When you're playing real money games, it's easy to get caught up in the excitement of your game. Everything moves fast at the casino and it can be overwhelming to keep everything in perspective. Our brains are hard-wired to make sense of our world so it may seem reasonable to look for techniques and strategies that will help you win.
Table games like blackjack and poker can be won by combining luck and skill but games like slots are completely random-based. The results of every spin of every reel is random so you shouldn't rely on any tricks as you try to improve your score.
That doesn't stop people from trying to encourage you with "slot tips" but, in truth, these "tips" are really slot machine myths - let us, at Grande Vegas, clear the air.
Some of the most widely circulated myths include:
Eventual Payout
You may hit a losing streak but it makes sense that, at some point, you'll eventually hit a win. Right? Nope.
Actually, when you're playing casino games, persistence doesn't pay off. In fact, statistically, the longer you gamble, the more likely you are to incur more losses. In slots, every result of every play is random and unaffected by anything that happened previously. But mathematically, the longer your gaming session lasts, the higher the odds that your winnings will decrease.
The longer you gamble, the more losses you'll incur. If you are on a winning streak, walk away and come back another day because, in the long run, the game's inherent Return to Player – the odds that favor the casino that are built into each game -- will prevail. You have better chances of achieving more payouts if you keep your gaming sessions short and sweet.
Rituals
Humans seem to have an inborn yen to include rituals and superstitions in their efforts to achieving gambling success. People have been using talismans and other kinds of good luck charms and rituals for thousands of years – the 4-leaf clover of the Celts, the scarab of the Egyptians, the horseshoe of the Romans and the dreamcatcher of the Native Americans. You might also see people chanting mantras, wearing specific "lucky" clothes or jewelry or rubbing a "lucky" object in the belief that such actions will bring good fortune.
For some people, these actions are meaningful and for others, they're just good fun. But it's clear that they don't influence the outcome of a slot machine's spin at all so don't get caught up with such a ritual for anything other than entertainment purposes.
Strategies
If your slot machine hasn't paid out for a while, can you assume that the machine is "due for a win." As noted before, while it may seem logical to assume that, as the slot swings to a low-win time, it will eventually swing to a high-win time, that just isn't true, thanks to the Random Number Generator that ensures that every spin is random and independent of all previous spins.
The belief, however, has given rise to a number of "strategies" that, you might be told, can help direct you to a more winning gaming session. These include the Martingale Strategy, which is probably the best known of them, as well as the Fibonacci Model, the D’Alembert Strategy, the Kelly Criterion and others. These are called "Gamblers’ Fallacies" by casino consultants because, frankly, they don’t work. Again, past outcomes can't influence future ones.
Each of these strategies/fallacies directs you to take a specific action after each gameplay – raise your bet after a loss, double your bet after a win, etc. Basically, the idea is to get you to keep playing since it's to the casino's advantage to keep you gambling for as long as possible.
In the end, your best bet is to play according to your instincts and never play beyond your budget.
You can't count on a slot machine’s predictability but you can gamble responsibly, which is the most important element of succeeding when you set out to enjoy casino entertainment.
Payline Slot Vs. Pay Ways Machine
In today's casino world, there's a lot of discussion about what kind of slot offers the best payout percentage. There are classic three-reel slots and five-reel video slots and even six-reel slot machines. Paylines vary from three lines to a hundred and more!
Many of today's slots are pay ways slots where matching symbols can create completed combinations regardless of where they appear on the gameboard. There are a lot of myths about these different types of slots – some people say that 'pay line' slots pay out more while others promote 'pay ways' machines as the best payout machines.
In the end, the only way that you can know whether you're playing on a high-payout machine is to check the Return to Player percentage. Every machine displays its RTP, which is the statistical measure of the percentage of wagered money that a game will pay out to gamers over time. The higher the RTP, the better the payout percentage.
Max Bet Advantage
Have you heard that casinos want to keep the bets high, so the machines reserve the top payouts to gamers who place the highest bets? That's a myth that makes the rounds but it's completely baseless. You can play any slot machine that you wish at whichever betting level suits your individual gaming budget and enjoy the same gaming event!
Bust those slots myths so that you can enjoy the best slots gaming experience!
