Myth Around Slots

With all the myths and misconceptions about slot machines out there, it’s tough to know what’s true and what’s not. With a little bit of math and a little bit of commonsense, we’ve gone through some of the most common of these and go into some detail about them and why they aren’t necessarily true. Here are three of the biggest myths that have persisted for years. Some are partially true, and if that’s the case, we explain why. But what it really comes down to is if you have the money to play these games and don’t mind losing it for the sake of entertainment, then slots have a lot of value, regardless of whether you win or lose.

Myth #1: Slots aren’t worth your time. If we were focused on a mathematically beatable game that would have a positive expected value over a long period of time, most slot machines wouldn’t be worth your time. But not all fall into this category. For example, many progressive jackpot games are mathematically sound games. The odds of winning are very small, and you’re likely never going to get enough spins in to hit the big jackpot, but even if you drop ten grand on a huge jackpot and don’t win, the expected value is still positive in many of these. That means that even though you’ve lost money, you have made a mathematically sound decision to play so much. It’s like playing the megaball lottery games when the prize is so large that it starts making the news. Sure, spending a few dollars on lotto isn’t the best financial decision that you can make, but after it passes so many hundreds of millions of dollars, the math begins to work out in your favor. Progressive jackpots are the same; once the jackpot gets up over seven figures, spending a few hundred dollars chasing that large jackpot is actually the smart thing to do.

Myth #2: Online slot machines are rigged. Online slots played at an online casino have the same likelihood of being rigged as a slot machine in a brick and mortar casino. And if the casino that you play at is reputable, the odds of this happening are almost zero. The games are checked often by a third party regulatory body, and although you should be making sure that the casino itself is reputable, the odds of a game being rigged at one of these are so small that you shouldn’t worry about it. Yes, the odds of winning a lot of money on a slot machine are small, but this doesn’t mean that the game is rigged any differently than it should be.

Myth #3: There are systems and strategies to win at slots. Because each spin of the reel is completely random and nondependent, no real strategy can be implemented to better your chances of winning. If you flip a coin one hundred times, you won’t get 50 heads and 50 tails each time you attempt this. Sometimes you will get 40 heads and 60 tails, or vice versa. If you flip heads three times in a row, that has absolutely no bearing on the fourth flip, either. So if you vary your bet after a few losing spins, it’s not going to help you any more than if you kept your bet steady. However, we do suggest that you play as many lines as possible on games that have multi-line bets. This costs more and on a bad day will drain through your playing account quickly, but on a progressive jackpot game, it betters your chances of a huge payday by a bit.