Tips On How To Win At Slots

You have to get lucky to win playing slots. There’s no secret, proven strategy, or tried and true method for beating these games. However, by understanding how slots operate and how their random number generators (RNG) and Return to Player rates (RTP) work, you can put yourself in a better position to get lucky.

Here’s a look at all that and more in our guide to winning at slots.

Choosing the Right Slot

Hundreds of slots are available at every legal and licensed US online casino. Plus, new ones are added all the time.

Slots have evolved dramatically from the one-armed bandit mechanical beasts they once were. These days, it’s all about electronics, computers, HD screens, and random number generator software ultimately deciding your fate. All the bells and whistles don’t matter. Whether the slot has a music, TV, or movie franchise theme is inconsequential. It doesn’t matter how many reels, paylines, and symbols there are or how the bonus game works. Whether you win or lose is up to a slot’s random number generator.

As the name suggests, random number generators hand out wins randomly. However, the software is programmed to pay back a specific percentage of all the money the slot takes in over time. This is what you call a slot’s Return to Player rate or payout percentage.

It’s not a guarantee, and it certainly won’t tell you how much you will win every time you play that slot. However, it will tell you the percentage of every dollar put into a slot that the slot will ultimately pay back in winnings randomly over the long haul. Therefore, the larger the RTP rate, the greater your chances of winning.

As we just said, online casinos host hundreds of slots. That means you have a choice every time you play. Choosing slots with the highest RTP rate will give you a better chance of winning or, at the very least, help you lose less.

How Do Random Number Generators Work?

Hit the spin button on any slot online, and its random number generator will provide instant results. What the RNG instantly produces is a random sequence of numbers. Each sequence equals a specific outcome on the slot, telling the slot what symbols to line up where.

Ultimately, the random number generator determines the outcome of your spin. Plus, the next time you hit that spin button, it’ll do it again, producing another random sequence of numbers almost wholly independent of any sequence before or after.

Every spin is a random and independent event, and gaming regulators test this software to ensure that. The one caveat is that the slot’s software is also programmed to pay back a specific percentage of what it takes in over time.

As mentioned above, this is a slot’s RTP rate or payout percentage. It will inform the random number generator, ensuring it produces enough winning sequences to match the percentage. However, it maintains the randomness and independence of each spin’s outcome by doing that over the life of the slot, not in any fixed time.

What Is Return to Player Rate?

Slots pay back almost all the money players put into them as winnings to those same players, chosen randomly by the random number generator with each spin. They’re actually programmed to pay back a specific percentage over time. That’s the Return to Player rate, or RTP for short.

Most slots have RTP ranging from 93% to 98%. Ultimately, slots will take a piece of what players put into them over time. It’s just a matter of how much.

Most online casinos will publish the RTP for every slot on offer. However, as a rule of thumb, the higher a slot’s denomination, the better its RTP. The stake might be the same, with 30 lines on a 10-cent slot and three lines on a $1 slot, both equalling $3, but the $1 slot will almost always have the better RTP.

Remember, even if a slot has a 99% RTP, you won’t always get back 99 cents of every dollar you put into it. Slots are programmed to meet RTP randomly over time. That particular slot will keep only one cent of every dollar you put into it, but there’s no guarantee that will be your outcome during that sitting.

Slot Volatility, Variance, and RTP

What RTP doesn’t tell you is a slot’s volatility, or variance. This measures how often a slot will pay out and the average size of each payout. Some slots offer more regular but smaller payouts. Others pay out big prizes less frequently.

High-variance slots often have bigger jackpots. However, the payout on jackpots takes up so much of a slot’s RTP that it pays out less frequently. In the meantime, many low-variance slots combine frequent small wins worth less than your bet, known as “false wins,” with mid-sized wins. The variance may be lower, but the RTP can be the same as for higher variance slots that only pay larger, less-frequent wins.

You’ll win bigger with high-variance slots and more frequently with low-variance slots. However, it’ll all add up to meet the slot’s RTP over time. That means choosing slots with the highest RTP, regardless of variance, will still give you a better chance of winning.

