The Slot Expert's Guide to Winning at Slots: The Best Number of Coins to Play

Every casino guide to gaming recommends playing maximum coins on all slot machines. And almost everyone who's written a book about slots also recommends playing maximum coins when playing a slot machine. I analyzed over 1,000 slot machine programs and I discovered that there are times when playing maximum coins is advantageous to the slot player and times when the player is better off playing only coin at a time. In this series of tips, I'll reveal the best number of coins to play per spin on the different types of slot machines.

Note: I will cover one type of game each week and update this page each Tuesday. You can hear me give the tip live on The Good Times Show, hosted by Rudi Schiffer with Frank Scoblete, which is broadcast live from Memphis on WHBQ over the air on 560AM and over the Internet on Yahoo! Broadcast on Saturday morning from 8-10 CT.

This Week's Tip

Bonus Multipliers

Bonus Multipliers are Multipliers with a twist. They pay you a bonus for some combinations when you play maximum coins. The bonus is usually paid on the top jackpot only, but some machines pay a bonus on the second jackpot, too. I even found a Wild Cherry paytable that paid the bonus on the second jackpot only.

Ask yourself this question: How frequently do you hit a combination that pays you a bonus? Not too often, right? The Bonus Multiplier acts like a Straight Multiplier on the overwhelming majority of the spins you play on the machine. Treat it like a Straight Multiplier and play one coin at a time.

Some people argue that you're playing at a lower long-term payback when you play only one coin at a time on a Bonus Multiplier. That statement is true. But, again, how times do you hit the top jackpot? In addition, a 100-coin bonus like on a three-coin Double Diamond that pays 800/1600/2500 for the top jackpot increases the long-term payback by very little. Even large bonuses increase the long-term payback by very little. A typical RWB machine that pays 2400/4800/10000 for the top jackpot pays back 91.7% when playing one coin at a time and 92.5 when playing three coins at a time. It's not worth tripling your risk per spin to decrease the house edge from 8.3% to 7.5%.

Prior Weeks' Tips

Progressives

You can recognize progressive machines by the LED displays advertising the ever-increasing jackpots, some life changing, that you can win by playing the machine.

There are three types of progressives, but they all share one thing on common: A small percentage of each wager on a progressive machine is used to increase the amount of the jackpot. The types of progressives differ in the number of machines linked to an individual jackpot.

First, there's the Standalone Progressive. As its name implies, this machine has its own jackpot amount. When you play a Standalone Progressive, its jackpot is the only one to increase as a result of the action.

The second type of progressive is the Linked Progressive. A number of machines are linked together in this type of progressive and the machines all share the same jackpot. The jackpot increases on all of the machines in the link whenever anyone plays any of the machines in the link. The machines in the link are usually all in one carousel, although sometimes the machines are spread throughout a casino. And sometimes machines at more than one casino owned by the same company will be part of the progressive network.

The third type of progressive is the Wide Area Progressive. In this type of progressive, machines throughout an entire jurisdiction are part of the network of linked machines. Machines that pay the life-changing, lottery-sized jackpots are always Wide Area Progressives. But not all Wide Area Progressives pay huge jackpots. IGT and Bally's are both exploring Wide Are Progressive systems that pay lower jackpots more frequently.

The best number of coins to play is the same regardless of which type of progressive you are playing. You have to play maximum coins on a progressive machine to be able to win the progressive jackpot. If you don't play maximum coins, you're just building the jackpot for someone else with no chance to win it yourself. In addition, how would you feel if the three Megabucks symbols landed on the payline and you played only one coin, so you won $10,000 instead of $10,000,000? Always play maximum coins when playing a progressive.

Straight Multipliers

Multipliers are machines in which the first coin you play activates all of the winning combinations on the machine and additional coins multiply the amounts you can win. A Straight Multiplier is a particular kind of Multiplier. On a Straight Multiplier, the amounts you can for each combination when playing two coins at a time are exactly twice the amounts you can win when playing one coin at a time. And the amounts you can win when playing three coins at a time are exactly three times the one-coin amounts.

Playing more than coin at a time on a Straight Multiplier doesn't buy you anything. You don't activate any new winning combinations, so you don't buy increased hit frequency. The payouts are straight multiples of the one-coin payouts, so you aren't buying increased long-term payback. You're increasing the amount you have at risk on each spin and you're not getting any benefit from it. Always play only one coin at a time on a Straight Multiplier.

The following table repeats all of the tips without the accompanying text to make it easier for you to take them to the casino with you.

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

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