Hockey Mex

At The Bellagio the other day, I overheard a patron of the casino tell another patron that he does not play slots, as they are rigged. I have to admit, I chuckled to myself as this guy went on with his conspiracy theory about how the casino pays out based on favoritism. Apparently, according to the conspiracy theorist, you have to be a high roller in order to hit any of the progressive jackpots. Additionally, the slot seemingly becomes less random for some players and more random for other players.

As I was grinding away at my video poker machine, I had to bite my tongue in trying not to get involved in the conversation. The man in question was proposing that the casino was rigging a game that was already in a sense rigged to begin with.

How Casino Slots Really Work

By design, casino online slot machines take in money and the collective slots on the casino property are required to maintain a certain payout percentage over time. The machines are set in groups to generate around a given rate of return, plus or minus a small margin of error. Typically, an auditing firm provides reports and oversees the slots numbers to assure the casino’s customer base that the slots at the casino property are paying out within tolerance.

For example, supposing an online slots machine is set to a payout rate of 92%. This means that for every $100 put into the machine the slot machine returns $92 to the customer. Thus, $100 goes in and $92 comes out. The customer puts a second $100 into a similar machine and receives $92 back. This is of course an example in a bubble, because it is rare that a machine operates on an absolute statistical norm in two consecutive short sessions that are observed. In reality, if a slot pays out a rate higher than its set rate of return, over time it will pay out less to gravitate back to the statistical norm.

The fact of the matter is that over time, goldencasino will make money based solely on the fact that the universe of casino slots players at their casino will make less money from slots than they put in. At a payout rate of 92%, the casino stands to earn $8 per $100 inserted into their slot machines. Because millions of dollars per day goes into slots at most casinos, there is really no need to cheat or rig the slots. The fact that the slot machines get use guarantees the casino a “money machine.” As long as slots players pull the lever, the casino gets paid and it matters not who wins. There is no logical motivation for a casino to rig a slots machine.