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When Pennies and Nickels Are The Same

Have you ever played a land-based or online slot machine that offered you a choice between coin denominations? For example, you could bet pennies, nickels, dimes, or quarters. If you are new to the world of casino gambling and are not familiar with these machines, you may be wondering what, exactly, is the difference other than to your wallet! Naturally, you stand to gain more by betting quarters than pennies. If there was no incentive to bet greater amounts of money, these one-armed bandits would very seldom see anything other than Honest Abe’s profile! How about credit amount, however? Is a bet of one dollar and twenty-five cents the same, regardless of whether it’s composed of five quarters, twenty-five nickels, or one hundred twenty-five pennies? You may be surprised to know that the answer is “no” – these three bets are NOT the same!

Even if you max out the credits playing pennies, the chance to win a monster jackpot may not be as close as you’d like. Believe it or not, casino operators have the ability to change the payoff percentage of a given slot game, depending on what denomination of coins is being played. So, regardless of how many you put in, nickels top pennies and quarters trump nickels.

This applies even if you were planning on playing an equal or higher value bet of a lower value denomination. If you were thinking about maxing out the credits on how many pennies you can play in a machine, you might want to just go with nickels, or dimes if you can afford it. You’ll stand a better shot of winning!

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