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Slot Machine Odds By State

When you visit a casino, all the action appears to be happening at the tables. But when it comes to ease of play and popularity, slots come out on top. In fact, casinos dedicate roughly 80% of their gaming floor to slots. Only 20% is for table games.

The reason? Slots are more popular and account for more revenue than all other gambling sources combined. And for good reason. Playing a slot machine doesn’t require any gambling knowledge. On top of that, you can bet as little as $0.01.

Video Lottery Terminals and Electronic Table Games: Similar in appearance to classic slot machines or as simulated classic table games, these terminals are linked to a centralized system maintained by the Gaming Commission that tracks the game play and earnings for each game.

What slots and table games have in common, however, is the enforcement of a withholding tax. If you’re one of the millions who visits Las Vegas annually, you need to remember that your winnings could be subject to a 30% withholding tax by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Fortunately, Refund Management Services (RMS) can help you reclaim a portion or all of your withheld winnings.

Finding the Loosest Slots in Las Vegas

It’s not hard to find a slot machine in Nevada. In fact, there are over 490,000 slots and gaming machines in Clark County alone (the county where you find Las Vegas). And they’re not just located in casinos. You can find slot machines in the airport, gas stations, and convenience stores.

What is hard, though, is finding slot machines with the best payouts. After all, no one likes to go into a casino and lose $100 on the slots in 30 minutes. The goal is to win, or at least make your money last longer.

Thanks to increased competition in gambling hubs like Las Vegas, Reno, and Atlantic City, casino operators are battling for customers. To keep customers coming back, many casinos are increasing the number of jackpots at their slot machines.

All slot machines work on a payback percentage that the casinos can set. They can make a slot machine tight or loose. Loose slot machines increase the chances of a player hitting a payout. This creates excitement and helps keep players in their seats on the gambling floor.

For slots aficionados, it’s all about finding the loose machines. Not surprisingly, casinos do not advertise which machines are loose or the payout percentages of individual machines.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t do a little digging and find out which kinds of slot machines have the biggest win percentages. It turns out, you need to spend money to make money in Las Vegas.

Which slot machines have the best odds

Best Slots to Play in Las Vegas

Statistics from the Nevada Gaming Control Board show which slots offer the best payouts in the order of the denomination played. In June 2016 in Clark County, Megabucks progressive slots posted the worst win percentage at 85.15%.1

What that means is, for every $100 you spend, you can expect to win $85.15. Megabucks progressive slots generally have the worst win percentage because the huge jackpot outweighs the bad odds.

Casino Slot Machine Odds By State

The best win percentages came from high-roller slots. Slots that accept denominations of $5, $25, and $100 returned 94.05%, 94.97%, and 94.35%, respectively. While you can lose your money faster with high-roller slots, the payout percentages are always better (on all slots regardless of the denomination) if you get the maximum amount on each spin.

The most fruitful games, when it comes to odds and cost, are the nickel and quarter slots. In June, nickel slots had a win percentage of 94.2% while quarter slots paid back 93.06%. Next to Megabucks, penny slots have the worst win percentage, returning 88.83%.

Casinos with the Most Slots in Las Vegas

The Orleans Hotel and Casino

The Orleans is a Mardi Gras-themed casino hotel located a few minutes west of the Strip. The casino floor covers 137,000 square feet and has over 2,600 slot machines. There is also a high-limit slot salon.2

The casino also has over 60 table games and a 35-table poker room. You can also find a seat in the 125-person race and sports book with 13 betting windows.

MGM Grand Las Vegas

The MGM Grand is located at the south end of the Strip. It’s easy to spot the MGM Grand casino—it’s a massive emerald-coloured complex with a 45-foot bronze lion out front.

