Regulations have a lot of sway in how things get done. So it’s naturally an area some players aim to explore as they better understand how all this works. Here’s an example:
Here’s my questions that I can’t seem to get any answers to. If a casino has to pay out a certain percentage of winnings, is that percentage for all the games together or individually. Because it seems like that would greatly favor the casino if they all were included. Question 2. I’ve heard they only receive up to a 5000 dollar fine if they don’t pay out enough. That doesn’t seem right either when they make hundreds of thousands off of it.
Mike H.
Whether a casino has to meet a payback percentage per machine or across all slots overall (the requirement would be specific to slots, as opposed to other games like table games which have a traditionally higher payback) will largely be determined by the regulations they operate under. It varies by state or jurisdiction, so there’s not a uniform answer.
Generally speaking though, even if it’s across a casino floor, because casinos have no control over which machines we play, and how much we play, they will often set them all at or above the level anyway, because it takes all the guesswork out of it and ensures they’re in compliance.
And in the end, hitting that mark works out similarly, whether it’s (to use a simple example) 90 percent on every machine, or 90 percent across the floor, because in the end the casino still has to be sure that over time, 90 percent of what they take in goes back out to players.
We’ve addressed the question of fines a few times here, but just to summarize:
Some players believe or claim to have proof that casinos would pay a fine instead of paying at the required payback percentage. Every time we’ve looked into this we’ve never found evidence this is true.
What players may not realize is casinos who have regulations to follow do so in part to protect their ability to have a casino at all. If a casino refused to follow regulations, why would their license get renewed? And if a casino accidentally did this, we’d expect the fine to be much higher – in the one accidental example we found, the fine was almost $100,000.
And it’s not just a single market – many casinos are owned by corporations that have business in multiple states. If they skirt the laws in one state, why would any state allow them to operate? It’s too risky and too much money is at stake to do such things. So no, casinos tend to follow the regulations pretty strictly.
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