Most Popular Casino Game

13 February 2021

By John Marchel

The most popular game played and amount wagered in Las Vegas is the 25 cent slot machine. More people play it than any other game.

This is important to the house because over 60 percent of the entire casino revenue comes from slot machines.

Generally, slots require no prior training or experience, just put a quarter in and pull the handle or push the button and the game is underway. However, slot machines are one the fastest games in the casino; 450-500 events per-hour.

At the rate of 25 cents times a 3-reel machine, that equals $375.00 per-hour. In general, it also has one the lowest payout games in the casino. By state law, Nevada must payback only 75% of what goes in a machine. Various states have different payouts, but many of them follow Nevada standards. Slots have million-dollar winners; however, but these are not common.

I recommend switching to the 25-cent video poker machine; it offers many of the same things as slots; one-on-one with the machine, other players won’t brother you, management doesn’t care how fast or slow you play, but it offers one thing better than slots; a bigger overall chance to win!

Video poker is fast and fun but requires some work on the part of the player. To play successfully, the player has to think! Video poker is an interactive machine game because the player must choose which cards to keep and which ones to discard. The player can pick the right machine, (there are many types available) select the amount to wager, and have an excellent edge against the house when he or she plays.

It will take less than an hour to learn it if you don’t know the game already. You’ll win more than playing slots. A Jacks-or-Better 9/6 machine will pay 99.5 percent return. You can also find video poker machines that pay over 100 percent. There hasn’t been a slot machine built that will pay that much.

You will get five cards, you keep the ones you want, the ones you don’t want just discard them and you get replacements than the game is over. You can find lots of information on the Internet, books at the library or bookstore, and you can even find strategy cards sometimes in the gift store right in the casinos. It’s a fun game, try it on your next visit to the casino.

BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW

(A Little About Charles Fey and Slots)

• Sept. 9, 1862, Born, August Fey, in Vohringen, Bavaria. He arrived in San Francisco in 1885 via France, England and New York. He worked odd jobs as a machinist during this period to pay his way to the West Coast of America.

• Later, in 1895 Fey legally changed his first name to Charles. At the time, Fey was a San Francisco mechanic who is best known for inventing the first "one-armed bandit" slot machine in his shop at 406 Market St., San Francisco.

• Charles Fey invented the first slot machine in 1895. He set the payback at 86 percent which gave him and saloon owners a 14 percent profit return. The jackpot on those early machines was a whopping 50 nickels or $2.50.

• The first Liberty Bell slot machine, made by Charles Fey in 1899, was installed in the Bank Saloon, at Market and McAllister streets in San Francisco.

• California Historic Landmark No. 937, located at the intersection of Battery, Market and Bush streets in San Francisco marks the spot where Charles Fey, the inventor of the first slot machine had his first factory.

• When Charles Fey built his first gaming machines in the late 1800s, he pasted a tax stamp on each machine. At the time there was a 2¢ federal revenue tax on each deck of playing cards. Fey though it was wise to buy the stamps since his slot machines had card symbols on its reels.

• April 15, 1887 Charles Fey demonstrates his new five cent Bell slot machine to a group of San Francisco saloon and restaurant owners. Fey did not sell his machines instead he placed them in saloons and other locations and collected a percent rental fee on all the winnings.

• Charles Fey’s early slot machine was originally called the “Card Bell.” However, due to the upsurge in patriotism throughout the country by the Spanish-American war, he renamed it “Liberty Bell.”

• Besides making coin-operated slot machines, Fey also make dice, poker, roulette and even pistol rage coin-operated machines.

• In the early 1900s when saloon owners began having problems with players who cheated by inserting fake nickels into Liberty Bell slot machines, Charles Fey responded by creating a detecting pin, which was able to distinguish real coins from fakes.

• As early as 1929, Charles Fey, the builder of the first slot machine, built the first slot machine to take a silver dollar.

• Nov. 10, 1944 Charles Fey, age 83, the inventor of the modern-day slot machine dies this day in San Francisco, California.

• Nov. 20, 1958 The Fey brothers (grandsons of Charles Fey) opened a saloon on South Virginia Street in Reno, Nevada. A few weeks later they added food and took the name Liberty Belle Restaurant. As a side attraction Marshall Fey (a Charles Fey grandson) began to collect Fey slot machines including the original Liberty Belle machine.

• On March 17, 2006, St. Patrick'S Day, the Liberty Belle Restaurant closed its doors forever and the original Liberty Belle slot machine moved to the Reno/Sparks convention Center.