Slot machine secrets casino don't want you to know

If you like to play slot machines, both online or in a casino, there are a few tips you should know before depositing your money. For example...

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A slot machine will usually pay out more often when it tests its jackpot (every couple of hours). This could be anywhere from once an hour to once every few days depending on the amount of traffic the game gets.
Most casinos have workers walking around with a hand-held device that looks like this: These devices are used to test their slot machines right then and there. Hold your finger over the serial number - it's usually in the bottom left corner. I can almost guarantee you that you've never seen it because it's very hard to spot. These machines are programmed to pay off just before they're tested then go back to their normal stingy selves after the tester walks away. Of course this isn't true. That would be way too honest of casinos. So what is all that about? That's just a microphone connected to a walkie talkie. The person on the other end is pretending to play a slot machine while giving instructions to the worker carrying the device. The worker listens into the walkie talkie to hear which slot machine the "tester" wants to test next. In reality, these devices have nothing to do with paying slot machines. However, they do serve a purpose. Each slot machine has a ticket or voucher printed out periodically that shows how much money the machine has made since the last time it printed one out. Casinos use these tickets to balance the books. When a customer cashes in a large jackpot the casino will add up all the vouchers they collected from that machine and ensure that the total matches the amount of the jackpot. It looks cool though, doesn't it? I remember when I first started visiting Las Vegas and saw a worker with one of these things I was convinced it did what you thought it did. As for the jackpot testing theory... Well, that's actually true but it's not as exciting as you might think. There's no special button casino workers press to make the jackpot trigger - they simply spin the reels like you do. The only difference being they know which buttons to press in order to trigger the jackpot test (usually a combination of coins values and paylines selected). Casinos do these tests every few minutes and at popular slot machine locations they'll even tape a little slip of paper over the screen with the current jackpot amount on it. Here's a picture I took inside Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Notice the cord hanging down from the top of the machine. Every machine that's currently being tested has a cord hanging down from the ceiling with a printer attached to it. When the machine is tested a receipt prints out that shows how much money is now owed to the machine. Casino workers collect these receipts and keep track of each machine's earnings until the nightly balancing takes place. Another thing you might have noticed in the above photo is the red light on top of the machine. When a slot machine is HOT the technician will cover the light with a red filter so lessients can't look in the casino and see how much money is in the hopper. When the light is unfiltered it contains an infrared sensor that's used to remotely print a jackpot receipt. Now that we've got that mystery solved let's answer some common questions about online slots people usually google to find their way here.

Do Online Slots Pay Real Money?

Yes, real money online slots will pay you real money when you win. In fact, winning big on online slots is far more common than you might think. One quick Google search will reveal countless stories of regular folks who've turned a few bucks into thousands by playing online slots. Receptionist Liz Powell won £5.7 million. She said she was going to quit her job and spend more time with her cats. Hopefully she trained them to bring her drinks in bed because otherwise she'd always regret not teaching them that skill first. Retired shop assistant Jennifer Justesen won $17.2 million while wearing a bra that her husband gave her for Christmas. She was planning on donating the bra to charity but figured she should probably wait a few days and wear it for good luck first. (She should have known that bra was cursed.) And let's not forget about Anne Winslow, a 64 year old grandmother from Wales who won £9.1 million while wearing a pair of pajama pants her grandson had doodled on. The drawings were of cars, trucks, unicorns and rainbows. She said they didn't bother her because she knew what was real and what her grandson had added with his magic Crayola markers. Note to self--when hitting the slot jackpot ALWAYS wear clothes covered in crayon drawings. Casino directors will think twice before accusing you of being a gold digger. Some people prefer to wear their significant others instead of their significant others prefer to wear them. Your choice. As you can see, playing online slots can literally change your life. All it takes is a small deposit and a few clicks of your mouse. Okay, maybe it takes more than that. You also need luck on your side. Some people get lucky multiple times while others never win no matter how hard they try. It all evens out though when you consider the people who win millions and then promptly divorce their husbands/wives and give their kids new last names. Should we count that as "losing"? I guess it depends on how you value the "happily ever after" part. Personally I think marrying the love of your life and starting a new life together without the burden of debt sounds like winning to me. But hey, what do I know? I still believe in the tooth fairty. Speaking of losing, yes, it is possible to lose all the money you put into online slots. Never more than you can afford, of course, because responsible gambling means setting limits for yourself and never exceeding those limits no matter how tempting it may be to fund a slot machine's hopper with one last push. Luckily most reputable online casinos will prevent you from depositing more money if you already have several pending withdrawals in queue. They don't want to finance your lifestyle any more than you do. In addition to limiting your deposits most good online casinos will also let you limit how much you can bet and how much you can lose in one session. If you try to place a bet outside your specified betting range the casino will usually decline the bet and refund your money. Same thing if you're getting close to your loss limit - the casino will suspend play and refund all the money you've put in up to the amount you were willing to lose.

