Well over a century since the first
"one-armed bandits" appeared in
the saloons of San Francisco,
slot
machines are more popular than ever.
Thanks to glitzy new technology and highly
competitive odds - not to mention some
truly huge jackpots - the casinos have
largely dispelled the old image of slot
arcades as joyless places where
tight-lipped seniors pump bucketfuls of
small change into unresponsive machines.
These days, even casinos like the
Mirage
make twice as much money on slots as they
do on the tables, and slot-players are no
longer second-class citizens.
Traditionally, the house advantage on
slot machines used to be around twenty
percent, which is to say that for every
dollar you gambled, you might win back
eighty cents, while the operator kept the
other twenty. Those would now be regarded
as "tight" odds, as casinos vie
to offer "looser" machines -
promoted with slogans such as "99%
SLOTS GUARANTEED!" - where the house
advantage is as little as five or even one
percent. The main reason they can do that
is that gamblers these days are prepared
to invest much higher stakes, staking $1
or $5 a time rather than the old standard
of 25˘. So long as each time you spin the
reels, the casino can expect to win 5˘,
they're equally happy to achieve that with
quarter slots that pay 80 percent, dollar
slots that pay 95 percent, or $5 slots set
at 99 percent.
Modern, computerized slot machines are
far more sophisticated than their
mechanical forebears. Most still contain
giant wheels decorated with different
symbols - customers have proved suspicious
of machines that just show pictures of
those symbols on video screens - but,
contrary to appearances, the reels don't
simply spin until they stop. Instead, a
micro-chip inside each machine generates
an unending stream of random numbers.
Whenever you set the reels spinning, the
current number determines where they will
stop. Just because you hit a combination
that looks close to a jackpot doesn't mean
that you nearly hit the jackpot, and no
sequence of combinations, or lack of
winners, can ever indicate that a machine
is "ready" to hit.
All kinds of new machines are
constantly appearing, targeted at
different consumers. There are machines
that play Elvis or Sinatra tunes, or mimic
board games like Scrabble or Monopoly
, or pay homage to favorite TV shows and
movies. Thus the I Love Lucy
machines, which release a delicious
chocolate smell when players hit a bonus
round, tend to be positioned to catch the
eye of senior gamblers, while the raucous Austin
Powers models are found in the hipper,
youth-oriented joints.
To play the slots, you must be over 21 and
have the ID to prove it; underage winners
are not paid off. US citizens must pay tax
on wins of $1200 or more.
Beneath all the surface glitter, there
are basically two different types of slot
machine. " Non-progressive
" machines have fixed paybacks for
every winning combination, and in
principle pay lower prizes, more
frequently. " Progressive
" ones, such as Megabucks or Quartermania
, are linked into networks of several
similar machines, potentially covering the
entire state of Nevada. The longer it
takes before someone, somewhere hits the
jackpot, the higher that jackpot will be -
digital displays show mounting totals that
can run into millions of dollars.
All the major casinos operate slot
clubs , which keep track of how much
you gamble and reward you with points
redeemable for discounts and upgrades,
show tickets, or even cash. The value is
never that high - at the MGM Grand
, for example, inserting $2000 into the
slots entitles you to $12.50 cash back -
but it costs nothing to join, so if you
plan to gamble for any length of time you
might as well.
As for where to play , the slots
are "loosest" (which is good)
downtown, and anywhere locals play
regularly, and notoriously
"tight" at places such as the
airport or supermarkets, where most
customers are just passing through. Strip
options range from the Riviera ,
"where the nickel is king" and
you can play for days on end, to the $500
machines in the marble-walled High Limits
room at Bellagio.
