There are thousands of slots at casinos and online, with new slot titles being dreamt up all the time. While millions of people enjoy these games, few know how they work behind the scenes. On this page, we explain how slot machines work and the essential playing concepts that can make a difference for your bankroll.

To demystify this amazing invention, here is a look at how slot machines work in a casino and what variables you should keep in mind as you play. Traditional Mechanical Machine Designs Slot machines have existed for well over a century, and while mechanically-operated examples are less common today, they are still worth considering as plenty. If you sat down at a slot machine for eternity and pulled the lever an infinite amount of times, your payback percentage would be exactly 95 per cent. Likewise, in a casino full of gamblers, the collective machines will pay back roughly 95 per cent of the total money gambled during the course of a day. How does the RNG software work on a slot machine The outcome of each spin is random. Your odds of hitting a jackpot do not increase based on the number of spins. Each time you press the spin button, the slot machine will generate a random sequence of numbers that determine the outcome of that spin.

Slot Machines How They Work

Slots have evolved drastically from the first mechanical three-reel devices. These days, most slots are electronic, showing animated symbols on HD screens. Many have elaborate themes, some tie-in with popular music, TV or movie franchises. Bonus games might vary widely, though the underlying technology based on random number generator (RNG) software is standard for all games.

Slot machines work the same way. Slots usually have three reels but sometimes also have five reels. The reel is the image that spins in the front of the machine. It has multiple symbols on it, and if you line up certain combinations of symbols, you win money.

Below, you’ll find out more about how RNG software works, key factors like return-to-player (RTP) percentages and the many varieties of slots available.

Also, we share how to take advantage of bonuses and loyalty schemes to get the best bang for your bucks from slot play. If you’re looking for a spot to play slots online, we recommend the list below. Most of the casinos offer games similar to those you find in your local casino.

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If you’re going to play slot machines, you should understand how slot machines work.

That sounds obvious, but you’d be amazed at how many people have no idea how these games really work.

In this post I explain how slot machines work in simple terms that anyone can understand.

How Do Slots Work

What Is a Slot Machine?

Real money slot machines are the basic gambling machine at most casinos, and slot machines generate 70% to 80% of most casinos’ revenue. In some casinos, they make up even more than that. They’re called slot machines because you used to put coins in a slot to play them.

Slot machines differ from other gambling machines because of the way the outcomes are generated. A video poker game is also a gambling machine, but it’s not a SLOT machine. Neither is a video blackjack game.

What makes a slot machine game a slot machine game are the spinning reels.

In early mechanical versions of the games, you literally had big metal reels powered by springs and levers. They spun and landed on various stopping points when the kinetic energy that caused them to spin was all faded.

Modern slot machines use a computer program to determine the outcomes. The spinning reels are just for show, even on machines that LOOK like they’re using physical reels.

But many – if not most – modern slot machines just use a computer monitor with animated reels to determine outcomes.

How Does a Slot Machine Come Up With a Random Result?

Modern slot machines used a computer program to determine the outcomes. This program is called a “random number generator” or “RNG.”

Here’s how the random number generator works:

It constantly “thinks” of a range of numbers. Each number corresponds to a combination of symbols on the slot machine reels and the payline. When you press the spin button, the random number generator stops on that combination.

The manufactures are also able to use this technology to “weight” certain combinations more than others. When mechanical slot machines were all the rage, the odds were easy to calculate. If you had 10 stops or symbols on a reel, the probability of one of those stops landing was easy to calculate. It was 1/10.

How Does A Slot Machine Work At A Casino

But with a computer program, you could easily have a symbol that comes up once every 20 spins, another that comes up once every 5 spins, and another that comes up once very 10 spins.

These changes in probability can even happen from one identical machine sitting next to the other.

I’ll have more to say about that in this next point:

How Slot Machines Make Money for the Casino

All casino games give the house a mathematical edge. This is usually based on something simple – in blackjack, for example, the player has to play her hand first. In roulette, you have two green numbers, but the payout odds would be break-even if all the numbers were black or red.

With a slot machine, the house makes its money simply by paying out at lower odds than the odds of winning.

Each prize amount on a slot machine has a probability of happening. When you multiply that probability by the prize amount, you come up with the “return” for that combination.

Add all those returns together, and you get the total return for the machine.

That return is always less than 100%.

Here’s an example:

You might have a 55% probability of getting no win at all. This would apply to all non-winning combinations, so the return for any of the non-winning combinations would be 55% X 0, or 0.

You might have a 20% probability of getting a single cherry symbol that doesn’t match anything else on the machine, and that might pay off at even money (1 for 1). The return for a cherry-blank-blank combination would be 20% X 1, or 20%.

You then might have another 20% probability of getting a 2 for 1 payoff for any combination that includes a bar symbol and no other matches. The return for a bar-blank-blank combination would be 20% X 2, or 40%.

If you had no other combinations, the overall return on this game would be 40% + 20% + 0%, or 60%.

This means that on average, over a staggeringly large number of spins, you’d wind up getting back 60% of the money you bet.

At $3 per spin over 1000 spins, you’d have bet a total of $3000.

The odds say that you would have gotten $1800 in winnings, for a loss of $1200.

Of course, a real slot machine pay table would have more than three possible prizes, and at least one of those prizes would be large. The average slot machine has a 1000 for 1 jackpot for its top prize.

How Do Bonus Games and Other Slot Machine Features Work?

Modern slot machines have a staggering array of special features, too. One of the most prominent of these features are the slot machine bonus games.

Here’s how that works:

Some combinations of symbols result in a mini-game that you get to play. It’s called a bonus game. It might be as simple as getting 10 free spins, each of which is guaranteed a winner. It might be more involved, like getting to play a Space Invaders type game where each alien you shoot has a prize amount associated with it.

Scatter symbols are also popular. A scatter symbol is a symbol that triggers some kind of payout regardless of where it appears on the screen.

For symbols to win on a slot machine, they need to match along one of the paylines. The traditional payline is the

How Does A Slot Machine Work At A Casino