The MGM Grand covers over 170,000 square feet and has 3,000 slot machines (with denominations ranging from $0.01 to $1,000. There are also around 200 table games, a 24-hour poker room, and a race and sports book.3

Slot Machine Odds By StateCasino payouts by state

Sam’s Town Hotel and Gambling Hall

Sam’s is a sprawling casino resort 10 km east of the Strip. The 120,000-square-foot casino is spread out over three floors where you’ll find over 3,100 slot machines, 50 table games, an 11-table poker room, a 570-seat bingo room, and a 60-screen race and sports book.4

Casino Slot Winnings Subject to 30% Withholding Tax

Non-U.S. residents who win a significant amount of money playing the slots at any casino or gaming facility in the United States are subject to a 30% withholding tax by the IRS.

Which Slot Machines Have The Best Odds

In the U.S., winnings from casino games and other games of chance (racetrack, game show) are considered income. If you win $2,000 playing the slots, the casino will pay you $1,400. The IRS keeps the rest. But if you live in a country like Canada, which has signed a U.S. tax treaty, you may be eligible for a refund.

There are a number of countries that currently do not have a U.S. tax treaty. However, if you reside in any of the following countries, you could still be eligible for a refund: Australia, Bahrain, Barbados, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kuwait, Mexico, Malaysia, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, and the U.A.E.

To see if you meet the criteria and are eligible to get some or all of your withholding tax back, contact RMS.

RMS, the Easiest Way to Get Your 30% Withholding Tax Back

If you’ve visited the U.S. and had 30% of your casino winnings held back by the IRS, Refund Management Services (RMS) can help you reclaim a portion or all of your taxable winnings.

Founded by a Canadian chartered accountant, RMS is Canada’s most reliable and experienced gaming and casino tax refund provider. Over the years, RMS has helped thousands of people around the world recover taxes on their U.S. gaming wins. We’ve also never been refused an eligible refund.

Only RMS has the One Simple StepTM process with an easy online form to fill out. After you complete the form, our customer service agents take care of the rest, processing and submitting it to the IRS. It can take a minimum of one year for the IRS to review the claim and for RMS to receive the refund.

Contact RMS today by calling our toll-free number at 1-855-860-2610 or by e-mailing us at [email protected].

Sources:

1. “June Gaming Revenue Report,” Nevada Gaming Control Board web site; http://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=11262.
2. “Play,” The Orleans Hotel and Casino web site; http://www.orleanscasino.com/play.
3. “Casino,” MGM Grand Las Vegas web site; https://www.mgmgrand.com/en/casino.html.
4. “Play,” Sam’s Town Hotel and Gambling Hall web site; http://www.samstownlv.com/play.

As far as the casino industry is concerned, slot machine games are the most played games, yet, they are the least understood.

In the UK, slot machine games, also known as the fruit machine games, are some of the most sought after games at the land based casinos, and in the US, where they were first played in the 1890’s, they continue enjoying prominence and popularity among the players!

Australia, where they are referred to as Pokies, has more slots per capita than the US though, and while not at the same level as Australia, slot machine games continue to receive game time across different European countries and different gambling hotspots in Macau.

Online, hundreds of millions of bettors continue playing video slot machine games, as casual players through different social media application or for real cash at the different online casinos.

But even to those who have devoted their free time playing slots; the different slot terms, how they work, and the odds of winning the jackpots remain in the dark!

Is it possible to win playing slots jackpot?

The first and popular question that most of bettors ask is ‘Can I win the jackpot games?’ Right after this, they’ll ask ‘Is there a strategy or secret to winning big?’

It’s natural enough for any player to want to win! What’s the point of playing anyway? Is it not to experience the thrill and big wins that come with the video slot games?

Can I win while playing the jackpot slot games?

Sometimes, yes! All the payoffs as indicated on the video slot game actually represent your chance of winning. Any slots player who very often plays the game will increase his/her chances of winning and a reason to celebrate. But we are yet to see someone, besides the woman who won €1.75 million who while playing the same video slot game in a month, defied the odds of 625million:1 and won the same game twice in a row!

Is there a strategy or a secret to winning big?

Let nobody lie to you that they used a well worked out formula to win the video slot games! With rare cases, 99% of the slot machine games purely rely on chance. The results are determined by the Random Number Generator, and there’s nothing the casino or bettor can do to influence how the numbers are generated.

