Trying to figure out how to get better chances to win when playing real money online slots, but you still don’t know how to improve your odds? You are not alone.
Instead of focusing on the generic tips and tricks you find on all online casino guides, it focuses on proven ways to improve your odds when playing online slot games, including using a casino bonus, and playing progressive jackpots.
Creating a Strategy for Winning
Research the payout percentages on different slot machines
You can find this information online, as many websites are dedicated to telling you the payout percentages of slot machines at different casinos. While the casinos do not make this information available to the average player, some insiders get access to this information and publish it online or in specialty magazines and newsletters.
- Percentages can run anywhere from 80%-98%.
- A payout percentage refers to how much of the money spent on the machine is returned to customers. If a payout percentage is 90%, that means the machine pays out 90% of what it takes in.
Choose machines with higher payout percentages to increase your odds
Picking higher payout percentages may help your overall chances; payout percentages are one of the few concrete pieces of data available to aid you when choosing slot machines. However, these statistics are taken over millions of spins. Because you’re only on the machine a short period of time in relation to those millions of spins, you could see a lot of variance in your winnings. You aren’t guaranteed that percentage.
Pick machines with the smallest jackpots
Machines that offer a lot of large prizes tend to pay less often, while machines with smaller prizes tend to pay out more frequently. The bigger the jackpot, the harder it is to hit, so you’re better off choosing a machine with a smaller jackpot.
- This phenomenon is referred to as “volatility” or “variance.”
- Double check the machine’s maximum jackpot. Two machines might look exactly the same, but one may pay out a 1,500 credit jackpot and the other 10,000 credits. Be aware of the maximum you can win on your machine.
Bet the max wager to increase your jackpot chances
Most machines only pay bonuses and progressive jackpots when the maximum credits are bet. Even on non-progressive machines, the jackpot payout for the maximum credit bet is typically markedly higher than at any other level.
Since you can’t win a progressive jackpot if you don’t bet the maximum, it makes sense to spend your money wisely by betting the max.
Play in an area with a lot of traffic
Machines that pay out more frequently (known as “loose” machines) are typically located in high visibility areas. The idea is that the sound of you winning will attract more attention, enticing other people to come and spend money, too.
Pick machines based on what you like to increase your enjoyment
Whether you like simpler machines with a single payout line or ones with a lot of bonus features, play the ones you enjoy. The odds are not going to be significantly better on one type or the other. Remember that luck plays a major role in your slot success, so while your strategy is to win, enjoying the machine you play on is equally important.
How To Win On Slot Machines: What Should You Do?
- Play With Free Spins Or No Deposit Bonus Codes
- Play High RTP Slots
- Manage Your Stakes
- Understand The Paytable On Slot Machines
- Practice On Free Slots In Demo Mode
If it was possible to tell you the exact way to win playing slot machines, believe us we would have put it right at the top of this article! But for now, with each spin you make being decided by a random number generator (RNG), then there is no exact way to predict how each spin will differ from the previous one.
How does the RNG work? Both online slot machines and the ones at land-based casinos are programmed with a RNG that generates numbers which then decide what each spin will produce in terms of symbols on the reels. So as soon as you hit spin, the RNG will generate a number that directly correlates with the symbols that appear.
How to Find the Volatility of Slots?
Online casinos don’t make the variance of the games as accessible as the RTP numbers, partly because they don’t want to help you improve your odds.
An easy way to choose games with the right variance is to use Google to do the hard work for you, like this:
- Open Google.com
- Type “Mega Moolah variance” in the search bar
- Analyze the search results
Alternatively, you can explore the games and figure out their variance yourself. If you play the same slot for long enough, you should be able to see how often the game pays out and what kind of winnings you get. Using a casino bonus to discover this is a good idea.
If successes are rare but significant, it’s a high volatility game. If you win often, but the wins are small, it’s low-volatility.
What are Progressive Slots?
Progressive slots are jackpot slots, and the way that they work is each bet you make will start to contribute to the jackpot prize. The total keeps on rising until you or another lucky bettor manages to land the jackpot prize and scoops the whole total.
In addition to that, at certain real money online casinos there can be multiple progressive slots whereby a few different slots have the same jackpot prize. In this instance, these can actually give you a better chance of winning because a lot more people are playing multiple slots rather than one, and the jackpot will rise faster and higher.
Understand the Paytable
Slot games aren’t as simple as they once were when it would simply be about matching three to five symbols on consecutive reels and you would know from a simple paytable how much you were going to win.
Now, there are sometimes upwards of 10 symbols in each slot game, including wilds and bonus symbols too. Although this makes things a little bit more complicated, it can mean many more ways to win for you as the player.
Below is an example of just some of the symbols on the IGT slot game CATS, with some of the symbols even featuring double images which already count for 2 on a played line.
It’s important to understand this image, and this is just one of quite a few symbols in this select game. The reason it’s important to understand this before you play a slot game is then you know what to look out for when you spin the reels, and also so you aren’t left disappointed when you think you have landed a guaranteed win.
Additionally, the paytable will also inform you of what you need to trigger a bonus game, or whether wilds substitute for base game symbols, as well as any other features like random wilds too.
What you will also find in the paytable for some slot games is the paylines. Most games now have around 20-30 paylines, meaning there are multiple different ways to win on slots, more than you would probably expect.
This is another reason to check the paytable, because once again you may think you haven’t landed a winner with your spin but the paylines may give you a different result!
Below is an example of the paylines on CATS, showing you the many different ways that you can win playing the fantastic IGT slot game that offers you HUGE payouts.
How to Win at Online Slots – Is It Better to Stop a Slot Machine?
In a word, no – you shouldn’t stop a slot machine. While this might have been a good trick to win on old fruit machines, stopping the reels will not help you win more.
Some players believed that if you can stop the reels quick enough on a fruit machine, you can control the outcome of your spin as soon as you see a winning combination about to come up but in fact, on an online slot it could lead to bigger losses, as you reduce the ‘time of spin’ (TOS), making the game go faster, like this:
- A slot machine takes about 10 seconds (on average) to complete a spin. This is the ‘TOS’.
- If you stop the slot machine, you can reduce the TOS to three seconds.
- Depending on the TOS, a 30-minute session can range from a minimum of 180 spins to a maximum of 600 spins.
To Conclude
Slot machines are the loudest and most colorful attractions in a casino. With their fun themes and large jackpot values, they’re designed to pull you in and drain you of your money in small increments. Though slot machines always favor the house, you can use a few tricks to help you beat the odds.