I wanted to share a recent experience I had regarding casino trips. As a player, we all know that some trips will be winning and some will be losing. Some will be a roller coaster and some will be a smoother ride.
I had a weird experience recently where two casino trips last month to the same casino, playing most of the same machines at the same bets for roughly the same amount of time, yielded a surprisingly similar outcome: A win of about 150x my average bet.
However, how I got there differed widely. On the first trip, I had five wins of at least 100x my bet – I’m pretty sure that’s the first time that ever happened. But nothing else happened – over a couple hours of play I really only got those five sizable wins.
The second trip, I didn’t get a single 100x win – but I had a lot of solid line hits, bonuses more in the 40-60x range, and more consistent success on the machines. Effectively it was a smoother ride.
Games nowadays are designed to deliver those bigger wins, less frequently. But when there’s not as much around it to support it the ride can be much less fun and more nervewracking as you watch your budget.
On the other hand, when you’re getting line hits and other wins to keep things interesting, it can make the ride more fun overall.
The games I played on these two trips have captured money efficiently at times, and awarded money efficiently at other times. One of the games I happened to play both visits was one that I had previously put on my “do not play” list because I had invested $100, 80 cents a spin at a time, without a single bonus. Another, in $130 worth of spins I lost $120 – that return rate is abysmal and it’s because it’s all about the bonus and not the line hits along the way.
The increasing difficulty of slots means if you don’t bet smaller relative to your budget, you run the risk of flaming out more quickly than you used to. Of course, if you can catch a lucky run things can pick up more quickly, but it serves to make the ride more uncertain.
My recent experience reminded me that it’s not just the bet, but the volatility of the games, that can have an impact on the trip. As part of our upcoming content we’re working on some more low volatility information, including slots recommended by some of the makers that you all know and love.
So with that in mind, near the end of my second visit, already having had some of those 40-60x wins, I sat down at an ancient $1.50 max bet Quick Hit machine and went on one of those fun runs that I hadn’t experienced in awhile, although augmented by a 40x line hit on its own.
It helped secure some of the extra money I walked out of with, but I also played it for nearly 20 minutes, doing hundreds of dollars in coin-in, while having a pretty good ride. It was the longest I had sat at a slot in awhile, in part because it was so much fun and kept me engaged. The more volatile machines happened to do so this trip as well, but the odds of that happening again next time aren’t great, which is why it helps to have games like this to reach for when things aren’t going so good.
Thanks. You seem to have confirmed what I was starting to think. When a machine has great bonuses, but small or almost nil line pays…. It is NOT fun. I would much rather win smaller for a long time…
Fortunately for us, Sharon, both types of games exist, but it is skewing towards the bonus right now!