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SCATTER PAY – Scatter pay slot machines are the equivalent of pee wee baseball awards ceremonies, where everyone wins a trophy just for trying hard. In this case, they are games that offer some of the highest odds of winning! Almost everyone who plays a scatter pay slot will win a little something, sometimes even for scoring a single winning symbol on the payline! It should go without saying that you are probably not going to win a fortune playing a scatter pay title, but those who punt for the sheer fun of it and the excitement of winning probably won’t mind!

SCATTER SYMBOL – A scatter symbol is one demarcated on the pay table as an image that can win you a special prize if you get more than one per payline. Scatter symbols tend to go hand-in-hand with wilds as special bonus symbols on American-style slot game reels with multiple lines. It may be the case that accumulating three scatter symbols wins you a payout of several times your wager amount, or this combination could be the trigger to a fun and lucrative bonus game! Scatter symbols make your gambling a little jazzier and more entertaining, which is always a good thing!

SECOND SCREEN – Second screen featurettes are one of the bells and whistles that come standard with popular video slot machine games. The “first screen,” or course, is where your slot game takes place. The second screen is an interactive bonus game that will have you taking part in the action somehow. Your screen may transform to the depths of an underwater cave for you to open treasure chests, or a stormy sky over the Pacific for you to shoot down enemy airplanes. You win a bonus cash amount –sometimes random, sometimes based on your skills – that boosts your total winnings.

SESSION – A session is a period of time during which you are playing the slots. For example, you may refer to the amount of coins spent and/or won per session, or to a streak of luck (or lack thereof!) that you feel you experienced during a certain time playing. Experienced punters will sometimes set a specific limit on their session time, so that they don’t spend too much money and/or neglect other important things going on in their lives. The utilization of a session is one method of effective money management while playing the slots, another of which is limiting how much money you spend gambling.

SHORT PAY – When you are lucky enough to win a substantial jackpot playing a slot machine in a land casino, there will be times when the amount of coins in the hopper is just not sufficient to pay out your prize. Things that can cause this situation: a recent large payout, or your prize being so incredible that there is never that much money in the game, period. (It’s an inconvenience, but go you!) In the case of a short pay, the slot machine only pays out a portion of your winnings, and a casino attendant must execute a hand pay for the rest.

In the case of really epic jackpots – those in the high five figures and upwards – you will almost definitely not go home that same night with your winnings. Life-changing jackpots are distributed in the same way that lottery payouts are. You have the option to accept a lump sum payment by check (and probably get eaten alive by the taxes on your haul), or you can accept annual payments of up to twenty-one years. The choice is yours, but many players choose the latter route because the burden of taxation is less, and because it is a guaranteed way of making the money last at least as long as the casino owes you money!

SHORT WIN – A short win is one for a big amount of money won off a small bet. Slot machines with low wager-to-jackpot ratios are the ones to look for, in our opinion – we always appreciate a game that offers a terrific payout without a max bet that destroys our bankrolls.

SIZZLING SLOTS – If luck really is a lady, she’ll be perched on a stool at a sizzling slot. You can call these beauties “hot,” “sweet,” “liberal,” “loose,” or “lucky,” but they are your best bets on the casino floor! To keep things interesting, casino management will generally mix some real winners next to duds on the floor. There are machines that are consistent winners, and you will know these by the crowd of people all waiting to play these. On the other hand, some slot games just so happen to be on a lucky streak while you are playing, and what is really a statistical coincidence gives the impression of a slot being a total peach. Online slots are not exempt from the whims of probability either.

SKILL STOP – Skill stop buttons add a degree of skill to the play of slot machines, usually to satisfy local laws about non-skill-based gambling. They first came about on mechanical slot games produced by Mills Novelty Company as early as the 1920s – a good half-century before gambling phenomenon Bally created Money Honey, the first electromagnetic slot machine game. The Mills skill-stop games had reel-stop arms that had been modified so that a button located on the front of the machine would stop the reels sooner than the timing bar would after pulling the lever. In the 1970s, New Jersey’s gaming laws prohibited non-skill-based forms of gambling, so the skill stop button was reinvigorated for a new generation. Fifty different Bally machines added the technology retroactively, so that the reels could be stopped in ten seconds or less from the time that the button was pushed. By the time that the state board had approved the use of Bally’s skill stop machines, every other distributor in Atlantic City was clamoring to add skill stops to their devices as well. The trend eventually led to all non-skill-stop punters on the Jersey shore being destroyed.

SLANT TOP – This style slot machine is one equipped with a seat, so that punters’ legs don’t get tired while they are playing. Understandably, these tend to be a lot more popular than stand-up machines.

