[ Home ]

[ Slots News ]

The Economics of Slots

In this day and age, gamblers are able to find free slot games on the World Wide Web. These online slot machines are strictly for entertainment purposes, and require no money to play. The vast majority of the time, they also offer no payouts! This, of course, is not the standard slot machine model. Most of the time, gamblers are putting cash (often a good deal of it, especially over a long period of time) into a slot device with the hopes of getting some out. It’s likely that these players often don’t think too much about the economics of the slots.

Slot machines are smarter than you might think. There are, of course, many permutations of slots based on monetary amount required to play. The most popular Vegas-style slots require just a penny to play, allowing a gambler the experience of betting on many, many paylines at once. Only the most flush of slot players can do this at the nickel, dime, or quarter slots… much less those requiring a full dollar! Yet, the device that you are playing knows exactly what you have fed it with, as it contains a currency detector that can differentiate coins from others. Of course, online slots don’t have this problem!

Of course, all those coins going in add up to BIG money for the casinos that house the slots! Land-based and online casinos rake in seventy percent of their income from slot machines. Of course, the potential for making life-changing money never seems so close as when we play the slots. Progressive jackpots at land casinos and online slot machine sites can drop life-changing amounts of money on a lucky players’ lap. It’s estimated that thirty percent of slot machine income is made off “problem” gamblers, or slot addicts, chasing the dream of becoming instant millionaires.

Back to September 2008 Archive.