Slots Slot Payout Percentages by Denomination

Does anyone know what the payout percentage is on the different denominations? I saw a table years ago breaking this down but wasn't sure if that information is still available. I know the higher the denomination the higher the percentage.

 

Is this it?
https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=18097

 

Kind of bizarre that the 25 cent hold is quite a bit higher compared to the 5 cent hold in a few of the Strip categories. Wonder if there is a 25 cent game that is just awful.

 

I would use the Nevada Gaming Comission stats for a full year as a guide.

It is unclear whether their stats include Video Poker, but I think that ends up being a wash.

When I want to estimate, I use these as a guide:

$5 denom = 4% - 6% I can't see it going much lower for higher denoms

0.25 and $1 = 8% to 10%

Pennies: 12.5%

 

From what I understand, all or most of theses stats DO include VP.

 

Sure, it's unlcear to me and I don't think it's ever been defined.

In my mind it would skew the win % to the high side because so much of the theo is tied up in a royal. But the same is true of a lot of slots.

 

Related, I think the electronic table games are also included, which will probably skew it even higher in the future since they are replacing so many table games.

 

An additional caveat is that many VPs and slot machines are categorized under multi-denomination, which make up the largest number of machines (60,054). Even if a machine has a 5 cent denom, it would be grouped under multi-denom if it has other denoms. The second largest number is 1 cent denom (48,487), which are probably almost all slots. Even if the slot has multiple bet levels, as long as the base denom is 1 cent, then it would be grouped here.

 

Wish I could get ahold of the stats for Arizona. A .01/.02 machine I play usually crushes me but that same machine at $1 where i can bet 10/20/30 at max lines I usually do much better. The payout is probably slightly higher than the penny machines but I lack self control and start chasing if I lose. I can handle the $10 but anything higher is wreckless for me.

 

Yeah, VP is the main reason the "multi-denomination" category has only held 6.5% in the past year among major strip casinos. That's a lower amount than any denomination until you hit the $5 level.

 

Need a little clarification on the state gaming report, what is the % chg, and is win percent the amount that the casino holds back? Also as far as multi domination, if you play 1 cent or 5 cent on the same machine will the hold change according to the different domination.

 

It's unclear with slots. With Video Poker, you can see if the paytables change with different denominations.

One thing to remember is that since bankrolls are generally finite, the casinos' win percentage is generally higher than the theoretical return of any specific game.

 

I always like looking at that report. I find it interesting that downtown has 5 $100 machines and show a $265,000 take in August alone. Wow!!!

 

15% hold on craps tables? Somebody's make a lot of center bets!

 

On table games "table hold" isn't expected to be closely in line of the house edge of the bets made.

For example let's say you buy in for $500 and just flat bet $25 on the pass line 100 times. You lost $100. That's 4% of the total amount you wagered (an example of a bad sesson as theoretical loss is only 1.41%).

But the "table hold" for that session is chips lost/buy-in. And that would be $100/$500 = 20% in that example. Table hold doesn't track how much you churn through buy-ins. You would need RFID technology to be able to do that.

 

% Chg" is just the change in the dollar amount of win period-over-period. For the quarterly and monthly sections, I don't know if they use the immediate prior period or the year-ago period for comparison.

Win % is the amount the casino kept.

For example, for the full year 2019, on $5 denom machines, the 24 largest Strip casinos kept $55,811,000, which was a 5.83% Win (of the total coin-in). 100% divided by 5.83% = 17.15, which means about $957 million was run through those machines for the year. That is a LOT of trials/spins/hands, whatever. It's too bad VP muddies the waters, otherwise with that many trials, it should be a pretty good representation, not of any given casino or machine, but at least a decent way to ballpark.

The Slot VP at Cosmo posted once that he set the hold % lower for the two higher denoms on a 4 denom slot machine. He blanked out the actual denoms and game name.


I don't know how many different types of multi-denom slots can be set that way or how many casinos actually do it.

My WAG is a lot of machines can be set that way and most casinos don't do it.

That's why if I want to play a 20-line video slot and I want to play quarter denom for $5/spin and my choices are a machine that's

.01 / .05 / .10 / .25
or
.25 / .50 / 1.00

I'll choose the second one. Because I assume both machines have hold %s that correspond with the lowest available denom, regardless of which denom I'm actually playing at.

One thing that cracks me up though is that the Win % on the 5 cent denom in the reports is almost always less than the 25 cent. There's way more quarter units (machines) in place than nickels but I don't know if that could explain the difference. I have a feeling maybe it's because the nickel slot machines are probably mostly ancient and they never changed the holds since they were installed, whereas some of the quarter machines may be 10 - 15 years newer and in the meantime the holds on new quarter machines being rolled out caught up to and surpassed the nickel holds.

 

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