SLINGO – This peculiar hybrid of a slot machine and Bingo is one that’s burning up the world of land casino gambling as we speak. Slingo started as a popular online novelty game, which could be played for free via Flash. It’s been available as an online slot for some time, and the first Slingo terminals were shipped to casinos in early 2009. Basically, each reel is loaded with images of numbers simulating the numbers that are called in a Bingo game. You fill a virtual Bingo card after spinning the reels and examining each combination for possible matches. Each “round” lasts five spins, and you win a jackpot by getting Bingo.

SLOTAHOLIC PAIN – Slotaholic pain is a slang term for the aggravation of playing a losing slot machine for too long with no success. Even the most experienced punters we know have gotten caught up in the pursuit of a jackpot that seems one or two spins away, forgetting to count their spins and use common sense to figure out that they have probably landed a real dud. Common symptoms of slotaholic pain include: anxiety, frustration, heartburn, and a diminishing bankroll. There is only one known cure for this dreadful affliction – back away from that cold slot game!

SLOT CLUB – This is another name for a players’ club or loyalty club, one that is used exclusively at casinos that specialize in slot machine games. Players who are apt to spend their money checking out the pokies at a given casino should absolutely join the slot club for the wealth of benefits great and small that it can afford you. The slot club is one incentive that the highly competitive casino world utilizes to steal players from their competition and keep them loyal. Perks can include anything from free sodas to gratis hotel stays and airfare to affiliated casinos all around the world, should you be a high roller. A little-known fact: your slot club card can also come in useful at tax time, if you have slot machine winnings to claim. You are allowed to deduct the amount of money you spent gambling, up to the amount of your win(s). The records from your slot club card can be turned in to the IRS for proof of your spending.

SLOT MACHINE – If you are reading this, we’ll assume that you probably know what a slot machine is. The gambling device invented in the late 1800s has become the star attraction of casino gambling, bringing in more money than anything else on the floor – usually, slot revenue counts for about seventy percent of casino income! Also known as fruit machines (fruities), poker machines (pokies), and one-armed bandits, slot games are enjoyed the world over for their convenience, lack of complicated skills necessary to enjoy them, and the tremendous potential for winning life-changing amounts of money. Charles Fey is considered the father of the modern-day electromagnetic slot machine, which features automatic payouts, spinning reels, and one or more paylines. There are online slots available on the World Wide Web for the maximum in convenience and flexibility

SLOT MANUFACTURER – International Gaming Technology (IGT) is the world’s largest slot manufacturer, which is to say that they produce the terminals that you play at land casinos everywhere. Online slots are “created” by software companies like Microgaming and Cryptologic.

SLOT PLACEMENT – As the name suggests, slot placement has to do with the physical layout of slot machines on the gaming floor of a casino. Casino management determines the slot placement based on two major factors: visual appeal and efficient use of space. There are two significant slot placement configurations, the carousel and the bank. A carousel is a round arrangement of slot machines in which the terminals form a circle or oval on the casino floor. The bank is a row, or line of slot machines placed together horizontally or vertically.

Lest you think that the casino just hires some strong men to arrange the machines in any old way, let us tell you that nothing about the placement of poker machines is random! Games are usually placed based on their theme and their payoff, with strategic goals in mind. High-payout machines can usually be found in areas with plenty of foot traffic – near the restrooms, adjacent to the buffet line or to the entrance to a floor show, or around the table games. But be careful – it’s rate to see too hot slots in a row. Overall casino payout percentages are calculated based on the mean of all their machines’ probabilities, so you never know exactly what you are going to get, unless you are a frequent player with the opportunity to pick up on trends.

SLOTS – This is shorthand for “slot machine.”

SLOTS DROP – The cumulative amount of money that you have inserted into a slot machine during a given session is known as the “slots drop.” It is expressed as a dollar amount, as opposed to coin size, which is the physical number of coins (based on the denomination that you are playing). If you just started playing a nickel slot and have inserted five coins, the coin size is five. The slots drop is twenty-five cents. After three spins, you will have inserted fifteen coins, and the slots drop will be seventy-five cents.

SLOTS HOLD – Believe it or not, casinos are actually in the business of making money and not just giving it away! The slots hold comprises some of that cha-ching that keeps your favorite casino flush and able to pay the power bills for all those flickering fruities! We know that slots are some of the most generous gambling instruments on any casino floor. Despite earning the moniker “one-armed bandits,” slots actually offer some of the most generous payouts of anything around. The payoff percentage for these devices is very generous. Machines may pay out eighty-five or ninety percent of all money they take in, in fact! The slots hold is the opposite of the payout, the amount of money that the house keeps as profit from bets on the machine. With the exception of certain skill-based machines that can actually offer MORE than one hundred percent payout in the instance of perfect play, you can figure out the slots hold by subtracting the payout percentage (should you happen to track down that information) from one hundred percent.

