Slot Machine Placement – Myth or Reality?

Most people know that you’ll get far more value out of playing online casino slots. After all, most online slot games offer players a 95% payout percentage or better. Contrast this to land-based slots games that only offer an 80% payout percentage or less. Obviously the smart money is on playing internet slots. 

However, land-based slots games still have plenty of appeal due to the fact that they’re housed in lavish casinos. So if you’re on a casino vacation, chances are that you are going to be playing some slots in spite of the poor payout percentages. And if you study slots strategy before visiting a casino, you’re likely to come across the theory of slot machine placement. Slot machine placement is the idea that the highest paying slot machines are strategically positioned in certain spots of casinos. Actually, there’s more to the theory than this so let’s take a closer look.

As mentioned before, some people believe that the best paying slots games are purposely placed in certain spots of the casino. Supposedly, they are placed in less-traveled areas of casinos such as dark corners or upstairs locations. On the other hand, the lowest paying slot machines are positioned in high traffic areas where more people are likely to play them. As you may have guessed, casinos do this so people are playing the lowest payout percentage games while missing out on the highest payouts.

With this being the case, you’re supposed to look for slots in remote locations of the casino so you can take advantage of the high payout percentages. But the theory of slot machine placement has never officially been proven so is it a myth or legitimate strategy?

The idea of slot machine placement first arose when gambling expert Frank Scoblete mentioned it in his slots strategy book called “Break the One-Armed Bandits.” In the book, Scoblete talked about an interview he did with a casino manager; the manager told Scoblete that his casino put high paying slots towards the back of the casino while positioning low payout percentage machines in heavy traffic areas. This is where Frank Scoblete first came up with the theory of machine placement, which has since circulated around lots of websites and magazines.

And while the concept of machine placement certainly makes sense, there are several problems with it. The first one is that Scoblete did this interview in the early 90’s with a single casino manger. The one casino where this manager worked may have practiced machine placement in the early 90’s, and Scoblete’s advice may have been valid back then. However, this is nearly two decades later and times have certainly changed so the machine placement concept is outdated.

Even if slot machine placement wasn’t outdated, why wouldn’t casinos just put low paying games everywhere? This way people would have no choice but to play low paying slots games. Furthermore, casinos are well aware of the machine placement concept so wouldn’t they have switched around their machines by now? In reality, you shouldn’t worry about the machine placement idea; however, you should keep the following tips in mind when thinking about playing land-based slots.

Look at both payout frequency and payout percentages: Payout percentages are always going to be the first thing a slots player looks at when deciding what game to play. However, you should also keep payout frequency in mind – especially when you have a limited bankroll! Payout frequency refers to how often you’ll receive payouts, and not just what percentage of money you expect to get back on each dollar spent. Unfortunately, there is no payout frequency number offered on machines, but you can figure this out by looking at how many small payouts are offered (i.e. 2 coin, 3 coin, and 5 coin payouts).

Join the slots club: This might go without saying for some people, but you should definitely join a casino’s slots club before you start playing. Even if you don’t plan on visiting that particular casino in the future, you should still join the slots club just in case. Slots clubs allow you to get free play and earn other bonuses while playing slots games.

Seriously consider staying home and playing online: If you read the introduction to this article, you already know that online slots offer much higher payouts than land-based slots. In addition to this, you are automatically signed up for a rewards program upon joining an online casino so you will be earning bonuses the whole time you are playing.