Class II machines, the ones with Bingo cards on them, often draw questions from curious players wondering about their differences vs. slots. Here’s one we recently received:
Games with bingo cards: Are they better or worse odds?
Carole
Usually when people ask us about odds, they mean it one of two ways:
- The overall chances of winning: Is it easier or harder to win on a Bingo machine vs. a slot machine?
- The long-term payback of a game: Over time, are you likely to win more money overall on a Bingo machine vs. a slot machine?
And the answer to both is: It depends.
When it comes to the overall chances of winning, that is more likely to be impacted by the design of the game. Games with low payouts on the line hits, massive progressives and much of their money in the bonuses, for instance, will be harder to win than a game with smaller top payouts, frequent generous line hits, and smaller bonuses.
So, the Bingo card has less to do with it than how a game is structured, in that aspect.
When it comes to overall payouts, each casino is able to set its own rules within the design of the games. Just like casinos can set their slot machines to pay out a certain percentage out of a set of options each game gives them, casinos can set up their Bingo in various ways to determine what the long-term payback percentage will be.
Even though each system is designed to work differently, increasingly the math behind each is making the games closer and closer to being alike. It’s enough so that some companies can design a game for both Bingo and commercial markets at the same time, and you’re seeing popular brands showing up in both markets in part because the companies are increasingly confident players won’t notice a major difference between them.
So back to that answer – it depends. We don’t think players should worry too much about that as a rule – they’re likely going to be within the same range for the same game on a casino floor.
There are some anecdotal examples of casinos marketing themselves as looser with Bingo machines, and some casinos potentially offering better payouts on Bingo to help with player comfort with them, but like with Vegas-style slots, casinos don’t often share the payouts they’re offering, so it’s not something a player can directly confirm either.
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Do you know why all of the casinos are taking out the old games?
Hi Candice – there’s a variety of reasons for it nowadays. The cost to maintain older machines, particularly ones that are officially no longer supported is one, replacing them with games that will get played more is another, and casinos are also using the opportunity to reset floor layouts to have more space while replacing old machines in the process. Casinos have been increasingly data driven and having banks of machines that sit more idle is considered more of a negative if they can be replaced with games that will get more play.