It was April 27th, 2001, when I walked into the Statosphere Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was the first day of my seven day vacation to Sin City for my long awaited honeymoon vacation.
We checked into the hotel and dropped our luggage in our room. We dropped downstairs to grab a bite to eat, and then we headed for the casino floor.
Literally, the very first quarter we dropped into the one-armed bandit scored a $400 jackpot.
It was a great week. We won back most of what we bet, leaving Las Vegas only $800 down for the week, which did include what we spent on souvenirs and our eats, and the $200 we dropped on dinner at the Top of the World restaurant at the Stratosphere.
That was the first time I had ever eaten dinner at 110 stories overlooking the Las Vegas night life. That alone was worth the $200 dinner. The food on the other hand wasn't quite there, although it is our own fault for ordering food that we had never eaten before --- lamb and lobster. We walked away from the restaurant knowing that we definitely do not have the tastebuds for lobster which comprised half of our meal ticket price. We will leave the lobster next time to the people who enjoy that kind of thing.
Now, here is the deal. On our honeymoon trip to Las Vegas, we went into the experience blind --- completely unaware of things like Slot Machine Payout Percentages, Comps and the such. Had we known of such things, we might have been able to better optimize our slot machine winning results... maybe. Then again, maybe we did just fine.
On our last day trip to a casino, we left the casino $70 richer than we were when we had arrived.
Anyhow, on our next trip to the slots, we will be carrying cheat sheets with us to help us to better pick our machines. Listed below is just one such cheat sheet that will be included in our information arsenal.
ABOUT THE CHEAT SHEET
Here is a little bit of detail about this cheat sheet, before we continue.
While the manufacturer has some control over the percentages that the slot machines will pay out, the final decision is in the hands of the casino operators.
This is a list of machines that have the highest possible payouts according to the payout percentages that have been assigned by the manufacturers. You will notice that this list shows the Highest and Lowest Payout Percentages assigned to the machines. Each of these numbers have been verified with the respective slot machine manufacturers.
As I mentioned before, the casino will make a determination as to what percentage level they will actually pay out according to their own internal policies. Each machine will be set within the ranges listed below. Now, you must keep in mind that the casino will often set their machines at varying levels based on the amount of the bet. For example, dollar machines will always have a higher payout percentage than the nickel machines will. Most casinos will slide the payout percentage based on the amount of the bet, whether we are talking about nickel, dime, quarter, dollar, five dollar, ten dollar or twenty dollar machines.
You must also keep in mind that the Stratosphere may pay out a different percentage than the MGM Grand Casino or the Luxor Casino.
The most interesting part of the Payout Percentage schemes is that the government only requires a 75% Payout Percentage for all slot machines. However, competition for your money has entered into the equation, so now it is possible to find machines that payout as much as 98% of the total take on a single machine.
The final consideration that you must take into account when reviewing this list of Payout Percentages is that these are baseline averages over say the course of a single year. The machine will not pay back to its user the full 98% of the bets over the course of a single day. In fact, you could sit at the same machine for a full seven days and still not win back 25% of your money. let alone 98% of your money. But then again, you could sit down at a single machine and drop one quarter and win 98% of everything placed into that machine over the past six months. It all still comes down to the luck of the draw.
SLOT MACHINE PAYOUT PERCENTAGES VERIFIED BY THE MANUFACTURERS
SLOT VERSION - SLOT MFG. - HIGHEST and LOWEST PAYOUT %
About the author:
Don Fallows is a writer for the GamblingWisdom.com website. Gambling Wisdom is dedicated to helping gamblers learn how to gain more enjoyment from their gambling activities. GWC provides articles, information and resources associated with a variety of gambling topics. http://GamblingWisdom.com/x.pl/gwc/index.html
