A guide to understanding machine odds and which slots offer the best prospects of winning money right in this online casino blog.

Slot Machines

There’s an old saying among machine players: “The sun always shines on a dog’s tail.”

Sorry to break it to you, but that’s about as far from the truth as it is always possible to be. The reality is that every slot machine is subject to the same random number generator, so the odds are the same on every machine across the casino.

So why do some one-armed bandits seem lucky and others a waste of time?

The truth is that fruit games are designed to make casino money, not players. So the slots with the best odds (which give players the best chance of winning) are often located in less visible areas of the casino. This means that the casinos make less money from these machines because players don’t find their way to them.

As a result, to get the best odds, you need to go looking for them. This post will show you which games offer the best odds and how to find them in a casino.

What Are the Odds at a Slot Machine?

Before we find the best games, let’s take a moment to understand the odds at a standard slot machine. If you spend time trying to find the best library titles, you need to understand how they work.

A slot machine operator (be it a casino, online casino, or gaming hall) wants to keep you playing for as long as possible. To do that, they design the machine to make you win small amounts of money, often while rarely giving you the big wins.

If you stick around playing fruit games long enough, the wins will add up to a sizable sum of money, and that’s precisely what the casino is looking for. So don’t be fooled into thinking the machine is against you when you don’t win—it’s working as intended.

How to Identify the Best Slots?

So, now that you understand the odds at a machine, you may be wondering how to identify the ones with the best odds. Well, lucky for you, it’s pretty straightforward. The best slots have the following probabilities listed on them:

  • The machine pays out at least the amount wagered (the player doesn’t lose their money) on single wins.
  • The machine pays out 92% – 98% of the amount wagered on single wins.

You’ll rarely find a machine that doesn’t meet these minimum standards, but when you do, it’s important to know where to look elsewhere. Now that you know what to look for, here’s what you should do when walking into a new casino and how to find the best slots.

Highest Payout Slots

Slots with the highest payouts include:

  • Classic 3-reel titles
  • Progressive jackpots.

Classic 3-reel titles (with 24/7 pay) and progressive jackpots (where the payout is vastly more remarkable than the amount bet) are apps on your smartphone. These usually have pretty good odds as the gambling authorities regulate them.

The worst machine odds are found on:

  • Games with bonus rounds
  • Theme titles (such as Batman or Lord of the Rings).

There you can win by completing different in-game tasks rather than by getting a winning combination of symbols Video slots—these usually have higher house edges and payouts than 3-reel titles because they are less old-fashioned and more modern.