Slot Machine Odds List
25¢ Slot Machines The Strip - 89.34% Downtown - 93.91% Boulder Strip - 95.77% N. Las Vegas - 96.27%. $1 Slot Machines The Strip - 92.34% Downtown - 94.12% Boulder Strip - 95.49% N. Las Vegas - 95.62%. $1 Megabucks Machines The Strip - 87.31% Downtown - 86.40% Boulder Strip - 87.61% N. Las Vegas - 86.98% All Slot Machines The Strip - 91.84% Downtown - 92.22%.
So who pays for those Volcanic eruptions? Pirate Battles? Carnival Parades? and Glittering Showrooms? Slot Machines. 60-65% of casino revenue is generated by those bell-ringing one armed bandits that seem to multiply on casino floors like rabbits. So how does the average player gain an advantage and possibly win? Well... aside from cheating (which we really don't suggest you get involved in) the only way to gain some sort of advantage is to choose your slots with utmost care and discrimination.
Slot machines in Las Vegas are required by law to payout 75% of the money that goes into them, actual payout in Las Vegas is approximately 95%. Will you be the one that takes the money instead of gives it? That is up to luck, but with a little investigation one can easily learn to identify which machines are more favorable to the player than others. Slot machines are all about the payout... Red White and Blue, Double Diamond, Dick Fucking Clark, Cherry whatever. At the end of the day what every slot player needs to do is look at the pay schedule on the machine they want to play. Very often the same machine one row over will pay 5,000 credits on 3rd credit jackpot while you're playing on a 2,000 3rd credit machine. Plain and simple you're cheating yourself.
Slot Spotlights
A few notable slot machines we here at VT have found more playable, or more interesting, than the other nonsense out there like Leprachaun's Gold or Tabasco Slots or whatever.
We like machines that have the best payouts on the lowest winning spins. These will keep you going longer between larger wins and not enact the ATM-In-Reverse principle seen at many of the larger joints (Venetian being the worst we've experienced).
100 or Nothing
Red, White and Blue
Slot Machine Jackpots Photo Gallery
Wheel of Fortune
Wild Cherry
Slot Machine Payback Percentages
Below are the slot payback percentages for Nevada's fiscal year beginning July 1, 2002 and ending June 30, 2003:
5¢ Slot Machines
The Strip - 90.32%
Downtown - 91.50%
Boulder Strip - 93.03%
N. Las Vegas - 92.97%
25¢ Slot Machines
The Strip - 92.59%
Downtown - 94.83%
Boulder Strip - 96.47%
N. Las Vegas - 96.63%
$1 Slot Machines
The Strip - 94.67%
Downtown - 95.35%
Boulder Strip - 96.48%
N. Las Vegas - 97.21%
$1 Megabucks Machines
The Strip - 89.12%
Downtown - 88.55%
Boulder Strip - 87.76%
N. Las Vegas - 89.41%
$5 Slot Machines
The Strip - 95.33%
Downtown - 95.61%
Boulder Strip - 96.53%
N. Las Vegas - 96.50%
All Slot Machines
The Strip - 93.85%
Downtown - 94.32%
Boulder Strip - 95.34%
N. Las Vegas - 95.32%
The Math of Casino Slot Machines
For every dollar you wager in a slot machine, you will lose 100% - Payback% of that dollar. For example, you're at Bellagio playing the $1 Double Diamond slot, wagering Two Credits ($2) per spin. According to the table, for every $2 spin you will lose 5.33% of that bet... just shy of 11¢. Granted these 11 cents don't get extracted instantly... this is computed over time. So if your bank roll limit is $10 it will take you, on average 52 spins before your bankroll is toast (under $1) and you are out of credits.
How was this number derived:
STAKE x (Payback Percentages) = STAKE x (Payback Percentages) = STAKE x (Payback Percentages) = ...
Repeat calculation until the number gets below the minimum bet - if you play long enough, you're gonna go broke. THAT is a FACT. Slot machines are entertaining, relaxing, require little thought beyond pressing a button. IF you want to truly GAMBLE, you might want to look into Video Poker, and eventually Blackjack as other options.
