How Do Casinos Make Money From Slot Machines

The average casino slot profit there might be higher than a lot of vegas casinos because its fairly busy compared to what I have seen in Vegas where its always easy to find a machine. That would explain a number like $81 at Fitzgeralds, ie idle machine time.


The first time I saw people use member cards for slot games, I didn’t know what they were. I asked the man sitting next to me and he explained a few details about the rewards club. But he wasn’t using a card himself.

When I asked him why, he said he once had a card but stopped winning when he played with the card. He thought the casino was monitoring his playing and adjusting the slot game results.

This rumor has circulated both online and offline for many years. It’s normal for people to hear something repeatedly and wonder if there is truth to it. But I’ve never found any proof that casinos can change the way slot games play by flipping a switch.

What makes it difficult to combat this idea and other rumors about slot machines is the many different markets where you find them. Slot machine games are regulated by each country. Complying with different regulations may mean that a slot maker must change how its games work.

The clearest example I can give is how slot games are decided in the United States. Class II slot games decide the outcome on the basis of one random number then configure the display to match that result. Class III games use several random numbers to control the reels.

How Modern Slot Machine Games Work

There aren’t many physical slot games left. They’re all electronic now, and the electronic machines use random number generator chips to decide results.

But there is more involved than just generating a random number. The “slots” in the slot games are spaces on reels. The computers now simulate these reels.

When you push “Spin” and the reels go round and round, it’s just a computer showing you pictures based on the numbers it generated. It’s a lot like an astrophysicist running a simulation of the stars moving around the galaxy.

Former and current slot machine manufacturing employees answer questions about game design on several websites including Quora. This answer was posted in September 2014, and it explains how the simulated reels are managed by software.

The programs to simulate the reels and assign the random numbers are etched into ROMs, Read-Only Memory chips. These ROMs must be physically changed by a technician to change how the game payout percentages work.

Legitimate Online Casino Operators Lease Games From Service Providers

There are over 2,000 online casinos. It’s impossible to be sure about how they all manage their slot games. But what is known about the most popular casinos is that they don’t run their slot games from their own servers.

Instead the online casinos lease game services from secure data centers. These gaming platforms are run by companies like Blue Ocean and EveryMatrix. Some of the game design companies also run their own servers, leasing resources to online casinos.

Although it would be simple for online gaming companies to switch things up, they would risk losing independent certifications if they allowed the games to be rigged.

There’s no need for casinos to adjust the percentages. They can order the percentage breakouts for house edge and return to player that they want to offer. This way, they maintain competitiveness and support long-term profitability.

Many Games Publish the Theoretical Return to Player

Some slot games include the theoretical return to player in their help screens.

These reported percentages must change when the games are reprogrammed or the casino risks being charged with fraud.

If the players see that RTP has been adjusted downward, they can play elsewhere. If players only suspect that the RTP has been adjusted without proper notification, they might still leave.

Casinos need players. The best strategy to grow their customer base is to keep game rewards high enough to make the risk worthwhile.

Some Governments Regulate Return to Player Percentages

Licensed gaming casinos must comply with local laws governing their businesses. Some countries provide more regulation than others.

In the United States, commercial land-based casinos are regulated by their states. However, Native American casinos are mostly regulated by the tribal governments that own them. Each jurisdiction has the authority to set minimal RTP percentages to ensure the casinos don’t make too much money.

The 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act creates the legal framework used by tribes to protect their traditional gaming activities from state regulatory laws. The act also defines the three classes of gaming and how they are to be regulated.

Class II games are regulated by the tribes but only in states that allow any kind of gaming. Only Class III games are subject solely to state regulation.

True slot machine games are Class III games. Native American casinos offer Class II bingo games that are made to look like slot games. The game cabinets must display the casino bingo games that are used to determine wins.

Class II slot machines may have reels and bonus games but they’re not really slot machine games as defined by federal law.

How Do You Determine the Odds That a Slot Game Pays?

Casinos may or may not be required to declare the return to player for their slot games. Some casinos place a plate or sticker on their slot games with a notice. Other casinos leave it to the game help screens (thus, the manufacturers) to inform players.

The games’ odds may be reported as a theoretical RTP percentage, but they could also be reported as a ratio, similar to the way lottery games declare chances of winning a prize. Either way, these games don’t have to tell you how often to expect to win a prize of any amount.

Some players merely judge the looseness of slot games by how much money they win or how often they win as they play the games.

Some players judge the looseness of slot games by how popular they appear to be. This observational strategy assumes that the crowd knows more than the individual.

Online
Local patrons who play regularly often settle upon favored games they believe are lucky. In other words, you have no way of knowing for sure how loose a slot game is.

One of my friends tells me he only plays slot games with low jackpots. His reasoning is that players need to lose less money for someone to win $10,000 than for someone to win $20,000.