To this popular question, there isn’t any magical strategy or formula to increase your chances of winning! Only cross your fingers and pray lady luck is on your side!

What are the odds of winning a casino jackpot?

The odds of winning any casino jackpot vary from one game to another, on different coin values for the different bets you place, and in some cases on a slot machine game with the same denomination but playing on different machines. Casinos don’t usually advertise the odds of the different games and neither do they post them on the different machines.

Therefore, the best that we could do to estimate the odds of winning the different jackpot is to compare different games, offered at different casinos. For the estimate, we focused our attention on the United Kingdom market, where the casino average payouts are made public by the UK Gambling Commission for bettors to see.

The percentages are different from one casino to another but the overall look of the paybacks look like this: Slot machines normally pay higher percentages if you place bigger bets. Below are some average house edges and returns, based on the information that we gathered from the UK Gambling Commission.

Take note that the percentage of bets returned to the bettor as winnings increase as the size of the bet gets bigger. Gamblers who choose to go for the more expensive jackpot games get a larger portion of their wager back, and also stand a better chance of winning.

Does this mean that players should focus on placing bigger bets? No! By playing the more expensive game and get a larger portion of the bets you place back, but at the end of it, lose more money as you’ll be taking a bigger risk. The best thing to do is to let your bankroll guide you, and also avoid betting more money than you can afford.

Modern Video Slot Odds

Most of the modernised slot machines don’t have 10 numbers on each reel and most of the slot games, both at the online and land based casinos, have at least five reels as opposed to the traditional three reels. This means that the developers and programmers are always dealing with more complex machines, featuring hundreds if not thousands of stops, symbols or random numbers on each reel.

Below are some of the factors that are always considered when modern video slot odds are determined:

  • When the slot machines are on video, the programmer can choose to make the reels as long as he/she needs them to be. If for example, to achieve the right odds the programmer requires a slot reel to feature a sequence of 1000 symbols, then he/she will have to program a 1,000 symbol reel.
  • However, in the land-based casinos, it difficult for the programmer to fit the 1000 symbols in the mechanical slot machines. Therefore to achieve this, the programmers use what is referred to as the ‘Virtual Reel’. Thanks to this feature, the slot machines at the brick and mortar casinos with the small reels can act as if they have more symbols. For example, the programmer could tell the machine ‘Any time the RNG software stops on number 7, stop on the jackpot symbol. Any time it stops on numbers 5, 3, 1 or 9, stop on the first bar.’ By programming the machine this way, the highly sought symbol that triggers the jackpot can only appear once after several hundred or thousands spins. This plays a huge role in determining the odds of the jackpot. A good example was in 2003 when the world record jackpot of Megabucks machine paid out a mind-blowing $39 million. According to IGT, the company behind this game, the odds of winning the jackpot were approximately 1 in 50 million.

The Free Spins & Bonus Factor

Almost all the modern video slot games, including jackpots, have bonus events which come in different forms including the spinning of a bonus wheel as with Mega Millions; Pick’em bonuses as seen in Jackpot Party and you can check out free spins on our favourite sites at a number of highly recommended online casino operators.

During the bonus round, you have the chance of accumulating credits without spending any extra cash thanks to the in-game free spins bonus round. This has to account for while setting the game’s odds and paybacks during the regular reel spins. But how do the free spins contribute to the game’s overall jackpot?

One of my friend, who happens to be a programmer told me that one of the games he has developed has a 90% RTP; 60% of this comes from the general reel spins, 30% comes from the different in-game bonuses, including the free spins and the remaining 10% comes from the house.

Slot Machine Odds By State

So how do you increase your odds of winning the casino jackpot?

Best Odds On Slots

Below are rules of thumb that every bettor should follow to increase their chance of winning while playing video slot games.

Casino Slots Odds Of Winning

  • Always choose games that you understand better
  • Make the most of the casino bonuses and offers to boost your bankroll. Most sites powered by NetEnt have free spins offers and deposit offers
  • To ensure that your bankroll goes further, reduce the number of coins that you bet on each line and increase the number of paylines. This increase your chances of winning the bet