How to Win on Slot Machines. Playing slots is easy, but winning slots games requires a little knowledge and technique, not to mention luck. From choosing the right slot machine to finding the games with the biggest payouts, our experts are here to help you win.
New slot machine players are going to find a lot of advice for beating the slots. Have a healthy skepticism when a slots expert tells you they know how to beat the slot machines. Among the games in a casino, video slots (in general) have a high house edge. Besides finding gaming machines with high jackpots and a low house edge, no skill or strategy is required to play slots. That means you can’t expect to increase your odds of winning in most situations.
Read through the advice below to optimize your chances of winning at slots. None of the advice assures winning sessions. Instead, it helps you stretch your bankroll, so you enjoy playing the slots longer. Also, the longer your bankroll lasts, the more chances you’ll have of hitting the big jackpot every slots player wants.
Use a Slots Card
The amount you win - the payout- depends on which pictures land along the pay line. In this article, we'll find out what sets the reels in motion in modern slot machines as well as in the old mechanical models. We'll also see what determines the odds of winning on a slot machine and look at some popular variations on the traditional game. How To Win At Slots? Try These 10 Slot Secrets Tips That Really Work. These machines normally enable a player to either take a payout, or gamble it on a double-or-nothing “facet sport”. Malfunctioning electronic slot machines are able to indicating jackpot winnings far in excess of these marketed.
Upon entering a live casino, sign up for a slots card. This provides comps and cashback, which automatically lowers the house edge by a bit. Never play a spin without using your slots card. In an online casino, accept the highest slots bonus and play according to the terms and conditions until you meet the wagering requirement. Once again, this lowers the house edge on online slots.
Make Max Bets
Look at the payout chart on a slot machine to determine how jackpots are paid. On many slot machines, the 5-coin bet pays out a higher percentage on the top fixed jackpot. For instance, a 1-coin bet might pay $200, a 2-coin bet might pay $400, a 3-coin bet might pay $600, and a 4-coin bet might pay $800. You might expect the 5-coin bet to pay $1000, but many slot machines pay out $1200 or $1500 in that case, trying to convince bettors to make the max bet.
If the jackpot increases a bigger percentage with a maximum coin wager, then it makes sense to make the max bet on a slot machine. If the bet size is too high for your tastes, then lower the coin denomination and make a max bet at that level. Of course, if there is no additional jump between the 4-coin and 5-coin bet, then you can wager a single coin and max out the coin denomination to the bet size you like.
Read the RTP Information
If an online casino or land-based casino publishes its return-to-player information, read through the RTP percentages to find the video slots with the best RTPs. Return-to-player or expected return is the percentage of a theoretical $100 you expect to see returned to you. It is a theoretical percentage based on probability, so an RTP of 95% does not assure you’ll be paid $95 for every $100 you put in the machine. You might lose $50 or you might win $150, or you might win a progressive jackpot and go home rich.
The point of the RTP percentage is to give a player an idea of their expected return. If two slot machines sit next to one another and one has an RTP of 93% and the other an RTP of 95% (and both have similar jackpots), then it pays to play the game with the higher percentage. Over time, this leads to you maintaining a higher percentage of your bankroll.
Money Management Techniques
Read about bankroll management techniques. “Money management” or “bankroll management” is a series of steps you take to lock on winnings when good luck happens and limit your losses when a bad streak occurs. These do not assure that you’ll win, but it optimizes your bankroll.
Players should know three core bankroll management methods: percentage betting, win goals, and loss limits. Learn to calculate your bankroll and divide this into percentages. Then bet between 1% and 5% of your bankroll on any given hand, depending on your capacity for risk. This limits the amount of your stake you lose on any given session, keeping you playing for longer throughout your vacation. It is a given that people go to the ATM machine or credit card when they lose their whole bankroll — which means you spend more than you intended. The point of percentage betting is to assure your bankroll last through your whole trip, so you never have to replenish.
What Is a Bankroll?
“Bankroll” is not defined as your entire bank account. It isn’t defined as your discretionary spending budget or the money you have earmarked for entertainment expenses. Instead, it is a part of your discretionary spending cash and entertainment budget which is set aside specifically for gambling. In this case, a bankroll is less than your entertainment budget.
Once you have your bankroll figured, divide this into easy to understand percentage. If you have a bankroll of $1000, then divide this into percentages. These are simple calculations, but you should have an understanding of 1%, 2%, 5%, 10%, and 20% of your bankroll. In the earlier example, 1% would be $10, while 2% would be $20. 5% would be $50, 10% would be $100, and 20% would be $200.
