Slot Myth Busting

21 May 2023

By John Grochowski

Over the years. I've tried to help slot players through a little myth-busting.

Nonetheless, myths persist. It's easy to see why. Table games allow you to see cards being dealt, dice being rolled or the ball rolling around the wheel. You can't see random numbers being generated.

Let's take a fresh look at a few of the common myths about modern slot machines.

MYTH: Paybacks on pick-a-prize bonus rounds have to be fixed in advance or they couldn't program a payback percentage.

ANSWER: Your choices count on most manufacturers’ bonus events. The programmer sets the possibilities, and that determines the odds of the game.

The programmer doesn’t have to fix the value of the bonus event; the odds of the game will lead to an average return. That average can be included in the overall game probabilities to calculate an average payback percentage for the game.

In licensed casinos in U.S. jurisdictions, every advertised prize must be available. After you've made your pick, if the screen shows prizes behind other choices, it tells you those paybacks were actually available. Your choice made the difference, for better or worse.


MYTH: Video and online slots are just computer programs, so they're more easily fixed to beat you than three-reel slots.

ANSWER: All modern slots, including reel-spinning games as well as video and online slots. use computer software and have results determined by random number generators.

The potential for "fixed" results is the same on reel slots as on those with screens. It's certainly possible to design shenanigans into software, but in well-regulated jurisdictions such as U.S. states and Canadian provinces, rules, regulations, licensing and software checks work to keep results random.

Random number generators don't fix results either for you or against you. All the RNGs do is generate numbers, and those numbers are mapped onto possible outcomes.

The result you see on the screen is random, or at least as random as it's possible for humans to program them to be. The possibilities and the odds are the same on every spin.


MYTH: Advertised payback percentages on slots shows they can't be random. How can a game have a predictable return and be random at the same time?

ANSWER: Slot machines are random and have predictable payback percentages in the same way as table games.

Odds are set so average results lead to the expected return.

Imagine the situation at roulette. On an American double-zero wheel, the game is “programmed” with 38 possible results — 1 through 36 plus 0 and 00.The numbers come up randomly, and when you win on a single number, you’re paid at 35-1 odds, a bit less than the true odds of 37-1. That gives the house an edge of 5.26 percent. That’s the same as saying a payback percentage of 94.74 percent.

There is nothing to keep your number from coming up multiple times in a row, and nothing says it has to come up within several dozen spin. But given enough trials, the random results and the odds of the game will lead to something very close to roulette’s expected percentages.

Slots work the same way, but with thousands of possibilities instead of 38. To make up an example, the program might specify that every time the random number one shows up, the reel shows a jackpot symbol; with two, three or four, it shows a seven, and so on.

The possibilities are programmed, but when they turn up is random, just as it’s random when a 17 turns up in roulette. The odds of the game will lead to the expected payback percentage, or something very close to it.