Slot Machines May Have Programmed Payout Limits

In another post on Quora from 2016, someone claimed to have industry experience in the Caribbean.

In his post, he said that a machine won’t pay more than it has accumulated after the first month of operation. That first month establishes the limit based on the profit the machine made.

The system is designed to be random within a range of percentages. The software decides when and how much to pay but won’t go over the monthly limit.

It should be obvious that this limit could be reset.

The Games Are Designed to Be as Random as Possible


People who design and repair slot machine games express much trust in the random number generator chips these games use. The RNGs, as they are called, use the latest available algorithms at the time they are manufactured.

Math has not yet progressed to the point where truly random numbers can be generated. Mechanical devices require input from an outside source to be truly random.

The way slot game designers handle this limitation is they design the chips to generate thousands of random numbers every second. The random numbers each take a turn at being available for use by the game.

When a human player presses the “Spin” button, or sets a game on “Autoplay,” their action is the final ingredient in the algorithm. That is what makes these games random.

Because of the percentage payouts and internal limits they use, slot machine games don’t have to be reprogrammed to improve casino profits. Everything is designed to run with as little intervention as possible.

And that is better for the casino because the more they can intervene in a game’s function, the more likely they’ll face regulation over that intervention.

Casino game techs often say that replacing chips in slot machines must follow a special procedure (in the United States). They are closely monitored and every part must be accounted for. So, it’s less expensive for casinos if they don’t tweak the games.

Conclusion

An honest casino doesn’t need to control who wins at a slot game. They already control who can play a slot game. They can ask anyone to leave for any reason.

Naturally, casinos don’t do that. Instead. they purchase gaming systems that are designed to create an entertaining experience for patrons while legally retaining a profitable percentage of wagers.

No matter how much one’s frustration tempts a player into wondering about Big Brother Casino tweaking the game, it’s more profitable for the casino to let nature take its course.

You can find stories about people gambling for a living. Many people play poker for a living, and it’s easy to see why. Poker doesn’t have a built in house edge; it has what amounts to a seat charge in the form of rake. Poker players aren’t trying to win the house money, they compete for other player’s money. This is different than most other forms of gambling.

You can also read about blackjack players that have learned how to count cards or find sloppy dealers that flash the value of down cards. Some of these players are able to play blackjack for a living. A small percentage of sports bettors, horse track bettors, and dog track bettors are also able to make enough money to gamble for a living.

Win Free Money Slots Casino

But it’s rare to find people who can gamble for a living who play other casino games. Bob Dancer claims that he was able to play video poker for a living several years back, but even if his claim is true, many things have changed since then. It’s harder to find full pay video poker machines and casinos pay lower comp rates for video poker play.

I’m just guessing, but I believe that Dancer has probably made much more money from writing books than actually playing video poker.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that and I’m not trying to say that he didn’t make money playing. But I don’t know if anyone is making a living playing video poker today. It’s possible, but if there are players doing it, there aren’t very many.

A few authors claim to make money playing craps using dice control. This has always struck me as a way to sell books and training courses, but just like Dancer’s claim in video poker, I suppose a few people can use dice control. Also just like video poker, if people are successful at dice control, there aren’t very many of them.

Games like slots, roulette, baccarat, and other table games don’t have stories about gamblers playing them for a living. Does the lack of stories mean that these games are impossible to beat?

Slots are the most popular form of gambling in casinos. People love to play slots. This brings me to the reason for this article.

Can you play slots for a living?

The Hard Truth

Before you continue, consider exactly what making a living means. Some people live on $25,000 a year, while others seem to need $50,000 or $100,000 a year. Many factors come into play when determining how much someone needs to live.

Some of the factors include:

  • Where you live
  • How many people you have to support, like a spouse and children
  • How frugal your lifestyle is
  • How much debt you have

For the purposes of this article I’m going to use $52,000 a year as the threshold for making a living. This works out to $1,000 a week. You can use any number that you want, but unless you live in an expensive area, most people can survive on this amount.

Another issue that must be considered when you think about playing slots for a living is the lack of health insurance and other benefits. Professional gamblers have to find health care and they don’t get paid time off. Health care is a serious expense for many people and it can be dangerous not to have some type of coverage.

Many young people don’t worry about the lack of health care coverage, but as you get older it often becomes a real concern. If you have to pay for health insurance it can take a big chunk out of your income. Keep this in mind when you determine how much you need to make to play slots for a living.

The hard truth is playing slots for a living is almost impossible unless you’re already wealthy and have enough money that you can afford to lose in the long run. It’s much more likely that you’re going to lose $1,000 a week than win $1,000 week playing slots.

While most slots players lose in the long run, it’s not 100% impossible to play slots for a living. But such a small percentage of players make money that the truth is that you should probably forget the idea.

