Slots Slot players, please explain to me

We stopped at Winstar casino in Oklahoma. Winstar touts itself as the second biggest casino in the world. That might be true. It is huge. But it is mostly slot machines. And they were all just about full. The occupancy card I saw said the casino holds 20,000 people at a time.

Anyway, we had to play something. So we sat at machine. A penny machine. I pushed max bet, because I assume you have to do that to get the jackpot. It was $3 a spin! lol. Penny machine my ass!

But all these lines would go all over everywhere and we would win a little bit. I tried to find instructions, as to what I was trying to accomplish, but there were not any.

So, slot players, how do you know what to do on these multi-line machines? Do you eventually figure it out, or are you just pushing the button and be amazed when you win various amounts? With the old Lucky 7, or Red,White and Blue, type slots, the chart on top of the machine tells you what needs to line up to win what. But these new type don't have any such charts.

How do you know what you are going for? Or do you?

We lost $15 by the way. They did have some 9/5 JOB video poker machines, which is pretty good, but we didn't really have the time to commit to playing that.

 

Haha, if most slot players are like my dad, they have no idea. He'll pour thousands in and when I ask a question like, what triggers a bonus round, what pays what, etc. He doesn't know, he just likes seeing the board light up. I think it's generational because I being 21 love craps, poker, blackjack, but can't stand slots. I think it's because I grew up with video games and he didn't. Might explain why he really loves all the "action" going on.

 

There is a button on the screen you have to push (says help or such) and it will tell you all of the pay rates and what triggers a bonus round, etc.

 

Some machines pay across the middle line. Single line machine
3 line machines pay the top, middle, bottom.
5 line adds diagonal.
As more lines are added, there are more combinations, up down across, etc.

99% of all machines have a help button. Not all will actually show all the lines as it gets too confusing. When you spin, it will show a line that is being paid. It will NOT cheat you out of a payment.

 

I am not worried about that. I was just wanting to figure out what to root for. I am not a slot player. I will only play when I am with my wife and cannot talk her out of it. But I like to be an informed gambler. We played a Cheeseburger game a couple of years ago. We would be saying to the machine, "Come on french fry!" because we knew that would get us into the bonus round.

I don't see the appeal of slots, but I certainly don't see the appeal of a slot that you don't even know what you are trying to get.

Will the help buttons tell you how many credits you have to play to get the jackpot?

 

Most games you need to play max bet if there is some type of jackpot or progressive feature at the top of the game. If you just are playing to get into the bonus round, 99% of vid slot games do not need max bet played to hit a bonus rd. I normally play somewhere in the neighborhood of $1-$1.25 a spin and try to stay away from progressive slots because the chance of hitting one is astronomical.

I normally like to try new games but I have my favorites such as wolf run, golden gate(hard to find), and alot of the themed games like airplane, twilight zone, or dukes of hazzard. Any game such as dukes of hazzard will obviously pay out less because it has to pay an owners fee to the company it is leasing the name off of. That doesnt keep me from playing them, but its always in the back of my head. Even reel spinners like Wheel of Fortune will have a lower payout percentage since the rights to the name are owned by Sony I believe. My all time favorite slot machine though is Pinball, still an old reel spinner with the pinball that lights up and drops down into the containers of coins when you hit the Pinball bonus on the third reel!

 

You will for sure need to playing the "line" that has the bonus round symbols. So, good advice is to always play all lines. Many machines have an option as to how much per line. You could play for example : 30 lines, then 1, 2,3,4,or 5 coins per line. Therefore, on a penny machine, $.30, or $.60 or up to $1.50. Some have other combinations of course.

If there is a progressive, it will say somewhere up top something like "with max played"

 

If you can't find the help button try looking for the "paytable" button. Normally you can scroll from left to right to see the rest of the instructions /paytables so also look for the arrow buttons after pushing help or paytable.

 

Im usually just looking for bonus, wild, or the SITC logo

 

Usually the machine will show symbols required for the bonus round.

Also, no matter how many lines there are you always start from your left and work toward the right.

If there are 5 columns (1-5) and you have a matching symbol in rows 2-5 it doesn't mean anything unless you have the image in column 1.

Other than that its fun to play a new machine and get surprised wins. After a few spins you start to know what symbols are the good ones.

 

There are some machines that not only pay from left to right but also right to left. Win both ways it often says then.

To trigger the bonus game they (3 bonus symbols) usually have to be on a "win line". Scatter symbols, to trigger free spins, can usually be anywhere on the screen. 'Normally at least 3. Scatters are the best. If you ever play the slots just hope for scatters!

 

The older ones let you choose how many lines. The newer ones make you play max lines. After that, you can pick how many coins per line you bet. And if you need to bet the max to get the top prize or to activate a bonus, that info should be displayed somehow on the machine in an obvious way.

 

a lot of the games are a variation of the same game, each one just has a different theme/symbols. Usually after 1 or 2 spins i can tell which game it is or how you get the bonus if i have never played it before.
My friends find it hillarious that I can tell them exactly how much they won or whether they are gonna hit a bonus before it even comes up on the screen.