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How Much Bankroll Do You Need for Online Slots?

How long is a piece of string? The amount of bankroll you need to play online slots depends entirely on how much each bet should be. A good general rule of thumb is to give each slot spin away a percentage of your total bankroll - say, 1% to 2%. If you've got a $200 budget for the day/week/month/decade, that would allow bets between $2 and $4.

Most online casino terms and conditions state that each new account begins with its entire deposit available for withdraw, but it's always a good idea to declare your bet size up front with whichever casino you choose to play at. Some places specifically prohibit low miner bets (e.g. Spinning max coins with a $0.01 coin value) and will suspend your account if they catch you doing it. Better safe than sorry, especially when sorries are worth more than your entire bankroll. On that note, though, it's generally better to be a high roller when playing online slots. Not only can you place bigger bets but many progressive jackpots won't pay out unless someone has bet the maximum number of coins (or, in modern terminology, played the maximum number of paylines).

Progressive jackpots are one of the main reasons why anyone would choose to be a high roller, but there are other benefits such as increased odds of winning, higher return to player percentages (RTP), free spins, and access to bonus games inside the slot machine.

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That's not to say low wagering slots aren't without their own advantages. For example, you can stretch your bankroll a lot farther when only betting $0.10 per spin as opposed to $5.00. Even though your wins will be proportionately smaller, you'll still have more opportunities to win - and sometimes volume is more important than value.

Another advantage to low rolling is that it reduces the speed at which you can lose your money. When spinning at $5 a pop it's really easy to lose track of how fast several hundred dollars can disappear. At $0.10 per spin you could place 500 bets before even realizing you've lost $50.

If you don't enjoy the rush of adrenaline that comes with risking large sums of cash, low limit slots are definitely the way to go.

What Is the Best Time of Day to Play Online Slots?

Some people swear that slots pay out more frequently during certain times of the day. For example, just before the house opens in the morning and just after the house closes at night. Others claim that mid-afternoon is the best time because that's when the lunch crowdy has cleared out and the bar crowd hasn't shown up yet. Still others say the best time to play online slots is in the middle of the night when nobody is home to monitor payouts.

This is all nothing more than wishful thinking. Slot machines operate completely on their own. They aren't aware of what time of day it is and they certainly don't know whether a casino is open or closed. That means they operate entirely on random number generation (RNG) software and will pay off at random intervals regardless of the time of day.

In case you were wondering, that's actually a good thing. If slot machines only paid off during certain times of day that would become common knowledge pretty quickly. Hordes of players would camp out at those machines around the clock, turning what should be a fun pastime into a dog eat dog survival of the fittest. Wouldn't that suck?

The RNG software inside slot machines is regularly audited and certified to ensure that every spin really is a random occurrence with no outside influence. Reputable online casinos use auditors such as eCOGRA, GLI, iTech Labs, and TST to verify that their RNG algorithms pass statistical tests for randomness and fairness.

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You can read more about how online slot payouts are audited on our page about .

Are Online Slots Rigged?

As long as you're playing at a reputable online casino, no, online slots aren't rigged. They operate using Random Number Generation (RNG) software to ensure that every symbol on the reels is determined completely at random. This makes it impossible to predict what the outcome of any given spin will be.

Online slot machines are audited regularly to ensure that their RNG algorithms are working properly. If any deviation from true randomness is detected, the casino will either replace the software or risk losing its license to operate.

The return to player rate (RTP) for online slots is also closely monitored to ensure that players have a reasonable chance of winning. Most online slot machines have an RTP of 93% to 97%, which means for every $100 bet, the machine will pay out $93 to $97.

Of course, that's just an average. Sometimes you'll win more and sometimes you'll win less. The point of the RTP measurement is to ensure that players eventually receive 93% to 97% of everything they feed into the hopper - not that that necessarily helps when it's YOUR money they're keeping.

Should You Believe Online Slot Win Stories?

Absolutely. Why wouldn't you? Just because the internet is filled with cat videos, memes, fake news, and pictures of Nathan Fillion doesn't mean everything you read online is a lie. Besides, even if most people exaggerate their slot machine wins just a little to fit within the standard format (started with $10, bet max coins, hit the megawatt jackpot on the first spin), that doesn't make their stories any less believable.

What's the standard format, you ask? Well, let me show you...