Slot machines are designed to guarantee, or lock in, a long term profit for the casino.

Each machine is programmed to pay back a certain percentage of every dollar wagers and keep the rest for the casino. These numbers are called different names, but I call them pay back percentage and the house edge.

A slot machine’s pay back percentage is the amount of all bets returned to the player through wins on the machine. If a slot machine has a 95% pay back percentage that means that on average it gives back $95 out of every $100 wagered to the player.

If you consider this from the other angle you get the house edge. When the slot machine pays back $95 out of $100, it keeps the other $5 for profit. In other words, a machine that pays back $95 out of every $100 wagered has a 5% house edge.

When you add the house edge percentage and the pay back percentage together, they always equal 100%. This means that if you know one number you can subtract it from 100 to get the other number.

You can use these numbers to predict how much money you should win or lose over a set period of time, based on how much you bet per hour. Because the house edge is in the casino’s favor, it means that if you can’t figure out how to overcome the edge or get lucky, you’re going to lose in the long run.

Most slot machines have a payback percentage between 90 and 98%. This means the house edge is between 2 and 10%. With a house edge, it means that you lose between 2 and 10% of every dollar you run through the machine.

Here’s an example:

  • You play on a slot machine that has a 98% pay back percentage, which means it has a 2% house edge. Your bet size is $2 per spin and you make 400 spins per hour. You can figure out your average loss rate, or what you can expect to lose on average per hour, by using this formula.
  • Amount bet per spin times spins per hour times the house edge.
  • $2 X 400 X 2% = $16

This means that if you play for 10 hours your expected loss is $160. You simply multiply the expected hourly loss times the number of hours you plan to play and you get the average expected loss.

Slots are run by computers, which use a program based on math. These programs, unless the programmers made a mistake, make sure that the underlying math principles always come true. It might take millions of spins, but the programs guarantees that the machine produces the programmed profit percentage for the casino.

The house edge and pay back percentage are long term things. This means that these percentages are realized over a long period of time. In the short term the house edge and pay back percentages vary, sometimes a great deal. But eventually the short term variance evens out and produces the correct results.

How can you overcome the built in house edge?

Most players can’t, and this is why it’s almost impossible to play slots for a living.

If you still want to try to play slots for a living, the following sections have additional information you need to know. Just keep in mind that even if you use every trick and strategy in your power, you still might lose money in the long run.

Finding the Pay Back Percentage of Slots

You just learned about pay back percentage and the house edge and how these things guarantee the casino a profit. So the next question is how do you find out the house edge and pay back for slot machines?

Most casino games are designed in a way that it’s fairly easy to determine the house edge and pay back percentage, or you can easily find the numbers with a quick internet search. But slots are different. The programs that run the machines have so many variables that unless you have access to the program it’s impossible to determine the house edge and pay back percentage.

Another problem is that some machines offer different pay back percentages from the manufacturer, so each casino can order their machines with the percentage they want. You can find out more about finding slot machine pay back percentages here, but the news isn’t good.

If you want to have the best chance to play slots for a living, you need to find the machines that offer the lowest house edge. These machines have the highest pay back percentage, so you have less to overcome.

The following sections include everything I know that can help you improve your chances to win. Four of them are strategies that you can put into action yourself, and the other one is based on hope. Sadly, hope isn’t much of a strategy, but it fits in perfectly with how most people gamble. They put their money out and hope to win.

Online Bonuses

Online casinos often offer bonuses for slots players when they make a deposit. You can get 100% or more of your deposit matched with bonus money you can use to play slots. This sounds like a great way to overcome the house edge, and if the money was free it would be.

While bonus money looks like it’s free, when you read the conditions and terms associated with the bonus you find out that it’s not a simple as the casino giving you free money.

Every online slots bonus comes with rules and regulations about how you can use it, what you have to do before you can cash out your money, and if you get to keep any bonus amount when you meet the terms of the offer.

The terms vary from online casino to online casino, so it’s important to read them before you make your deposit. Some bonuses are deducted from your balance when you make a cash out request, while others can be cashed out eventually.

When you accept an online slots bonus you have to meet certain requirements. These are usually called play through requirements. A play through requirement means that you have to play the bonus amount, and sometimes the deposit amount as well, a certain number of times to clear the bonus. The requirement is usually shown as a multiple, like 25X or 50X. This means you have to make wagers totaling 25 times or 50 times the bonus, and sometimes the deposit amount.

Here’s an example:

  • You sign up at an online casino that offers a 100% sign up bonus on deposits up to $250. You make a $250 deposit and get a $250 bonus. This gives you a total bankroll of $500. The terms and conditions state that you have to play the deposit and bonus amount 50 times before you can cash out.
  • The total of the bonus and your deposit is $500, so you multiply this by 50 to find the total amount you have to bet. 50 X $500 = $25,000, so you have to make $25,000 worth of bets before cashing out. The best can be any size as long as the total amount reaches the limit.