Granted, sometime in there you just might hit that $500 win on the Wheel of Fortune, or The Elvis progressive might shake rattle and roll $1000 your way... but the math inside the machine determines that you will in fact lose a certain percentage of your wager on each spin, and the more you spin... the more you will lose despite short runs of successful jackpots. If you find you are UP... leave. Every spin of a slot machine generates a random number that has NOTHING to do with previous numbers. SLOT MACHINES do NOT run in streaks (even if you might wish to think they do). Don't expect to get any of the money you put into a machine out of it unless you learn to press the CASH OUT button.
Gamblers Library
VT fully recommends the following books to help you decrease the house advantage on casino card games.
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Slots odds are the probabilities of getting a winning combination on the reels. They depend on the type of slot machine you play. Originally the odds were very easy to calculate as the only thing the players had to consider were the number of reels and the symbols used on each of the reels. As a result, the 3-reel slot machines are traditionally believed to be better for player's winning chances, and thus the more reels and symbols on them, the lower a player's advantage.
How to Calculate Odds
The odds of getting any combination on the slot reels are easy to calculate if you know the number of symbols used on each reel. Let's take a closer look at the odds and consider an example:
If you have to make a line of 3 diamonds on one payline to win the jackpot, it is most likely that each reel has only one diamond symbol on it. If the machine is a 3-reel one and there are 20 symbols on the reels, the chances of hitting this combination are:
Possible combinations on the reels: 20 x 20 x 20 = 8000. The odds of getting this combination are 1 in 8000. For a 5-reel slot machine the chances are even less: 20 x 20 x 20 x 20 x 20 = 1/ 3,200,000 (1 in 3,200,000). The slots probabilities are usually shown as a percentage, so for 3-reel and 5-reel slot machine with 20 symbols on each reel we have these probabilities:
However, the number of symbols on the reels can differ from machine to machine, and that is why the slots odds are different. Here we look at some more examples of slot machines containing 3 and 5 reels each with different number of symbols on them - for these examples: 20, 22 and 25.
Slot Machine Type | Number of Symbols | Number of Combinations | Odds | Probabilities |
3-reel | 20 | 8,000 | 1 in 8,000 | 0.0125% |
22 | 10,648 | 1 in 10,648 | 0.0093% | |
25 | 15,625 | 1 in 15,625 | 0.0064% | |
5-reel | 20 | 3,200,000 | 1 in 3,200,000 | 0.0003125% |
22 | 5,153,632 | 1 in 5,153,632 | 0.0000194% | |
25 | 9,765,625 | 1 in 9,765,625 | 0.00001025% |
Slots Payback Percentages
Slot Machine Odds In Las Vegas 2019
The slots payback or return is the amount of money the slot machine pays out as winnings, against the total number of credits wagered by players. The payback is always shown in percentage.
Slot Machine Odds Las Vegas
The main idea behind counting the odds in slot machines lies in understanding how the machine pays out money. Unlike what many people believe, not everything is random in a slot machine. Slots are programmed to pay out a certain percent of the money put in with each play.
For example, one machine may pay back 80% of bets while another one may pay back 91% and even 100%. This means that for every dollar put in the machine the casino takes 9 cents and pays out 91 cents. But it does not do it for every dollar put in, it just pays out explosively and this is what makes the game so great.
You must remember that there are two basic types of slot machines. These are:
- Loose slots are slot machines that are programmed to return 82-98% of the wagered money, or even more if you play slots online. As a rule, high-denomination slots pay out more than those offering, for example, $0.05 or $0.25 bets. For more about typical paybacks on different slot machines please read the strategies page.
- Tight slots are machines that pay out less than 80% and sometimes down to 50% of the wagered money. To avoid playing at these slot machines try not to gamble in motels, airports, bars, gas stations, etc. The payback percentages vary from casino to casino and that is why it may be difficult to find the best machine in the gambling hall.
As you understand, one of the best slots tips on how to win at slots is always to look for the loose machines. It can be easy if the gambling hall shares this information with the visitors. In any case you can gamble on the Internet as most online casinos provide the statistic data about their slots games. So, when choosing one of the casinos recommended by SlotsDoc.com you can expect such paybacks: