Tricks To Winning Slots
Readers ask if quick reflexes are the key to winning
By John Grochowski
I keep a list of questions that I’m most often asked about slot machines. You could probably tick off some of them: “Are games programmed to go cold after a big win?” “Do you get less payback when you use your rewards card?” And the big one, “Can you tell me how to win?”
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Those have been standards ever since I started writing about casinos and casino games 20 years ago. But recently, another question has been shooting up the charts. I have it all the way up at No. 2 on the readers’ hit parade:
“I’ve noticed on a lot of video slot games that if I hit the button a second time while the reels are spinning, they stop right away. I was wondering if I could use this to my advantage. If I see the bonus triggers or the jackpot symbols at the top, should I quickly hit the button again and try to stop the reels?”
I had that thought myself the first time I accidentally double-hit a button and saw the reels click to an immediate halt. Could this be an answer to the chart-topping question, “how to win on the slots?”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. In nearly all slot games that allow you to stop the reels, there is no skill or timing involved on your part. The random number generator has already determined your outcome when you hit the button to spin the reels, and you’re going to get the same result regardless of whether you stop the reels early, or let them halt in their own time.
When you play a slot machine, the game isn’t actually being played out on the reels, whether it uses “real” reels or video reels. It’s being played internally, on the game’s random number generator. The reels are just a player-friendly interface, and are told where to stop by the RNG. If there’s a malfunction and the reel display doesn’t match the numbers generated, it’s the RNG that counts. Large jackpots can be denied—and have been denied—if a check shows the random numbers on the internal computer chip don’t match the winning symbols on the reels.
But this is extremely rare. The engineering is good enough that almost all the time, the RNG and reel display are going to match up. This doesn’t change if you double-hit the bet button. If the RNG has spit out a random number that tells the first reel to stop on a single bar, then you’re going to get a single bar—regardless of whether you hit the button a second time for a “quick stop,” or just let them take their own sweet time.
There are rare exceptions. When I’ve answered similar questions in the past, I’ve mentioned IGT’s Reel Edge games. In their original incarnation, Reel Edge games enabled players to touch and stop the reels one at a time. There was actual skill involved. Your timing in stopping the reels determined the outcome. The reels spun very, very fast, so it was going take a keen eye and sharp reflexes to get better than random results, but it was possible.
I gave it a try, and found my reflexes just weren’t fast enough to generate more than my normal share of winners. In the original three-reel Blood Life game, I identified a green 7 as the easiest symbol to pick out as it whizzed by. I touched each reel individually as I saw a green 7 reach the top of the slot window, and managed to stop 7s on all three reels. Alas, I failed to land them all on the same payline. Some younger folks with quicker reactions may have been able to do better.
I don’t know if any of the first generation of Reel Edge games remain on casino floors. They were never widespread, and I don’t get lists from casinos or manufacturers telling me what games are available in any given casino. The new generation of Reel Edge puts the skill-based portions of the games in the bonus events.
Blood Life’s updated video incarnation, Blood Life Legends, allows you to test your skill with a joystick to guide a bat through the ups, downs, twists and turns of a cave as you try to collect gems for bonuses. There is actual skill involved, but it’s not the reel-stopping experience readers have been asking about.
On most slot games, even in the bonus events you’re getting an illusion of skill rather than actual skill. And when it comes to stopping the reels, it’s the random number generator, not your reflexes, that determines the results.
What about my readers’ other top questions?
To answer another—no, games are not programmed to go cold after big wins. Results remain as random as humans can program a computer to be. As long as the RNG keeps doing its thing, any big jackpot, any hot streak, and any cold streak eventually fade away into statistical insignificance, and the machine comes very close to its expected payback percentage.
No, you don’t get less payback when you use your rewards card. The player rewards system doesn’t interact with the RNG.
And no, with rare exceptions, there is no way to beat the slots except by being in the right place at the right time. There have been opportunities for small profit on games with banked bonuses such as the old WMS game Piggy Bankin’, where the sharpies would start to play only when there were enough coins in the bank to give the player an edge.
Such games are not common. Just as with stopping the reels early, your results are up to chance and the RNG.
Introduction to High Roller Slots Tricks
This blog continues our journey of winning strategies for slot machine casino gambling. Here, I’ll be explaining to you three easy high roller slots tricks. Now, please understand I’m not trying to turn you into a full-time high-limit slot machine gambler! Not at all!
As I’ll explain, there are some very inexpensive slots winning strategies which can be applied to more than just low limit slots. They can also be rather cheaply used, with only a few bets, on a $1 to $5 denomination high limit slot machine.
The three tricks you should know about involve applying a few of the winning strategies I’ve already discussed, as well as a new slots strategy, winning strategy #6, I’ll be explaining in full momentarily. Here goes!
This article has the following sections:
- Introduction
- 1st Trick: Use Winning Strategy 1 in a High Limit Slots Area
- 2nd Trick: Combining Winning Strategies #1 and #7
- 3rd Trick: If a Slot Machine Shows a Win, BET ONCE
- How Long Does a Slot Machine Need to be Idle?
- Play High Limit Slot Machines When Appropriate – Carefully!
- Summary
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1st Trick: Use Winning Strategy #1 in a High Limit Slots Area
One interesting pattern I’d noticed at a relatively medium-sized casino had to do with a simple observation. At this local casino, I saw that I would win once when I first sit down, but not win again for some time.
This pattern recognition is a slots strategy I’ve mentioned before, explicitly Winning Strategy 1: Only Win Immediately and my Professor Slots podcast episode #23.
By using this approach, we can take advantage of a common practice found at many casinos, where they provide an initial winning taste.
The first dozen times I visited the high limit slots area at this small, local casino, I found it odd that I would win a jackpot during the first few pushes of the button. But, then, I would spend thousands of dollars without so much as another hit.
I don’t mean I wouldn’t have another taxable jackpot, but that I wouldn’t win anything whatsoever. It just seemed odd. Or, put another way, it was statistically unlikely to be randomly happening so consistently and often, visit after visit after visit.
As an aside, don’t worry too much about all the money I was spending. Unbeknownst to me at the time, each $100 spent these three months earned one more entry for the drawing of a car – which I would end up winning. I tell that story in:
As a second aside, the money I was spending was significant slots winnings from another local casino where I was consistently making quite a profit using Winning Strategy 7, the topic of my next blog article.
2nd Trick: Combining Winning Strategies #1 and #7
Let’s back to the story of what I learned and how I learned it. At the time, I even struck up a conversation with one of the slot operators. In that helpful interview, I asked them when were people winning jackpots and on which machines were they doing it?
This slot attendant helpfully told me about a slots player who had recently gone from one machine to another winning about eight total jackpots in a row in the high limit slots area.
I found this other slots player’s approach very intriguing, to say the least, and have since tried to employ my Winning Strategy 7 alongside playing each machine up to 5 times. By doing so, I’ve found that my annual return for this strategy alone resulted in a 150% profit over my original bankroll.
However, I’d only been using this strategy for four months since this casino opened, and felt I’d need to continue doing it for about a year to be convinced that it wasn’t either temporary or due to having limited data.
Today, I see this as an error on my part, and probably a severe loss of winnings. Winning slots strategies exist, and you can find them yourself – if you can believe your own eyes.
The area most people get stuck on is this: They don’t believe these strategies are possible, and it’s hard to try it yourself they do when you’ve already convinced yourself it’s impossible.
It doesn’t help that most winning strategies are relatively new, and based on the latest casino technologies that started being installed in new casinos since 2012.
Getting down off my usual soapbox, and back on topic, I have found this combination of winning strategies to be the cheapest approach yet to slot machine gambling, while resulting in the highest profit margin.
Using it at my local casino required only $500 per visit and $250 in return on most visits without a taxable jackpot. But then there are the taxable jackpots won, which are more than a few of the typical jackpot winnings on high limit slot machines.
As I’m sure you understand, a single $4,000 taxable jackpot pays for many subsequent visits.
Again, so far, this is all further storytelling about the experiences which resulted in my discovery of Winning Strategy 1 and how to best use it in conjunction with another winning strategy I knew. But, next, I learned a strategy I didn’t already know.
3rd Trick: If a Slot Machine Shows a Win, BET ONCE
By using these known strategies, yet another approach grew out of them. It’s easy, simple, and quite inexpensive. And, it’s completely counter-intuitive to what most slots players will tell you to do. But, because they feel this way is the reason why it works.
Tricks To Winning Slots Prizes
Slots players will tell you it is essential to check the machine’s last play. If it shows a winner then, in general, skip that machine. Don’t play it, is the general advice. I say phooey, but with a small caveat I’ll pull from Winning Strategy 1.
My third trick is this: If a slot machine is showing a win, BET ONCE. However, avoid that machine if it’s been played recently.
For this to work, if it is going to work, a slot machine showing a win needs to be idle for a while, and probably hasn’t been idle if its chair is still pulled out. That the chair is even pulled out is a beautiful clue it was used relatively recently.
Why does this work? At some casinos that set up their slot machines to offer an initial taste, the first push of the button of a high limit slot machine will win either a “small” nontaxable jackpot worth several hundred dollars or a more massive taxable jackpot over $1,200.
For example, I happened to be in the casino one Saturday evening, to take care of some tax paperwork having to do with winning a car the night before, and noticed that one of the $100 high limit slot machines was showing a $1,000 win. I didn’t think much of such a small jackpot, as it was not even taxable, but it was something I noticed.
When I went back to the casino the next morning, I noticed that that same machine had the identical winning reel combination showing on it. To me, this indicated that no one had played that machine for just over one day.
At first, I didn’t think much of it. But then, standing there looking at it, I got to thinking about my strategies. And, standing there thinking it through, I learned something.
Previously, my strategy was not to play any slot machine if it showed a win. But, I started to think, what if I was winning at one push of a button on machines that hadn’t been played for some time? Was this perhaps a refinement of a known strategy?
As usual, theory metaphorically in hand, I decided to test it. I walked over to the $100 machine showing the $1,000 win, placed my player’s card along with $100 in the machine, pressed the bet button, and immediately won a $5,000 taxable jackpot.
To date, this is the only time when I’ve won any taxable jackpot on a $100-denomination slot machine. Although, using this strategy at the same casino, shortly later I did win $500 with a single 1-credit bet on another $100 slot machine.
How Long Does a Slot Machine Need to be Idle?
One loose end with using this strategy is the question of how long does a slot machine need to be idle for it to turn into a winning slot machine via this strategy? The honest and straightforward answer is: I don’t know. But, consider my observations.
I’ve found more slot machines are winners with this strategy if I attend the casino on a Saturday morning (especially after a busy Friday night) or mid-afternoon on Sundays.
That’s because these are typically the most extended times when slot machines aren’t played, and being idle for some time matters. But, how long does it need to be inactive, you ask? I’m still piecing together clues about this.
Another clue comes from Eric Rosenthal, from whom I have second-hand information. He knows someone he trusts from within a slots manufacturer who told him that slot machines reset whenever a voucher is printed.
That’s interesting. If true, it means idle means no time at all. So, that information alone may be enough to tell you how long idle is – but I don’t think so.
Why? Because I’ve seen 30 minutes work when an immediate next player did not. Other times, I’ve seen it work after it’s been idle for hours only. Another area of uncertainty is maybe, more like probably, different casinos are set up differently.
But, I have put some effort into trying to figure this out. After some thought, one week later I went back to the casino and took handwritten notes of all the current spin reels showing on all the high limit slot machines at that casino.
Slightly over a day later, I went back to that casino with the intent of executing the usual strategy but brought extra cash with which to push the button once on any high limit slot machine still showing the same reel spin from the previous day.
Unfortunately, that day was a beautiful day in January with moderately high temperatures not seen in months. Somehow, for this reason, the casino and high limit slot machine room were incredibly busy.
I mention this because, when checking the reel spins on each slot machine, I found that ALL slot machines had been played. I then went ahead playing my usual strategy and, to my slight dismay, I didn’t win a single time despite four immediately prior visits where I made 50-60% over the bankroll I’d brought.
What I learned from this confirmation, such as it was, was that it was the wins I had seen when using my unrefined strategy of 5 pulls then stop was occurring on slot machines which had not been played for a while. That is to say, I had been winning on idle slot machines.
So, during busy periods in the high limit slot room which, by the way, isn’t necessarily the same times when the overall casino itself is active, I learned that I shouldn’t use this strategy. Not then, anyway.
All I can say is, where casinos have set up this winning strategy, winning slot machines need to be idle for a while. This bit of information may not seem like much – but it’s something once considered impossible which evidence now suggests isn’t any longer.
And, being the savvy slots enthusiast I know you are, I expect you’ll make the most out of it.
Play High Limit Slot Machines When Appropriate – Carefully!
So, let’s continue to talk about getting the most out of my winning strategies. The whole point of these specific strategies is that they don’t require much money to try out. Not to be too blunt about it, why wouldn’t you try out inexpensive strategies in the high limit slots area?
I suppose I first noticed this myself at Seminole Brighton Casino in Florida in October 2019 and earlier at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut in April 2018.
Only afterward did I think, while I’m here why don’t I try out the winning strategies I’ve just figured out in the high limit slots area?
Unfortunately, this idea came to me only after I left both places. But, here it is for you. If you have figured out a winning slots strategy that appears to work at a casino, consider trying it in the high limit slots area.
This suggestion is especially valid if the specific slots strategy you’ve found to work outside of the high limit area doesn’t require much bankroll to win. If only a small bankroll is needed, or if you’re willing to risk a larger bankroll if it doesn’t, consider one way to optimize your strategy – by bringing it into the high limit slots area. Carefully, of course.
Tricks To Winning Penny Slots
For those who have read my blog article Seminole Brighton Casino Florida Trip Report, these follow up thoughts for using a working strategy on high limit slots should work quite well there.
However, for those who have read my blog article Easily Win a Little at Slots at Foxwoods Casino Connecticut, I’d caution against this approach there.
Tricks To Winning Slots Poker
As Dr. Mike from the You Can Bet on That podcast very well knows (I was sitting near him at the time), you can win a couple of hundred dollars on a high limit slot machine there within the first few bets.
But, the problem is, you can do the same thing on a low limit slot machines. So, use the winning strategy I described outside of the high limit area to bet less for corresponding winnings. Your profit will be more substantial.
Summary of High Roller Slots Tricks
In review, I’ve pointed out the easy application of two past winning slots strategies, along with a new winning strategy, which would require only a few bets on a high limit slot machine.
From a high level, the three easy high roller slots tricks I’ve outlined are merely pointing out that the winning strategies you worked hard to uncover at the casino you frequent can be leveraged, perhaps even optimized, in the high limit slots area with relatively little risk.
Because, finding that a winning strategy which works
If your gambling goal is entertainment, as with more slots enthusiasts, then getting a W-2G for having won a taxable jackpot would be exciting. I know my first W-2G was very exciting and, quite honestly, you never really get tired of winning them.
Tricks To Winning Slots In Vegas
If your gambling goal is earning comps, then you’ll undoubtedly earn players clubs point by making bets on high limit slot machines. But, more importantly, some or all of winnings received in the high limit slots area can be spent on low limit slots.
Finally, is winning take-home money your gambling goal? Well, you’ll earn that money with little cash spent. If, as always, the casino you’re at has been set up by their operator such that one or more of these approaches will work.
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