Now that you have these, decide whether to bet 1% to 5% of your bankroll. Most experts suggest betting no more than 1% to 2% in order to maintain your bankroll throughout your casino trip or online slots session.
Setting a Win Goal
Next, set your win goal. This is the amount of winnings you set as your goal for any given slots session. If you have a win goal of 10%, then your win goal would be $100 for any given slot machine sessions. As soon as you hit that goal, you walk away from the slot machine — no matter what. A win goal is a hard-and-fast rule, because it locks in winnings. One of the biggest mistakes players make is losing back their winnings, because they think they’re on a hot streak.
Setting a Loss Limit
Even more dangerous is trying to win back cash you just loss. To protect against this tendency, set a loss limit. Once again, make this your hard-and-fast rule. Typical loss limits can be 5%, 10%, 15%, or 20% — though 20% means you could lose the entire bankroll in 5 slots session. 10% to 15% is a good middle ground. Once you’ve lost that amount, walk away from the slot machine under all circumstances. The slots game is not “due” to pay out, so step away from the machine and clear your mind.
Win goals and loss limits guard against gambler’s fallacy. Gambler’s fallacy is the idea that the law of averages assures or weight the odds in your favor. Slots use random number generators and every spin is entirely separate from the previous spin. Losing the last spin does not make it more likely you’ll win the next spin. The odds stay the same, no matter how many wins or losses in a row you’ve had.
Avoid Progressive Betting
For that reason, avoid progressive betting systems like the Martingale system, D’Alembert system, Fibonacci system, and so on. Betting experts have used computer simulations to track the progressive betting methods against flat betting (same bet each spin). Flat betting beats all of the progressive betting schemes over 1 billion spins.
Progressive betting seems like it’s working, because it leads to a lot of small winning sessions. The problem is that it also has a handful of huge losing sessions which wipe out all the wins — and then some. You can’t beat the house edge with the Martingale system, however it might look to the naked eye. The Fibonacci numbers are incredible, but they are not a magical way to beat the casino.
The reason progressive bets are bad is they increase the size of your bets (in some systems exponentially). If you start with $5 or $10 bets, a streak of bad luck has you betting hundreds of dollars on one spin. That’s busts your bankroll and leads to a “risk of ruin” — meaning you’ll lose your whole bankroll if you hit a bad luck streak. No matter what you read online, flat bets are better.
Take Breaks for Rest and Refreshments
Play when you are at your best physically and mentally. Don’t play when you’re tired or sleepy. Don’t play when you’re hungry or thirsty. Take frequent rest and restroom breaks. If you get bored, take a break and walk the casino. Play another game to change up the betting pattern.
When you are rested and engaged, you won’t have distractions that might lead to bad decisions. The idea is to have fun, so if anything is causing you to lose focus on the entertainment aspect of the game, walk away and save your bankroll.
Don’t Go on Tilt
Tilt is a concept in poker where a player makes decisions based on emotional responses instead of solid strategy. It can cost a player a lot of money if they make bets based on anything but rational decisions. While going on tilt is not a concept in slot machine gambling, every game of chance has a personal component.
In short, don’t play when you’re agitated. Take stock of your inner thoughts. If your ego or anger is causing you to make irrational decisions, take a deep breath and calm down. If that doesn’t work, walk away and clear your head. It stinks to lose a series of bets, but what stinks more is to lose a series of bigger bets when you’re trying to make up for lost bankroll.
Is it easy to win a million dollars?
Obviously, it isn’t, or everyone would do it.
But is it possible to win a million dollars?
Of course, it is. People do it every day.
The question is HOW to win a million dollars. And in this post, I bring you not just one answer to that question, but 7!
Looking to gamble online? Check out one of the sites above!
Here are 7 different ways to become a millionaire by winning money.
1 – Powerball or Mega Millions
Most people know you can win a million dollars playing the lottery. The 2 biggest lottery games where you can win over a million dollars are Powerball and Mega Millions.
Powerball is available in 44 states. The minimum jackpot for Powerball is $40 million, but it’s a progressive jackpot, so it goes up every week until someone wins.
To buy a Powerball ticket costs $2. To play, you choose 5 numbers from a set of 69 white balls. You also choose one number from a set of 26 red balls. (The red balls are the Powerballs.)
To win, you match the numbers that get drawn during the big drawing. During the drawing, the lottery uses a machine to draw 5 numbers from the white balls and another machine to draw a single number from the red balls. You can win a prize amount by matching as few as 3 of the white balls or by just matching the Powerball.
