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Best of John Grochowski
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Gaming Guru
March Madness and Slots1 April 2023
Emily had heard I write about casino games, and at halftime she wanted to bend my ear about slot machines. "I'd like to have a strategy when I play, but I hear so many conflicting things," she said. I told her slots aren't really games of strategy. Results are random, or at least as random as humans can program them to be. The best strategy is just to play for fun while protecting your bankroll by setting limits on your play and not betting money you can't afford to lose. "I was thinking more about how fast to leave a game and how to decide how much to bet," she said. "I'm talking about video slots with lots of paylines. I usually start out betting one credit per line, then building up to two or three per line if I'm winning. "My aunt told me I'm doing it wrong. She said if I want to win, to bet big at the beginning. Most of the big wins come early. If you don't win big early, you should move to a different machine." I know of players who use that method. I call it a "hit-and-run" strategy. It starts with the assumption Emily described, that big pays come early in a session. "Do you agree?" Emily asked. Overall, no. The odds of winning on slot machines are the same on every spin. You're just as likely to land a big winner on the thousandth spin as on the 10th, or any other number you choose. Hit-and-run doesn't win more often than any other method, nor does it win any less. If you find it fun to play and like to be on the move, trying a lot of different games, then great. Enjoy. If you'd rather stay put and play the same game for a while, that's fine, too. Emily was hoping for a more definitive answer. She tried again. "Are there systems that go the other way and try to find jackpots later in play after you've been on a machine a while?" Sure, I said. There are a number of variations on the step method. It assumes a game has to warm up before it pays and that you should keep your bets low until you see some winners. In step systems, players keep bets low until they see winners that pay more than the bet. The most aggressive step method I've seen keeps bets at minimum level until there's a winning spin, then increases. If the next spin also is a winner, the bet increases again. After any loss, the bet resets to the minimum. Other steps are more leisurely, wanting to see an overall profit within several spins before moving up. One system doesn't even bother with counting wins. It just theorizes the machine needs time to warm up and uses a set number of spins as each step. You might spin 25 times at one coin per line, followed by two coins per line for the next 25 spins. The idea is to catch a hot streak and make your largest bets when the game is paying frequently. "That sounds like what I do," Emily said. "Is that OK?" If you're having fun at it and you're not over betting, sure, it's OK, I told her. It doesn't make you win more often, but it doesn't make you win less often, either. "Well, that'll have to do, I guess," she said, and attention returned to basketball. This article is provided by the Frank Scoblete Network. Melissa A. Kaplan is the network's managing editor. If you would like to use this article on your website, please contact Casino City Press, the exclusive web syndication outlet for the Frank Scoblete Network. To contact Frank, please e-mail him at fscobe@optonline.net. Recent Articles
Best of John Grochowski
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