Best RTP Slots at US Online Casinos

Here’s a list of eight great real money online slots with some of the highest RTP you’ll find at legal and licensed US online casinos:

Slot Bonuses and Promotions

US online casinos offer welcome bonuses and ongoing promotions to attract new players and keep them playing. Taking advantage of these is the best way how to win at slots online. That’s because you’re playing with the house’s money. Any winnings accrued playing with the house’s money are just a bonus.

The welcome bonuses and ongoing promotions at US online casinos usually fall into the categories explained below.

• Match Deposit Bonuses: A bonus that typically equals your first or latest deposit.
• No Deposit Bonuses: A small bonus you can use to try out an online casino.
• Cashback Rebates: Limited site credit refunds on losses in your first experiences with an online casino.
• Bonus Spins: The chance to try a particular slot without risking any bonus money or cash.
• Tiered Loyalty Programs: Rewards for volume play. The more you play, the better the rewards and your earning power.

Slot Myths

As stated above, you have to get lucky to win playing slots. There’s no way around it. No secret slots strategy or proven method can promise the luck you need. The random number generator simply needs to pick you, or at least pick your spin, to be a winner. Unfortunately, there’s no way to influence it.

Regardless, people will still tell you that they know how to win at slots or how to beat a specific slot at a casino. They are never right and can’t verify or prove it, but many people still believe the following three myths about slots.

• This Slot Is Due to Pay Out: Random number generators always produce a completely random and independent result. Except for “must pay” jackpots that must be hit before a certain threshold is reached, no slot is due to do anything besides go from one random outcome to the next. Sure, there’s a Return to Player rate built into the programming. However, these are theoretical and pay back over a slot’s life, ensuring the outcome of every spin is still random and completely independent.
• This Slot Can Be Hacked: No secret hacks or proven slot systems exist. Plus, if someone had one, they’d use it to clean out the casinos, not sell the secret online for $29.99.
• This Slot Has A Kill Switch: Contrary to what some might think, casinos don’t care who wins. They just want to ensure every game hits its RTP rate, and then they enjoy the prescribed house edge. There’s no way they can stop you from winning and no kill switch built into any game’s programming. Regulators make sure of that.

How To Beat the Bonus Games

Most slot players know the biggest wins and jackpots are awarded during bonus games. However, access to these games is still awarded by a random number generator. Plus, that same random number generator determines all wins inside a bonus game.

It’s all completely random, which means there’s no system for beating any bonus game. Here are a few examples of the kinds of bonus games out there.

• Wheel Bonuses: You can spin a wheel filled with fabulous prizes, like the Wheel of Fortune wheel. The outcome of each spin is still determined by the slot’s random number generator.
• Free Spins: Free spins are free spins, and many have multipliers, expanding reels, extra wild symbols, and other bonuses attached. The slot’s random number generator determines the outcome of a free spin.
• Hold Bonuses: This bonus game holds high-paying symbols in place for the next spin or spins. Again, the outcome of every additional spin is determined by the slot’s RNG.
• Pick’em Games: You get to pick from a group of tiles, objects, characters, or symbols with prizes behind them. Sometimes you get what you uncover; other times, you might have to match them up to win. No matter what, what’s behind every tile is determined by the slot’s random number generator.

The Truth About Slots

Slots can be a lot of fun, but like any form of gambling, you should never play with more than you can afford to lose … because you probably will lose. Slots will always reach their programmed RTP rates over the long haul. That means that while some players might win here and there, as a whole, the group of players putting money into a slot will only get back a certain percentage in wins. The casino will keep the rest. Plus, a random number generator determines every spin’s outcome. That means there’s no way to tell who will win and when it’ll happen.

So what information is useful if you’re trying to learn how to win at slots every time? Ultimately, getting lucky is the only way to win playing slots. And while there’s no way to guarantee luck, you can put yourself in a prime position to get lucky by understanding how random number generators and RTP rates work.