Obviously, smart slots players will seek out the titles that offer the richest payout percentage. Keep in mind that the payoff of a given title has nothing to do with your odds of winning, which likely remain quite small! It only means that SOMEONE will be receiving the majority of the bounty that is paid in to that terminal.

SLOT SCHEDULE – Not to be confused with the pay table, the slot schedule is a display of information listing what prize amounts and denominations are possible for each coin played. Machines with the option to accept coins of many different denominations could have a quite extensive slot schedule, especially when dealing with multiple paylines. Deluxe slot game features like “buy-a-pay” and multipliers will also lengthen the slot schedule. Designers of online slots have a good deal more flexibility in designing their products to make this information concise and convenient for players without getting in the way of the action of the reels!

SLOTS PLACEMENT – When they endeavor to figure out where they will physically place slot machines on their gaming floor, casino managers face many of the same challenges encountered by a wedding planner trying to seat party guests at the reception! Instead of having to worry about interchanging ladies with gentlemen, making sure that chatty aunts get seated next to shyer visitors, and ensuring that your alcoholic father-in-law’s chair is the furthest possible from the open bar, however, managers try to keep things interesting for gamblers as well as profitable for the house. Believe it or not, they don’t just cart in the machines and line them up any which way!

The fundamentals of slot placement, or the “slot mix” generally dictate that the hottest (loosest, sweetest, sizzling) pokies are strategically situated in the areas of the floor that see the most foot traffic from guests. It’s a fundamental tenet of casino psychology that players enjoy seeing other players win money. It encourages them to spend, because they believe that luck is already in the air! Therefore, it’s almost always the case that you should stake out a machine that is close to the powder room, the end of the buffet line, the poker and roulette tables, or the entrance/egress to the room. On the other hand, don’t sit shoulder-to-shoulder with your friends and expect to win – casinos like to scatter real duds in between winners for this very reason. (If you have come to a casino to socialize, you’re doing it wrong!

SLOT TALK – This is the gossip, chatter, and blabbing that goes on between punters. Slot talk can encompass anything from sharing notes at the casino with the person seated at the terminal beside you, to logging into your favorite casino review site and checking out what’s new on the forums – for example, Casinomeister.com has a thriving and active forum with players from all around the world. You can compare slots playing strategies, share news of huge jackpots, and inform others about upcoming tournaments and promos of which you have heard, as well as find out this information for yourself. Driven by the phenomenal popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace, Another advantage of engaging in slot talk on the World Wide Web is the fact that you can chat with players all over the world! No matters whether you are the rankest newbie or a seasoned pro, you can gain a wealth of knowledge and benefit from the exchange of ideas that is involved in slot talk.

SLOT TESTING – An imprecise science, slot testing is the means by which wily punters endeavor to determine the payout percentage of their slot machine title of choice. Obviously, the payout percentage for a specific terminal is unknown to the casino players, although casinos are required to make the information available to regulatory agencies. Everyone wants to know if “X” pokey is actually worth their time, so trying to discern whether a machine is hot or cold has become a great pastime of those who like to challenge the one-armed bandit. Realistically, slot “testing” is infeasible, because the statistical trends indicative of a machine’s true payout percentage can span days, depending on the odds. Some players will feed a roll of coins into a machine, one coin per spin, to calculate a theoretical payout percentage determined by how many wins they’ve received.

SLOT TOURNAMENT – As the name suggests, slot tournaments are competitions in which punters vie against one another for prizes. If you have never experienced one of these events, the idea might seem a bit contradictory – slots being a solo endeavor, after all. Basically, a pokey tournament challenges players’ luck against one another by having them all play the same slot machine title with a fixed amount of credits, and seeing who can win the most money! The fact that there is little skill or technical knowledge required makes these events very interesting!

Online slot tournaments were once rare, but are gradually becoming more prevalent as the world of internet gambling continues to grow at an exponential pace. Whether land-based or online, slot game tourneys are generally organized the same way. Entry may be free (rarely) or paid. Regardless, players all receive either a fixed number of credits with which to play, or a set amount of time in which to play as many spins as possible or necessary to win big! Sheer luck takes over at this point. Basically, players go forward and try to win the highest amount of credits. Usually, a minimum amount of spins is mandated – so you can’t land the mother lode on the first spin and just stop, either! Tournaments at land casinos might last for just a few hours, or can take place at online casinos over weeks. Players can “re-buy” into the tournament for additional credits, should they be dissatisfied with the score they received. The highest score they rack up is the one that is counted! While the tournament is in progress, players’ scores are usually displayed on a leaderboard so it is obvious at a glance who is winning.

