Many Happy Returns II: The Truth Will Out

16 May 2023

By Frank Scoblete

Many Happy Returns: The Truth Will Out

We can then figure how much of a percentage edge the casino has at a roulette game by knowing these numbers. There are 38 pockets for the ball to fall into. The payment for a hit is 35-to-1. The real payout should be 37-to-o1.

The casino doesn’t post this on the tables, we have to do the figuring to come up with the percentages. You can read this information in a publication such as this or in my books but you won’t find it posted on the table.

The casino prefers not to tell us anything. On most games, however, we can figure everything out. Not at slots.

The Slot Mystery

The casinos know how much an individual slot machine returns but the players don’t. There is no way we can find out without being given privileged information.

Yes, we can guess but those guesses are just that, guesses.

Okay, how do we guess? And can we actually have “smart” guesses?

Most states have laws that tell the casinos they must show the return percentages on their slot machines, usually based on the denomination of those machines. Therefore, we can find out what the five-dollar machines return, what the dollar machines return, what the twenty-five cents’ machines return and so on.

Sadly, these are just averages. It may be true that the five-dollar machines are returning 95 percent of the money played in them but we don’t know if the particular machine at which we are gazing actually returns 95 percent or 92 or 98 percent.

But we can say with some confidence that a five-dollar machine will return more to the players than a dollar machine whose average is about 91 percent. Is this an absolute statement? No. It is a guess, an informed guess, yes, but it is not absolutely a true statement.

We are looking at averages and making our guess based on those. We just don’t have the figures available to us and we can’t figure everything out the way we can at games such as video poker, blackjack, roulette, craps, etc.

We will always be guessing at individual slot machine percentages because the programming is a secret between the manufacturers and the casinos. The player is an outsider in this case and really has little ability to ferret out the correct percentages on any given machine.

Guessing is the best we can do. We don’t have figures as we do with the other casino games so, okay, point to a machine and take your best guess! Essentially, we are all doing this. Slots are the greatest mystery in the casino and that's the truth.

All the best in and out of the casinos!

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books, libraries and bookstores.