How I play slots/slot-bonuses.

[Zoozie]

Since I made a slot analyzer program and reviews of the new MG slots every month, this have given people the impression I know a lot about slots, which
is probably correct. But somehow people also believe I am able to win at slots using this knowledge. Unfortunately this is not true - what a shame
So I decided to answer many of these questions once for all.

I am a small overall loser at slots and I am sure I will never be able to win consistently at slots. But instead of telling how to win at slots I can instead tell you how I minimize my loss at slots. I do not play slots to win but to be entertained and I try to minimize the cost of this ofcourse.

I almost never play without a bonus. The house egde at around 5% (RTG,MG,Playtech) is simply to high and I see the bonuses as a compensation for this! So I am not ashamed of only playing slots with bonuses nor writing about it. Two casinos have banned me (politely and all money paid) because I only played with bonuses, but this is perfectly fair and I accept this with no hard feelings. In one of the cases I only played slots at the casino, so I must be doing something right since I believe it is hard to get bonus-ban when only playing slots.

It is worth mention that Rival and WagerWorks, two new software providers, actually have 5-reel slots with 96%+ payout and they even write the payout% for the individual slots on the help page. I hope this sends a message to other casino software companies.

First of all I very rarely bet more than 0.5$/spin and sometimes only 0.25$. So I am a micro/low roller on slots actually. Also I never take a full 100% bonus up to 100$, but
instead often only 25$. I will explain this important decision later. Therefore betting 0.5$/spin can clear the wagering requirement within reasonable time and I am sure to get plenty of hours entertainment for my money.

When I play videopoker/blackjack I normally bet 5$ and sometimes 10$ each hand. VP is actually also my favorite and prefered game, but the slots are fun though. And this post is about slots.

The only case when I increase the bet on slots is when I get a 200%+ bonus - then I go to about 2.5$/spin. This is because else I will never be able to clear the wagering. I play mostly MG slots but also RTG/Playtech/WagerWorks/Crypto/Rival.

Trying to win is important for me, that is what the game is about besides having fun while playing. If I did not care about money I would be playing for fun-money. The goal is to clear the wagering requirement and then simply cash out. If you have 50$ left when clearing the wagering requirement, it is better to cash out and use the 50$ to get a 100% bonus somewhere else. Then you can start playing with 100$. When I am playing the MG clearplay bonus system it does happen I manage to win big way before clearing the wagering requirement. My general rule is to cash out if bankroll/(bonus left) >= 10 and forfeit the rest of the bonus. If you continue playing here you are risking a lot of your own money(you can withdraw them!) to win a much smaller bonus (10% of deposit).

There are plenty of 100% slot bonuses available from the casinos every month or sign-up bonus and therefore it is always possible to cash-out and use the money for another bonus. If you play night and day you can not except always to play with a bonus of course, but I do not play slots more than 3-5 hours/week.

Another important reason I am able to get my slot addiction covered by always playing with bonuses is that I am a low-roller only betting 0.5$/spin.
If you have to play 5$/spin to get a hard on, then you will run out of bonuses very quick and you will not be able to play many hours each month. This is another reason I can play so many hours and always with a bonus.

When I play I often only play 5 or 9 lines and then increase bet-size so total bet is around 0.5$. This is simply because I prefer to have a few very high wins instead of several 'medium' wins. The only slot I play all 25-lines is 'Isis' because this slot has ultra high variance. On the other hand if I manange to win big but have to clear a wagering requirement first, then I play 20/25 lines to decrease variance in order to get the money and reducing the risk for losing it all. Some people increase/decrease bet-size when playing slot claiming they are able to see patterns and want to hit the feature with high bet. I do not believe this any more than I believe in Voodoo. If anyone claim to be able to do this, then ask him why is not stinking rich. I do know that old (English style) B&M 'fruit slots' had patterns/cycles that could be predicted and abused, but this was due to 'backdoors' planted in the coding so it could be exploited by those that knew or it it was a result of intentended bug in the code/RNG. But this is not the case for the RNG used on online casinos. So ruling out any mathematical/logic reason for being able to predict this, it leaves only ESP. But I was not gifted with this upon birth(*curse my parents.. grumble*)

But now for something interesting you might not be aware of that can help you trying to survive at slots, you deserve this if you read all my ramblings above that turned out to be a lot longer than I had expected.

I generally have a limit to how much I want to risk at slots every month. This is about 200$. Instead of using all 200$ for a 100% in one casino it is much better instead to use ten 100% bonus and then only deposit 20$ in each. It can be explained simple this way.

Take the extreme example where you deposit 1$ for a 100% bonus and doing it multiple times. If you lose the 1$ it will clear all excess wagering requirements. So when you deposit the 1$ again this wagering is cleared. On the other hand if you manage to win big (500$ etc) then you only need to clear the wagering for the bonus from the 1$ which is typical (bonus+deposit)*20=40$ in this case. Wagering these 40$ with you now 500$ bankroll will mean you actually are able to get almost the whole winning no matter how bad the rest of your session goes. I typical only deposit 25$ for 100% bonuses when playing slots and I have no problems finding at least 10 different 100% bonus offers each month at various casinos. Splitting a deposit up in multi deposits this way is becomes way more important when playing high variance games combined with games with high house edge. And slots fits this decription excactly! If I was playing blackjack which has the total opposite description the benefit from is much lower.

