The comments section of most social media accounts today tends to feature some percentage of people who want to push back on assertions almost reflexively. Today’s is what we feel is an example of that:
[The Random Number Generator] picks numbers randomly. But how many of those random numbers that are picked are winning combinations? The machines are obviously top heavy with losing combinations.
Rick
We’ve said exhaustively on our site and social content that all casino games are designed with a house edge, so it’s not a stretch to presume that there are a percentage of outcomes that are losing.
How many are losing combinations, however, can vary wildly. One of the aspects to a slot machine’s design is something called Hit Frequency, which we’ve defined here earlier.
Some games will pay smaller amounts more frequently, meaning more winning spins but often smaller wins. Others are much less frequently awarding wins, but the potential size for them are bigger when it does. Those games will play, and feel, very different. Older slots are more likely to have those more frequent line hits compared to today’s slots, but that’s not universal.
Sometimes it’s not even the frequency of the wins, but what comes out of them. Compare a game like Quick Hit Link, which tends to have more frequent and smaller line hits, with a game like Big Hot Flaming Pots, where there’s almost no money in the line hits at all, when line hits even do pop up. Light & Wonder is the company that released both, but they’re offering very different experiences, likely to target very different players.
Some of the bigger changes have been around the balance between the line hits and the bonuses. Flaming Pots has a lot bigger bonus potential than Quick Hit Link traditionally does, and that’s in part because the amount put into the line hits for Flaming Pots is so much lower. Quick Hit Link itself has lower line hit potential than older Quick Hit slots, giving its bonuses more potential.
So yes, the RNG is working within a set range of outcomes, and the machine is designed to make money for the casino, so losing spins are definitely there. But how frequently it’s losing, and where the payouts can be found, are more varied than many realize, and is a critical part of what makes a slot machine feel like it does.
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