The largest prize is given to the foremost winner, and usually to several winners placing near the top, in graduated amounts. On rare occasions, winners might be allowed to take home the accumulated amounts that they “won” during the contest!

SOFTWARE DESIGNER – Your favorite online slot is very much like a computer game in the sense that someone, somewhere is responsible for the graphics, gameplay, and content that you are enjoying – in other words, someone designed it. On the World Wide Web, there are several software design companies that make up the overwhelming majority of all titles that you will play at your favorite internet casinos. Microgaming is the foremost. One of the most respected names in the industry, Microgaming provides gaming platforms for some of the best gambling sites out there, and releases some of the most advanced, graphically spectacular, and diverse games in the business.

The online slot design world is one that is intensely competitive, however, and international names like Cryptologic, Real Time Gaming, Rival, Vegas Technology, Parlay, and Top Game are all hot on Microgaming’s heels. You will find after you’ve been playing the slots for a while that certain software designers have signatures that you can identify – Real Time Gaming’s random progressive jackpots, for example, or Rival’s awesome slots adapted from television game shows and sitcoms.

SOUND OF RAIN – Get your umbrellas out! (Or not… that was a joke!) Unlike the omen forecasted by thunder in the distance, the sound of rain is generally a sweeter noise than any we’ve heard. When a big jackpot is hit, and all those coins come clattering down into the coin tray… that’s the sound of rain. Nowadays, the ticket in / ticket out system has made this phenomenon all but obsolete. We think that’s a big loss, as the sound of rain is often as big a part of the whole experience for players as yanking the lever of the one-armed bandit! Some online slots will play a midi file of coins falling down when you win, but this is not quite the same thing, either.

SPOONING – This is another illegal tactic of trying to defraud a land-based slot machine. The name refers to the “spoon” (which isn’t necessarily something you eat with), a curved device that is inserted inside the coin tray and finagled up to the coin counter with the intent of confusing the mechanism into dispensing more cash than it is supposed to. Spooning is one of the toughest scams to pull off, especially in today’s age of terminals that are increasingly theft-proof. Never mind the ethical issues – spooning is a scam we’d suggest you do not try, as even the act of tampering with casino’s gambling terminals is grounds for arrest and prosecution.

SPUTTERING SLOT – You’ve heard it called a bunch of different names, but a rose is still a rose, and a bum slot is still one to avoid. Also referred to as a “cold” or “tight” slot machine – as well as several, more colorful epithets that probably aren’t fit for posting – a sputtering slot is one that guards its treasure more closely than Fort Knox. It may pay out nothing, or very little, for hours at a time. Your local casino (or online counterpart) can legally scatter a few duds into their slot mix, because legal requirements pertaining to minimum payout percentages on slot games only apply to the average payout figure for the whole establishment. When you understand that casinos can house thousands of one-armed bandits, you realize that this means many cold, hard slots are lurking out on the floor like Jaws, waiting to scarf your coins!

Unfortunately, there is seldom very little indication that you have found a “sputtering slot,” Unless someone who has already been taken for a ride, or knows someone who has, fills you in, you pretty much have to part with your coins, give it a few spins, and lose some money. Good money management techniques will go a long way towards making sure that you don’t lose vast amounts of cash on a sputtering slot, especially tactics that involve figuring out a percentage of wins versus losses. You never want to let frustration and stubbornness get the best of you when playing an obvious dud – trust your gut, swallow that slotaholic pain, and leave it alone. We’ve all been there! Don’t waste your time trying to divine the location of losers, either. While it is a fact that cold slots are mixed in between loose ones, there is no point trying to count off terminals.

STAND UP SLOT – This type of device is also called an upright slot machine. As you probably guessed, the name refers to the fact that you must stand up in front of the terminal to play. Stand up slots were the first type of pokies on the market, but have fallen out of favor with modern gamblers, who prefer to take a seat and enjoy their playing experience at leisure. Unless you aren’t the type to get sore legs, you will probably not want to loiter at these games for an extended period of time!

STATIC – This term is synonymous with “flat top” or “fixed” is reference to a slot machine with a set jackpot that does not change, no mater how many coins are fed into the machine. Simply put, static jackpots are the opposite of progressive prizes, which grow progressively with every wager that does not end in a jackpot payout. A static jackpot will almost always offer you a better chance of winning than a progressive, albeit with a lower prize. This rule does not apply to tiny progressives or massive flat top jackpots, which are the outliers of the curve. The history of American pokies began with static slots.

