Understanding Slot Machine Pay Tables
In case you’ve checked the pay table, but you still don’t understand something, don't worry, you can open it at any time to cross reference your wins and losses. In case you need more information, you'll find all you need to know in our blog about slot machine lines and pay tables.
Slots are among the most popular ways to gamble. It’s easy to sit down, put your money in, and watch the reels spin. But there’s more going on than you might expect. Let’s take a look inside to understand what’s happening when you pull the lever.
Slot machines generally have three or more “reels,” each of which has a number of symbols. While physical slot machines may have 20 or more symbols per reel, digital technology allows them to have many more—some have 256 virtual symbols—with millions of possible combinations. The combinations of symbols that pay out if you bet on them are called “paylines.”
Slot machines contain random number generators that can generate thousands of numbers per second, each of which is associated with a different combination of symbols. Whether you win or lose is determined by the random number generated in the exact instant you activate each play—if it matches a payline, you win. Since each spin is independent, random and unrelated to previous or future spins, it’s impossible to predict what will happen on each play.
There are many different kinds of slot machines. Some allow you to choose how many paylines to bet on per play, and how much you want to bet. Before you put your money in, figure out the cost per play, the odds, the paylines, the return to player, and anything else that will help you make the right decisions for you. Look for pay tables on or near the machine that explain everything you need to know.
The possible payouts and the odds of winning depend on the machine you’re playing, the paylines you choose to play, and how many credits you wager.
Machines that cost pennies to play might pay out small prizes relatively often. Others cost several dollars per play, but offer bigger jackpots and higher odds. For instance, for the I Heart Triple Diamond penny machine, the odds of winning a prize are 1 in 12, but the odds of winning the top prize are only 1 in 649,400.
No matter what machine you decide to play, the odds always favour the house. This means that over time, it’s more likely than not that you will walk away with less money than when you started.
While machines can be programmed to pay out at higher or lower odds, a typical average house advantage for slot machines is 8%, meaning the average return the player is 92 percent. That makes slot machines less favourable than tables games such as fortune pai gow poker, blackjack and roulette, in terms of return to player.
| Game | House advantage, with optimal play |
|---|---|
| Baccarat | 1.06% |
| Blackjack | 0.5% |
| Craps | 0.8% |
| Fortune pai gow poker | 0.5 to 2.5% |
| Poker | 2 to 3.5% |
| Lottery | 50% |
| Roulette | 5.3% |
| Slot machines | 8% (average) |
Playing longer doesn’t improve your odds of walking away a winner.
Persistence doesn’t pay off. Each play on a slot machine is independent, unpredictable and unrelated to what happened on the previous play. A machine is never “due for a win” and they don’t “go cold” after a win either.
Soon after you leave a machine it wins a jackpot—that doesn’t mean you would have won if you had kept playing.
Future wins on a machine are completely unrelated to what happened when you were playing. Because random number generators determine the outcome of each play, the results of each play are totally independent from what happened before. Outcomes depend on what random number is generated in the exact instant a player presses play or pulls the lever.
Machines that are furthest from the aisle do not pay out more because they’re played less often.
How often a machine is played has nothing to do with how likely it is to pay out on the next play. Payouts are determined by the pre-set odds of the machine and the unpredictable results of the random number generator inside.
You cannot improve your chances of winning at most slot machines.
Most slots are games of chance, based on the random number generator. For some machines, bonus games offer you a chance to influence the outcome by interacting with an arcade-style video game. While skill may be a factor, the random number generator usually determines whether you even get to play the bonus game and the amounts available to be won—so chance is still a major part of the deal.
Understand how skill and chance work and how they affect the games you play.
Read thisTake this quiz to get a better understanding of your gambling habits.
Read thisUnderstand the role randomness plays in games of skill and how it affects the outcome of the game.
Read thisSlots Paylines and Payout
A payline is a sequence of positions on the reels read from left to right. An active payline is one that is wagered upon. When the reels stop spinning the sequence of symbols occupying the positions in the active paylines are compared with the combinations in the payout table. The payout table lists all the combinations for which there is a payout along with the payout ratio. If any of the active paylines have combinations that match with those in the payout table then the players are paid out as per the payout ratio.
Video Lesson On Paylines and Payout Tables
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Note: One thing we forgot to mention in our video is that all games are different and that we advise that you read and undestand the payout table before you commence in playing any slot game so as to ensure there's no discrpancies later.
In the classical electromechanical slots only one set of symbols could be displayed and hence those slots had only one payline. But with the advent of online video slots this changed drastically. 5 reel online video slots display 3 rows of symbols, with each row having 5 symbols. Reading horizontally this gives rise to three paylines. Initially the video slots had three paylines. But then slots were developed to read the lines in a zigzag manner as well. Hence the number of paylines increased. Today the most common numbers of paylines are 5, 9, 15, 20 and 25. Microgaming and WagerWorks have developed online slots with 50 or more paylines. Microgaming has Gladiator with 50 paylines and Cashapillar with 100 paylines. WagerWorks has Elvis A Little More Action with 50 paylines and Elvis Multi-Strike with 60 paylines.
In multi line slots the player decides the coin denomination and number of coins per line. The product of this gives his line bet. He then decides how many lines he will wager on. If he decides to wager on 5 lines then his total bet is 5 times his line bet. This is equivalent to choosing one line and spinning the slots 5 times. Hence in multi line slots the number of spins required for the same wagered amount is reduced. Multi line slots therefore proceed at a much faster rate and this is their main advantage. Added to this is the thrill of playing so many lines simultaneously.
Understanding Slot Machine Pay Tables Table
It is important to be able to read the payout table. Payouts usually begin when the specified symbols appear at least three times in active paylines. The left to right rule states that the symbols must appear on consecutive reels starting from reel 1, with the reels being numbered from left to right. Divin' for Pearls is a popular Wizard Gaming online slot. Its payout table can be seen here in our payout table section of our review for the Divin' for Pearls video slot game. In the Regular Payout Table, 4 Tiki symbols have a pay out ratio of 150. This means that if the Tiki symbol appears in reels 1 to 4 in any active payline then the payout will be 150 times the number of coins wagered on each line. If the player has wagered 10 coins of $0.50 on each line his payout will be 1,500 coins or $750.