The above was possible because there are plently 100% bonuses around. If I was offered a 200%+ slot bonus (some signup bonuses at MG casino) I deposit 100$ (normally the maximum amount allowed) because this is a good offer with an 'effective' very low house egde.

Last word of caution. Even if you follow my guideline YOU CAN NOT MAKE MONEY AT SLOTS. But it has helped me reducing the cost of the entertainment.

Zoozie

[DealerBusts]

Hi Zoozie, thx for your informative post. Do you play slots on the Cryptologic casino software? In particular, what do you think of the Marvel SuperHero Jackpot slots? I have played the Punisher game and find it is very tight with not many lowend payouts. The features are also not very impressive.

[johnsteed]

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Superb post "Zoozie"!


I appreciate this post, from the perspective of getting some insight as to how someone else approaches playing slots. Kudos on highlighting the fact that you're behind overall on slots. Keep up the great work!



Steed

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[darsval]

Zoozie... is there any casinos you particularly like to play at??

[vinylweatherman]

Originally Posted by Zoozie

Last word of caution. Even if you follow my guideline YOU CAN NOT MAKE MONEY AT SLOTS. But it has helped me reducing the cost of the entertainment.

Zoozie

Vegas Affiliates seem to believe otherwise, when bonuses are involved at least.

[EasyRhino]

Zoozers, nice post.

If I may hijack the thread slightly, I have a hunch that it is possible to make money on slot bonuses. However, I haven't personally given any thought to it.

I assume you'd have to find only appealing bonuses, bet really really huge amounts, risking a quick bust, and then grind out wagering requirements for a withdrawal only when your balance is several times higher than what it started with.

To be honest, the style of play doesn't sound very appealing. Busting out ten times in a row very quickly, then getting one big win and hoping to get paid... blech.

I think your method has some appeal to it.

[Addisyn]

Zoozie I have thanked you for your post but I must thank you again. I took your advice to heart reading your post several times. Yesterday I deposited $100.00 to Villento and received a $25.00 bonus.

I have been playing small bets and currently have $94.00. This is with about 8 hours of playing. Summertime is a good slot for the low roller I have found. It doesn't want to give you the free spins although I did get them once. It is the constant smaller payouts that are keeping me going. Also, Dogfather loves me with those hydrants. On Thunderstruck I hit the free spins and rehit them twice for 45 free spins at $.45. It was a good hit at that bet. I won just slightly over $45.00.

This gives me my fix and isn't breaking my bankroll which is really hurting of late. I have taken the step of discontinuing my Instacash option in Neteller so I will be recycling my wins for a while.

Thanks again!

[KasinoKing]

Originally Posted by Zoozie

Last word of caution. Even if you follow my guideline YOU CAN NOT MAKE MONEY AT SLOTS. But it has helped me reducing the cost of the entertainment.
Zoozie

Superb post!

I will be honest also - I really can't say 100% if I'm ahead on slots or not - but I'm pretty sure I am.
(I could go through all my records - but it would take about a week )

The reason I think I'm ahead is because I ALWAYS low-roll - even after a mega win.
Therefore I never throw away a great gain.
For example, I made $1,149 profit in November, mainly do to great runs on slots at Ladbrokes, Paddy Power & Hype, where I cashed out while ahead rather than upping my bets to try to win even more. (Details on my site if you're that interested!)
And last month I made $500 at Purple Lounge after getting a huge win early in the WR, then just cashing out without bothering to claim the post-wager bonus! Think about it - that's enough to fund another FIVE $100 100% bonuses!
In fact, when I look back through my KKresults page I can see that slots played a major part in most of my 10 profitable months this year.

Like Zoozie, I nearly always only play with a bonus - but I do always take the max. Although I play slots MUCH more than he does (virtually every day!), I also very rarely re-deposit at the same casino to try to win back a loss, but move to a different casino, different bonus

I also often don't play maximum lines on most slots, for the same reasons as him. The only one (more than 15 lines) I always max on is Harveys. I hardly ever play Isis cos the 'normal' wins (not in free-spins) totally SUCK!

So to sum up - I think I'm ahead on slots, but I know they are a whole lot more fun than grinding out bonuses on boring old low variance card games!

[mtx]

I really want to try out what Zoozie is talking about, but his post seems so complicated. Can anyone offer me a Coles-note breakdown? . I played at DaVinci's and surprisingly made $250. Now I want to re-invest that into more easy to clear bonuses and hopefully come up with some winnings again. Any suggestions?

[EasyRhino]

Originally Posted by mtx

Coles-note breakdown? . I played at DaVinci's and surprisingly made $250.

1) Deposit small
2) Play small
3) ???
4) Profit!

Revision to 4) Somewhat lower losses