine can have as many positons as need you don't really need to use a virtual reel table you can just have the number of positions on the reel that you need. But many do use still use the virtual reel table as they hope users will know notice that the number of reels positions are small. The method for calculating the exact weighting of each win as well as the overall payout percentage using the Pay Table is the same regardless.

The virtual reel table is used to assign a weigting to each position on the reel. This determine the odds of the display reel stopping at that positon. A virtual reel table can have any number of positions but it is normally a power of 2 with 64 being the most common.

Consider this example. We have a very small slot machine with only 5 physical stops on each of the 3 reels. So there are 5x5x5 = 125 possible outcomes. If we wanted to give $150 jackpot on this machine the casino would allways lose because for roughly every 125 spins a jackpot would come up paying out $150. So we use a virtual reel table to help us. Each physical reel has 5 stops and each virtual reel has 64 stops. There are 64x64x64 = 262144 possible outcomes from the virtual reels. Its important to remember that the physical reels are only display devices.

The RNG generates a number between 1 and 64 for each of the 3 reels. This number is mapped to a physical reel position using the table above. So a value of 27 gives physical position 2 which is an orange, a value of 12 would also give an orange.

getting 3 cherries is (30/64) x (30/64) x (30/64) = 0.103 or 1 in every 9.7 spins. The chances of getting the Jackpot are only 1 in 32768. Notice that most of the payback come in the form of low payouts as even though the jackpot is $2000 it occurs so rarely it doesn't effect the payout as much as more regular small payouts.

When you are making a slot machine you have to adjust the values in the virtual reel tabel & paytable to give you the desired payout.

As you can see only values of 63 or 64 from the RNG would give the physical position 5 - the jackpot. So even though the reel has 5 stops the jackpot symbol will only come up every 32 spins for each reel. This behaves exactly as big reel with 64 stops - its not really fixed, its just a more convieniant way of organising the reels. The only trouble is you don't know the real odds you are facing to win as casinos tend to keep the pay tables secret. The payout for each symbol gives you some idea of how likely each outcome is but its no guarantee that's why you should only play the slots at casinos recommended by GameDice. We go to great lengths to establish which casinos have the best payouts and only recommend those casinos.

Hit Frequency
The Hit or Win Frequency has to do with how often a slot machine will return some number of coins back to the player. In our example the hit frequency is about 1 in 6 (1 divided by the sum of all the probabilities). Online casinos try and set the Hit Frequency so that the player maintains an interest in continuing to play the machine. Of course all slot machines can be setup with different Hit Frequencies. But you should be able to get an idea by looking at the paytable. If this contains a large number of different winning combinations and a relatively small Jackpot then this machine is likely to have a more frequent Hit Frequency than a machine that has only a few winning combinations and a larger Jackpot.

How can I use this knowledege to help my slot playing?

Well to be quite honest because slots playing is fairly simple there's isn't a great to learn. So by far the most important thing to do is to make sure you are playing at the casinos with the best payouts. But there are a few other things you should do and I'll discuss those now;

1. Playing the maximum coins will normally increase the payout percentage for the slot. For example if a machine has Jackpots of ; 1 coin 10000, 2 coins 20000, 3 coins 50000 then the payout percentage will be slightly greater when you play the maximum coins so you should try and do this.

2. When progressive slots get to very high levels they can actually be exhibiting a very high payout percetage perhaps even over 100% at that point. In these situations the odds are likely to be much better than you'd ever get in a national lottery. Check out the big progressive slots such as Major millions etc.

3. Try and play each machine for at least 10 spins before moving onto to another. Most machines with low first first line payout will have a hit-frequency of between 6-10 so try and play that many times to give yourself a chance getting some kind of return from your money.

4. Don't play keep playing until you get a win above a certain level. You can keep pumping coins in never to get the win you are after. Start with a certain amount of money - play that number of times then log off.

5. Quit when you're ahead. If you've won some money make the most of it and log out. If you keep playing then eventually the casino is likely to get its money back.

6. Don't think that it doesn't matter if you lose money that you've won as it not your money. As soon as you win its your money and when you lose you are losing money regardless of what you started with.

Some common online slot machine misunderstandings

- Each stop on the reel has an equal probability of stopping at that position ?
As explained above this is not true some stops are far more likely than others, depending on the virtual reel table.

Slot machines are programmed to go through a cycle of payouts ?
This is not true. Every spin is random and independent of all past spins. 2 Jackpot could come up one after the other although the chances of this happening would be very high.

Slot machines are programmed to pay out a particular percentage of the money bet. So after a jackpot is hit the machine will tighten up to get back in balance, and when a jackpot has not been hit for a long time it is overdue and more likely to hit?
The machines are indeed calibrated to payout a given percentage but this is done through the allocation of the frequency of items in the virtual reel table as described above. The odds don't change from one spin to the next whether a Jackpot has been hit recently or not. Over time the machine will tend towards the payout percentage but this doesn't mean the machine will tighten up after a Jackpot.

There are books and website telling me the "secrets of slots machines" will they help me win?
No, absolute rubbish and a complete waste of time and money. By far the best thing you can do is make you bet at the casinos and machine with the best payouts.

If it stops just next to the Jackpot then it was near miss and the machine wants to pay out?
No, its tempting to think that, and the casinos know this which is why they set up the slots with a high weighting for the positions next to the jackpot. It might be only the next position to the jackpot but the fact is this means nothing and more importantly it wins you nothing.

I hope this article was informative and helped dispell some of the common mis-understandings people have about slot machines. Good luck and most of all enjoy your playing, you should play for fun not as a way to make money, that won't happen unless you are very lucky.

Slot machines & Fruit machines

Slot Machines

This page contains information on how online casino slot machines work as well as strategies for playing them