By Bill Burton

Over the last year, I have heard many players complain that they are not having as many jackpots on the slot machinesas they used to have. I first heard this from a few of my friends who said they believed that the casinos were tightening the machines because the bad economy was forcing people to make fewertrips to the casino. I did not pay too much attention to this but then I started to notice other players posting the same opinions on several Internet forums.

It seems many of the players have come to believe that every casino was lowering the paybackpercentage on all of their machines.

Slot winners get the same scrutiny. “Say someone wins $500,000 on a slot machine jackpot,” says Derk. “We’re going to review it but we’re just going to make sure everything’s okay. The slot machine, the historical antecedent for which came from nearby Brooklyn in the 19th century, is a curious device. As a Nevada regulator notes in Addiction By Design, it is the only 'game.

A month ago I was contacted by a newspaper reporter from Colorado who requested an interview with me. He said he was writing a story about the casinos lowering the payback on the slot machinesthat were making it harder for the players to win. He wanted my opinion on the subject and he was surprised by my answer.

Why Players Win Fewer Jackpots

I told him I do believe that some casinos may be ordering new machines with lower payout percentages but I did not believe that this was the main reason why players may not be winning as muchas they used to. I gave him the following reasons for my answer.

Over the years there have been many myths associated with casino gambling. One of the most common ones is the belief that a casino can raise and lower a machine's payback with the flip of aswitch. This is not true because the slot machines have a computer chip in them that determines the pay back percentage. These are set at the factory.

In order for a casino to change the pay back, they would have to change the chip. In most jurisdictions, there is paperwork that has to be filled and submitted to the Casino Control Commissionfor each machine if the chip is changed. It is time-consuming and the chips are very expensive. For this reason, the cost of changing the chip in numerous machines on the casino floor does notmake economical sense.

Many of the gambling jurisdictions around the country require the casinos to report the overall payout percentages on a monthly basis. (California is not one of the States) These figures are amatter of public record and are published in some newspapers and gaming publications. I looked back on these figures over the last year and saw that there was very little change in most casinosaround the country. In some instances, there were even some of the payback percentages had increased.

A reason why some players feel that they may not be winning as often is the fact that many players are making fewer trips to the casino so they are not playing as many sessions. So because theyare playing fewer sessions they will see fewer big jackpots and fewer winning sessions overall. It is all proportional.

Some players may have decided to play lower denomination machines. Many of the nickel and penny slot machines have a higher hit frequency, which means you will have many smaller wins but not asmany big jackpots.

How To Help Your Payback Percentages

If you still honestly believe that your casino is lowering the return rate on the slot machines you have several courses of action. The easiest thing to do is to play the older machines. It isdoubtful that a casino would go through the expense of putting a new chip in an older machine to lower the return rate. You can try a new casino. You may find that your luck is better at adifferent casino and a change is your routine will let you enjoy some new experiences.

You can switch to video poker. It is the only machine game that will let you know the payback of the machine by readingthe pay table. However, if you do decide to try video poker, make sure you learn the strategy or get a strategy card to bring along with you when you play.

Does It Matter If You Stop A Slot Machine

Switch to the table games. Playing table games is exciting and they offer a lower house edge than the slot machines. Many casinos give free table game lessons so you can learn the basics beforeyou sit down.

Let me close by saying again that I do believe that there will be some machines on the casino floors with lower returns, however, I do not believe that is as widespread as the rumors would haveyou believe. The casinos are in competition with each other for your business so they do not want to alienate the players by offering games where nobody can win.

As a customer/player you always have the option of taking your business elsewhere. The ultimate decision of where to play is entirely up to you.
Until next time remember, luck comes and goes.....knowledge stays forever.

Slot Machine Patterns

When playing a slot machine, any slot machine, you will experience a what seems to be a random “pattern” of wins and losses. It is often difficult to spot a pattern but the more you play the better your ability becomes in recognizing these patterns. In fact, the more you play, the easier it is to teach yourself to recognize and learn each slot machine pattern. The quicker you see a pattern, the better your ability is to either bet down, or even walk away when a machine is in a losing cycle, (or down cycle) and/or bet up when on a wining cycle, (or up cycle).

Since each spin of a slot machine is different from every other, some people attribute these cycles to nothing more than luck. Therefore, some players will say that when a machine loses a few hands, it is not neccesarily in a down cycle nor winning a few hands means it is in an up cycle. Due to the Random Number Generator in every slot machine, which makes every spin different from every other, there is no real way to predict any future spin from any past. Therefore, it is often a matter of luck when you lose 20 hands in a row and then hit the jack-pot on the very next spin. This is why you will see experienced players hanging back watching a machine. They are waiting for the person playing it to hit a down cycle, cash out and move to another machine, while they swoop in and hope to catch the up cycle patterns.

These cycles suggest to some players that a slot machine may be either programmed or simply fall in intervals which lead to higher slot pay-outs. The more a machine takes in on a down cycle, the better the return is on an up cycle. So if you see someone quickly go thru say $100.00 on a slot machine, with no real hand, that might very well be the machine to jump on in hopes to catch its profitable up cycle. I too have tried this very system time and again, on several different slot machines, but the payoffs always lead to the question, is this a sound system or is it simply luck or coincidence if or when that machine hits shortly after the “down cycle”? It is very hard to judge, as it really is a hit or miss with the Random Number Generator at work.

The notion is that there is one ongoing list of numbers called “the computer selection table” that the random number generator selects from, which is a list that sometimes contains more losing numbers at one point and more winning numbers at others. Determining which part of the computer selection table is the real point of this slots strategy. However, keep in mind, the Random Number Generator selects from hundreds of number combinations every second, so when you hit “spin” the Random Number Generator collects the last number it generated and matches it with a corresponding reel placement. This determines if you win or not. Since you are seeing the results of significantly less than one percent of all the number combinations generated. Therefore, it's very hard, if not impossible, to determine whether you are just missing the jackpot or that you are in one of its down cycles.

Although it remains a matter of opinion, anyone who sits in front of a slot machine long enough to plot up and down cycles will tell you, if you are losing consistently, that’s usually a sign to cash out and try your luck at a different slot machine as it does you no good losing your bank roll waiting for an up cycle to bring home a jackpot...