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
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
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