To win the big prize, though, you must match all the numbers.
Mega Millions is also available in 44 states. The minimum prize for Mega Millions is also $40 million, and, like Powerball, that prize amount goes up every week until it’s won.
To buy a Mega Millions ticket costs $2. You choose 5 numbers from between 1 and 70, and you choose 1 number from 1 to 25. If all 6 of your numbers match the 6 numbers during the drawing, you win the jackpot.
The main thing that distinguishes Mega Millions from Powerball is the optional “Megaplier.” This costs an extra dollar per ticket to play, but if you win, you get a multiplier to the jackpot of 2X, 3X, 4X, or 5X.
I should point out that even though you CAN win a million dollars in these games, you probably won’t. In fact, the odds of winning a million dollars in any kind of state-run lottery are painfully low.
The odds of winning either of these are roughly 1 in 300 million. The odds of winning Mega Millions are slightly worse than the odds of winning Powerball.
But when you get into odds that long, there’s no practical difference between 1 in 302 million and 1 in 292 million.
2 – Megabucks
Megabucks sounds like another lottery game, but it’s actually a wide-area progressive slot machine game with a minimum prize starting at $10 million.
A progressive slot machine is a game where the jackpot rises continually until someone hits the jackpot. A “wide-area” progressive slot machine is one which shares a jackpot with multiple machines in a specific geographical area. A tiny percentage of each bet you make on such a slot machine goes toward increasing the size of that jackpot.
You’d expect a slot machine game with a jackpot this big would be complicated, but the opposite is true. Megabucks is a simple 3-reel slot machine game with a single payline. It doesn’t get much more basic than that.
You can bet $1 or $2 per spin, but to have a shot at the jackpot, you must make the maximum bet of $3 per spin. Unlike the lottery games in the previous point, Megabucks is won relatively rarely—on average, just twice a year since the game’s inception in 2005.
The odds of winning Megabucks are better than the odds of winning the lottery by a significant amount. You’re looking at a probability of roughly 1 in 50 million.
You’d think that with significantly better odds, you’d see Megabucks winners more often than Powerball or Mega Millions winners, but the lottery games have more customers over a much larger geographic area.
When discussing a huge progressive jackpot or prize like this, payback percentage becomes practically irrelevant. After all, the payback percentage takes into account an event that’s so unlikely as to be practically impossible.
That being said, it seems as if the payback percentage for Megabucks averages around 89%.
If you like playing for big, life-changing jackpots, Megabucks might be a lot of fun.
On the other hand, if you enjoy frequent small wins, Megabucks is probably best avoided.
3 – Las Vegas
The Megabucks slot machine isn’t the only way to win a million dollars in Las Vegas, although it’s one of the more exciting because of the size of the jackpot.
One way to get a huge positive expected value, even though it will probably be unrealized, is to try the Million Dollar Slot at Harrah’s. It’s a huge positive expected value because you can play it for free. Since the expected value takes into account the probability of winning and losing versus the amount won or lost, when you get a free spin, the expected value goes way up.
To play Million Dollar Slots for free, though, you must become a Total Rewards member. (That’s just the name of the slots club or players club at Harrah’s.)
You can find other progressive slot machine games throughout the city with lower prizes than Megabucks, too.
And a lot of table games have progressive side bets which can reach $1 million or more. A few years ago a player won a million dollars with the 6-card bonus jackpot at the Three Card Poker tables at Paris Las Vegas.
You could even win a million dollars playing keno, which is basically a casino-run lottery with multiple drawings per hour.
4 – Draftkings or Fanduel
Fanduel was one of the earliest players in the daily fantasy sports industry. They launched in 2009.
Draftkings is the other big player in the niche. They launched in 2012.
Draftkings is based in Boston. They offer daily and weekly contests where you win money based on how players and teams that you draft perform. The 5 major American sports are all represented, too:
- Major League Baseball
- National Basketball Association
- National Football League
- National Hockey League
- Professional Golf Association
They don’t limit themselves to just those sports, though—they also offer contests based on car racing, mixed martial arts, soccer, and tennis.
Fanduel has a similar business model, and at one point, they were going to merge with Draftkings. That merger was canceled for monopoly concerns, as the 2 companies combined would control 90% of the market. Since then, Fanduel has been acquired by Paddy Power and Betfair, and they’re expanding into sports betting.
Their business model involves hosting tournaments, and some of their tournaments have prize pools in excess of a million dollars. You can find more details about their ongoing and upcoming tournaments on either of their websites.