Starting Bankroll: $10

Strategy: Bet max coins with a $0.01 coin value (also known as a "granny style")

Result: Hit progressive jackpot worth X millions of dollars

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It's almost like a fairy tale, isn't it? And just like fairy tales, they always have a happy ending. We never worry about what happens to Cinderella after the ball - we just know that she lives happily ever after. Cue the wedding bells and glass slippers tied in a cute little bundle. The end.

But hold on just a minute here - can we apply some critical thinking skills to this scenario? Let's run through the math really quick.

$10 starts + granny style bet = ???? results

Even if Cinderella spun the reels a billion times, there's absolutely no way she would have come up with a progressive jackpot. The most likely result here is that she would have lost all her money in a matter of minutes. The only explanation is that Cinderella's starting bankroll wasn't really $10 - it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000 to $100,000.

But why lie about this? Isn't it just as impressive to hit a massive jackpot without sinking your entire life savings into a slot machine? Yes, it surely is. But people seem to think that in order to win big, they must have looked like chumps initially. No one wants to appear foolish, so they inflate their starting bankroll and voila - instant rags to riches story.

As for betting max coins with a $0.01 coin value, that supposedly qualifies them for a jackpot that's larger than the national debt. Sure, betting one cent per payline might be enough to activate a secondary jackpot or a few extra zeros on a regular jackpot, but it's never going to trigger a progressive. Those things only pay out when a certain threshold is reached - typically a specific amount of money wagered or a predetermined length of time with no one hitting the jackpot.

What Is the Biggest Online Slot Jackpot Ever Won?

The biggest online slot jackpot ever won weighed in at an even $23 million even. That's enough zeros to make my calculator cry. The winner chose to remain anonymous, which is a shame because I was really looking forward to writing a limerick about him.

From what I can gather, this lucky bastard was Finnish. No word on whether he had any cats, but I did read that he had recently cashed in his company shares just one week prior to hitting the jackpot.

He said that quitting his job and playing online slots full-time was just a joke he told his boss, but we all know what that's code for, amirite?

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This record breaking jackpot was hit on Mega Fortune Dreams, a progressively jackpot network slot available at , , BetAt.ek, and several other reputable online casinos. As of the date of this publishing, the current jackpot on Mega Fortune Dreams is €2,671,861. Not too shabby, eh?

By comparison, the biggest land based slot jackpot ever won was $40,140,764.73. Jon Hayward hit this colossal jackpot on Bally's Super Wheel Multiplier Megapays progressive slot machine on September 27, 2003. He was playing with $100 credits that he had been accumulating during his four week stay in Las Vegas.

Initially the casino's automatic jackpot validation system claimed that he had only won $20 million or so, but after some negotiation and proof of his windfall to Bally officials, that figure was corrected. After taxes Haywerk took home about $26 million, which is still enough to make most people's eyes water.

What Is the Most Popular Online Slot Game?

That would be Starburst, hands down. This simple but elegant 5 reel, 10 payline video slot was developed by NetEnt and was first introduced to the world in July 2012. Since that time, hundreds of thousands of people have spent billions of cumulative spins trying to hit the star field bonus round, which takes over the entire screen and gives players 3 reps and spins to lock a row of Starbursts for a line multiplier payout.

Starburst Quick Facts

Developer: NetEnt
Year Introduced: 2012
Reels: 5
Paylines: 10 (fixed)
Coin Size: 1-100 credit(s)
RTP: 96.01%
Bonus Round: Yes
Free Spins: No
progressive Jackpot: No
Notable Features: Autoplay, Multiple Stakes, Auto Play
Available on Mobile: Yes

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So, what's the appeal? There are flashier slots out there with more advanced bonus rounds and progressive jackpots that routinely pay out millions of dollar. Why does everyone flock to Starburst like seagulls at the beach?

I think it mostly comes down to simplicity. With so many new slots being released every month, it's easy to feel overwhelmed when staring at a bank of gaming machines. Which one should you pick? What if you pick the wrong one? Whaat if everyone is watching you and judging you?

Starburst says, "Forget all that. Just put your quarter (or pound) in and mash that big SPIN button." It's liberating in its own way. Plus, those sparkling gemstones are pleasing to look at - almost hypnotic. Before you know it, you've blown through your bankroll and can't remember anything besides those colored blobs dancing behind your eyelids.

Also contributing to the popularity of Starburst is its high Return to Player ratio. RTP for this slot game averages at 96.01%. That means for every $100 wagered, the machine will pay out $96.01. Compare that to the average RTP for most online slots, which falls in the range of 93% to 97%.