Ask the Slot Expert: Should I increase the line bet or increase the denomination?

Modern life has many age-old questions.

• Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
• Is it live or is it Memorex?
• What was the best thing before sliced bread?
• When does it stop being partly cloudy and start being partly sunny?
• Is it better to increase the line bet or increase the denomination?

As usual, I let things go to the last minute and now I'm scrambling to re-qualify for an upper tier at one of my slot clubs. Qualifying is based on how much money you play through the machines. The option with the highest long-term payback is NSU. It's nearly breakeven on a run-of-the-mill day and gives a small advantage to players on a point multiplier day.

The downside of NSU and any video poker game, for that matter, is that you earn only one tier point for each dollar played on a video poker machine.

A dollar played on a slot machine, however, earns three tier points. I could earn the tier points I need risking one-third the money playing a slot machine.

I almost wrote that I could earn the points in one-third the time, but that's not necessarily true. Even if I bet $5 per spin to match the $5 per hand I would bet on the video poker machine, I wouldn't rack up the tier points three times faster.

A video poker hand is decided very quickly. A spin on a slot machine takes longer to play out, even when the speed is set at the fastest setting on machines that let you set the speed. You don't earn any points, furthermore, when you're playing a bonus round.

Nevertheless, I decided to make slot play a significant portion of my re-qualification portfolio. (I admit that I also have my eye on a $1000+ Major progressive jackpot on a Ramosis' Treasure machine. I figure I'll never win the $14,000+ Grand jackpot, but I might have a chance at the Major.)

I have four choices for denomination: one-cent, two-cent, nickel, and dime. The minimum bets are 75 credits for one-cent and two-cent and 30 credits for nickel and dime. In dollars and cents, that's 75 cents, $1.50, $1.50, and $3.

I had settled on playing the nickel denomination. The help screens say that betting more improves your chances at hitting the progressives. I played $1.50 per spin. I figured that the nickel denomination may hit the progressives more frequently than the penny denominations, even though my bet was the same.

I was happy playing nickels until I had a long spell when I just wasn't hitting anything. Then I remembered that there is an important difference between the two lower denoms and the two upper denoms.

The number of paylines changes. There are 75 paylines at the lower denominations and only 30 at the higher. The lower choices probably have a higher hit frequency.

I kept my bet the same but dropped to the 75-line denominations. I hit more frequently. I had some very good sessions.

We've discussed how to increase our bet before, but I realized that the discussion was incomplete. Paylines is another aspect to keep in mind when choosing how to bet what you want to bet. Increasing denomination may decrease the number of paylines but increase your probability of hitting a progressive.

Or it may not. The slot may be designed so that the probability of hitting a progressive is based on how much you bet and not how you bet it. The probability might be the same regardless of whether you bet $1.50 playing the minimum at nickels or two-cent or betting two credits per line at one-cent.

Only the slot designers knows for sure.

The line above is a reference to a very old ad for Miss Clairol hair coloring.

Does she or doesn't she? Only her hairdresser knows for sure.

As if using the Memorex reference in the age-old questions list wasn't enough to date me, I was also going to include "Does she or doesn't she?" The question is too ambiguous outside of the context of the ad, so I decided not to use it.

If you would like to see more non-smoking areas on slot floors in Las Vegas, please sign my petition on change.org.

Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert™, at slotexpert@slotexpert.com.

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