The various ideas for outsmarting a slot machine seems endless. Here’s two more recent “ideas” found on our various social media profiles that won’t give you a leg up on slots (and don’t worry, we’ll also tell you why):
Am I the only one that notices that when you get 2 bonus symbols that nearly every time the next spin is 1 bonus symbol, and if not the next spin is always 1 bonus symbol. When you see 2 bonus symbols…LOWER YOUR BET FOR 2 SPINS.
Jeff C.
Players notice all sorts of patterns, or so they think. The problem is patterns don’t exist in slots. Our brain retains the ones that fit our theory, and throw out the ones that don’t, so those patterns are really self-inforced ideas that don’t prove out in practice.
In this case, here’s a short exercise you can do at the casino. Keep a tally of how many times a bonus symbol comes out over the course of some n number of spins (100? 200? We’ll let you decide.) When you need 3+ bonus symbols, seeing one is actually pretty common. So count each time you see one or more bonus symbols. It’ll probably be a pretty frequent percentage.
So when our brain is looking for some sort of reinforcement that we “just missed” a bonus, we’ll spot that missing bonus symbol a lot, because in general it happens a lot – we hear from other players all the time about this.
But lowering your bet for one or 20 spins won’t help you any more than two specifically, because the thing about slot machines is the next spin has no connection to the previous in that previous outcomes don’t impact future spins. The outcome appears based on the moment you hit spin, and only that action is involved.
So this concept, while creative, won’t help you at all, unfortunately.
I noticed that it’s possible to juice up the bonus dollars by betting high once in a while. Example – on Buffalo Link – betting $2 and $3 dollars for a couple of spins, and going back to $1 yields Buffalo boxes with significantly higher dollar amounts. The effect goes away almost immediately (by next bet). This appears to be true regardless of denomination. What do you think?
Arthur D.
The prizes on the cash on reels spaces of games like Buffalo Link are generally prizes relative to your bet. So if you bet $1 and the prize is 2x, it will show $2. If you bet $10, it will show $20. (If that $20 coincides with the value of a Mini, it could show Mini, but it’s still a 2x prize of $20.)
The machine can’t be tricked into showing bigger prizes when you switch to a smaller bet. Instead, Link series players will recognize what Brian Christopher dubs “big numbers attract big numbers,” which effectively is highlighting a feature of the game that on some subset of spins, the cash on reels prizes available are larger. Get the required number, and you’ll have a much better bonus than the ones that have mostly 1x and 2x prizes.
So you’re not able to juice up the prizes by changing around your bet or denomination. The numbers that appear are by design and controlled by the game itself, based on the prize distribution available at the moment you press the spin button.
Why won’t casinos do annything about the button slappers? They are loud, damage the machine and even shake the playing machine on the other side. My goodness, a simple sign on the slot, “Banging or slapping the machine will not be tolerated,” is at least a step….
Hey Courtney! We broached this topic previously, but we think it simply comes down to not wanting guests to get angry and leave. Slots are built to withstand a lot of abuse, so unless it actually causes a machine to break (which casinos will generally charge the player who broke it), they’re probably not going to do much unless players write in to ask for a solution. So we encourage players to contact casinos asking for a policy around this!