You can use a trick at this point to get an idea of the possibility of clearing the bonus and having money left over. You can multiply the total amount you have to wager times the house edge to find the expected loss.

Using this example, if you play on a slot machine with a 5% house edge, your expected loss is $1,250. This means that usually you’re going to run out of money before you clear the bonus. The only ways to change this are to play on a machine with a lower house edge, or find bonuses that have lower play through requirements.

You also need to make sure you understand the difference between cashable bonuses and the ones that are deducted from your balance. A bonus that can’t be cashed out when you meet the playing requirements makes it unlikely you can beat the house edge.

Here’s an example if you play a slot machine with a 2% house edge, using the same bonus numbers in the last example.

$25,000 X 2% = $500. This means that your expected loss is the same as your total bankroll of $500. Even if you get lucky and don’t lose all $500, the odds of you having more than your deposit of $250 left after clearing the bonus is slim.

Does this mean that you shouldn’t use online slots bonuses?

You should defiantly use online slots bonuses if you want to play slots. Even a bonus that’s not cashable gives you extra money to gamble with. It also gives you extra chances to hit a big jackpot, which is the only way most slots players have of getting ahead.

Slots Tournaments

Slots tournaments aren’t run at all casinos, but some casino run them from time to time, and a few run them on a regular basis. A slots tournament offers a minimum amount of play for a set entry fee and awards prizes for the top finishers.

Some casinos offer slots tournaments as a reward for a set amount of play and/or connected to their slots club program. If you can earn a free entry into a slots tournament, anything you win helps overcome the house edge on your normal slots play.

When you’re looking for a slots tournament that has an entry fee, you should look for ones that have a guaranteed prize pool. If you can find tournaments that don’t get enough entrants to cover the prize pool you can play with an edge. It won’t greatly improve your chances of finishing in the money, but when the entry fees don’t cover the prize pool it’s profitable to play.

Here’s an example:

  • The casino offers a slots tournament with a guaranteed prize pool of $1,000. The entry fee is $10 and they only get 80 people to sign up. If you divide the prize pool by the number of entrants you get the average value of playing.
  • In this case, the average is $12.50. Any time the average return for playing is higher than the entry fee you’re playing with an edge.

You still have to finish in the money to win some money, but if you play in enough of these types of situations you come out ahead eventually.

Playing Slots for Comps and Promotions

Every time you play slots you should be earning comps. Sign up for the slots club at your local casino and look for online casinos that have a rewards program. The casinos don’t give back enough in comps to overcome the normal house edge, but every penny you get back in comps helps lower your cost to play.

If you can combine an attractive online slots bonus with a decent comps program you improve your chances of winning a great deal.

Casinos also run promotions from time to time. You might be able to find free slots play vouchers and match play coupons in the local paper or on the web site of the casino where you’re planning to ply. Promotions and coupons are a great way offset the built in house edge of the slot machines.

Getting Lucky

I hate to say it, but the only way most people can play slots for a living is to get lucky. If you’re lucky enough to hit a big jackpot sometime in your life, and are smart with the money, you can afford to play slots full time.

The only slot machines I play are the ones that offer either a progressive jackpot or ones that have a set top jackpot prize of $100,000 or higher. I know I can’t overcome the long term house edge without a big win, so I don’t waste my time on machines that can’t make a big deposit into my bank.

Getting lucky isn’t a strategy, but if you don’t put yourself in position where you have the chance to be lucky you don’t even have reason to hope. If you want to play slots for a living focus on slots with big jackpot possibilities.

Progressive Jackpots

The only way to truly play slots with an edge over the house is to play a progressive jackpot slot machine where the top prize has grown so high that it overcomes the edge. The problem with this is the same as I discussed earlier. If you don’t know the house edge you can’t determine how high the progressive jackpot has to climb before it makes the play profitable.

I recommend sticking with slots that have high jackpots, because it’s the only way you have a chance to win enough that you can play slots for a living.

If you don’t know the house edge, simply play the slots that have the highest jackpots. Most casinos, both online and off, have at least one slots game with a jackpot over $1,000,000.

If you can’t find one with a jackpot over $1 million, look for the highest one you can find. A $500,000 jackpot win might not set you up financially for life, but it’s enough to help out quite a bit.

Conclusion

Make Money From Home

How Do Casinos Make Money From Slot Machines

How Do Casinos Make Money From Slot Machines Jackpots

Playing slots for a living is a dream of many gamblers. But the truth is that it’s almost impossible to succeed. The house edge locks in a long term profit for the casinos, so very few people win.

Amazing Money Machine Free Slots

You can use the tips and strategies on this page to give yourself the best chance to overcome the house edge, but if you want to gamble for a living your best bet is to stop playing slots and pick a different game.