STOP – A “stop” is a unit on a slot machine reel that represents one place that the machine can “stop.” Physical reels are long, oval-shaped belts with many images printed on them – although stops can also be blank, and are then called “ghosts.” These are non-paying symbols. When the reels are spun, they must come to a rest on one stop, which leaves a single picture lined up on the payline. How many stops appear on a reel used to be determined by the size of the machine. Now that most land-based slot machines utilize digital reels, the limitations of the physical reel are a thing of the past. Machines can have many more stops than they used to, because a computer chip is now capable of utilizing the same, digitally-rendered image in several different combinations and winning/losing permutations. Referring to stops in terms of online slots is purely theoretical, since there are not even the digital equivalent of actual reels to deal with.

STRAIGHT SLOTS – Like the Special Olympics, a straight slot guarantees that everyone who plays will go home with a prize just for playing. When the punter puts their coins in to spin the reels of this game, they know that they are guaranteed to at least win something, no matter how small. Naturally, you aren’t ever going to win a million dollars playing a straight slot… but these titles have a certain appeal for timid-natured newbie players who like the thrill of hearing some coins drop into the slot!

STRINGING – This is just another way that crooks will cheat the slot machines, if given the chance. Like spooning, this is a method of fraud that has become almost obsolete, and will get you in a LOT of trouble if you are foolish enough to try it out. Basically, stringing involves attaching a very fine string, like sewing thread, to a coin or token. The player feeds the coin into the machine to play, waits until the device has “read” the coin as a credit, and then fishes it back out again with the string. If the string holds fast (assuming that it is tied through a hole drilled in the coin, for instance), the gambler could theoretically reuse the same coin over and over again to essentially play for free.

There are too many problems with this idea to even make it feasible, however. The first of these is that cheating a gambling device is illegal. The second is that there is no guarantee that the string will not break, or gum up the works of the device to the point that it becomes unplayable. The third is that even trying this tactic is enough to get you arrested in a casino, as there is nothing subtle about a string dangling from the coin slot of a poker machine!

SUPERSTITIONS – Slot machine players, like gamblers in general, are filled with enough superstitions to write a book about. From only using chilled coins to sitting at a certain terminal no matter which day they visit the casino, punters are apt to harbor all sorts of beliefs about what circumstances might possibly bring Lady Luck waltzing into their periphery. Some major ones include:

-A belief that slot testing is a valid phenomenon, and that the winning trends of any given pokey can be discerned and capitalized upon.
-The feeling that a slot machine is “ready” to be hit… often “at any second,” and usually by you.
-Fruities pay out more when you wager with bills, as opposed to coins.
-The casino has ultimate control over when a slot machine will pay out, and manipulates winning percentages based on time of day, day of the week, the state of the economy, and/or other factors.
-The legacy arm is more likely to yield a jackpot than the push-button start that spins the reels.
-Placing a certain talisman – a hula doll, a lucky clover, a silver quarter – on the machine as a “lucky charm.”
-Wearing gloves while playing.
-Closing eyes while playing.
-Touching the button a certain way, or with a certain part of the finger.

Most superstitions are completely harmless, but problems can arise when slot game players lose track of one very important concept: none of the above tactics will make you any more likely to win the slots than a regular Joe who strolls in and starts pulling the lever without a second thought. Oftentimes, we can get so caught up in the siren’s lure of our routines and “gut” feelings that we ignore common sense, such as being faced with a clearly freezing slot machine.

SYMBOLS – This goes without saying, practically! Symbols are the pictures that appear on the reels of slot machines, and line up in order to win a prize or a jackpot. How ever many reels you are playing will determine how many symbols show up on the payline – five symbols across for a five-reel pokey, three symbols for a three-reel pokey. The combination of symbols appearing on the paylines determines whether you win or lose on a specific spin. In ninety-nine percent of cases, matching symbols are winning combinations. You will usually win some money for two matches (or two, three, and four on a five-reel title), but the biggest wins are reserved for matching images all the way across!

What is depicted as symbols on your slot machine usually depends on the theme. Accordingly, you might see octopi, schools of fish, and maybe a mermaid on the reels of an ocean-themed pokey. If your slot is one based on the theme of a journey into outer space, you might see some asteroids, glistening stars, and the rings of Saturn! The first slot machines had symbols of fruit on the reels, which is why we now see lemons, cherries, and grapes on many latter-day machines!
 

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