5- The Price Is Right or Wheel of Fortune
Some people seem to think that you can win a million dollars playing Price Is Right. I base that on Google’s autosuggest feature. When I type in “how to win a million dollars,” one of the suggested searches in “how to win a million dollars price is right.”
The same logic applies to Wheel of Fortune.
I get the same suggested search.
Google bases these auto-completed search strings on actual user searches, so apparently, that’s a pretty common search.
But it’s really tough to win a million dollars on Price Is Right. The biggest prizes on that show tend to be in the 6-figure range, like sports cars in the $150,000 to $300,000 range. In 2008, they did have a Price Is Right night-time special with a million dollar prize.
Winning a million dollars on Wheel of Fortune is a lot easier, but it’s still hard. Of course, you’ll have to become a contestant on the show just to get a shot at it, which isn’t necessarily the easiest thing in the world. You can apply to become a contestant on their official site.
Then you have to spin the big wheel and hit the million dollar stop. That’s a 71 to 1 proposition by itself. You then need to solve the word puzzle to go into the bonus show, which has another random requirement—you have 23 to 1 odds of hitting the million dollar stop on the wheel during the bonus game, too.
So just the random aspect of the game is 1727 to 1 by itself, and that assumes you have a 100% probability of solving the word puzzle. Realistically, you might not be able to pull that off so easily, which lowers the odds considerably more.
At least 3 people have won a million dollars playing Wheel of Fortune over its 40+ years on the air. You might be able to be the next one.
Honestly, your odds of winning on Wheel of Fortune are probably better than your odds of winning the lottery or a slot machine game.
6 – The World Series of Poker
Almost everyone knows about the World Series of Poker by now. It’s an annual series of Las Vegas poker tournaments run by Caesars Entertainment.
Some people think of the WSOP as just one tournament, but it’s really several dozen tournaments. The Main Event is a $10,000 tournament where first prize is always at least $1 million. It’s not the only poker tournament where you can win a million dollars, but it’s the most prestigious.
What are the odds of winning the WSOP?
It depends on 2 things, but only one of them is objectively quantifiable—the number of entrants. If you and all the other entrants had an equal probability of winning, your chance of winning would be as simple as 1/the number of entrants.
How To Win On Mega Meltdown Slot Machines
In 2018, 7874 players competed for the top prize of $8.8 million. In fact, everyone at the final table got at least $1 million.
This would mean the probability of winning a million dollars is 10 divided by 7874 players or 1 in 787.4.
But different players are of different skill levels, so that affects the probability of winning.
Even if you’re only half as good as the average player, you’d still have about a 1 in 1500 probability of making it to the final table and winning a million.
The Main Event isn’t the only event where you can win a million dollars at the World Series of Poker, though. In 2018, the $100,000 High Roller Tournament had a top prize of $2.9 million. Of course, with that kind of buy-in, $2.9 million isn’t impressive.
There was also the $565 buy-in Colossus tournament, with a top prize of $1 million even.
If you want the best probability of winning a million dollars gambling, poker is probably your best bet. The World Series of Poker is an obvious option, but you can find other major poker tournaments where you can win a million dollars, too. The World Poker Tour is one obvious place to look.
7- Casino Table Games
Most people don’t think of table games in the casino as an opportunity to make a million, but I’ve already pointed out that the progressive side bets are where it’s at if you want to win a huge prize like that.
Michael Bluejay of VegasClick.com has another strategy for winning a million playing table games, though. The idea is based on compound interest.
You start with a $5 bet with an even-money payout. If you win, you let it ride. And you keep letting your winnings ride until you have a million dollars.
As it turns out, you only have to win 18 times in a row to succeed:
- $5
- $10
- $20
- $40
- $80
- $160
- $320
- $640
- $1280
- $2560
- $5120
- $10240
- $20480
- $40960
- $81920
- $163840
- $327680
- $655360
At this point, you only need to risk $500,000 to hit your $1 million win goal, so you can set aside $155,360 in case you miss it, and you get to take another shot at it.
This sounds almost impossible, but how do the odds really compare to winning one of these lottery games?
As it turns out, the odds are WAY better. If you play roulette, your odds of succeeding at this quest are close to 1 in 266,000.
Conclusion
If there were an easy way to guarantee that you win a million dollars gambling, everyone would do it. Even in the best of scenarios, the probability of winning that much money is slim at best.
Mega Wins On Slots
Do you have a strategy for winning a fortune at gambling that I didn’t cover? If so, what is it and how does it work?