Interesting Slot Machine Facts That Will Blow You Away – History, Design, Revenue, and More

Have you ever stopped to ponder why slot machines are so popular?

With the advent of the internet, more players have had access to these machines. With a click or two of one’s mouse, a library of slots was suddenly available.

The entrepreneurial minds of the industry would recognize the potential profit in this, leading us to where we are today.

Of course, people have been playing these games much longer than we think. And according to some slot machine facts in this list, the industry is only beginning to reach its peak!

If you want to bypass these casino slot facts, head straight to one of the top casinos that offer slot games right now.

Casinos and gambling machine manufacturers have studied just about all there is to know about slots.

In doing so, they figured out the chief predictor of a game’s profitability. Which, in essence, is the average amount of time a gambler spends on a device.

When designing new games, slot machine manufacturers such as IGT, Microgaming, WMS, and more focus on features that will increase the time spent on a slot.

One way to look at a game with a high “Time on Device” is how successful it is in locking a gambler into “the zone.” This is a state of mind where it’s just the slot and the machine.

Some anecdotal reports suggest this mindset could supersede the desire to win big. Its place on this list makes it one of the more important slot facts to mull over.

If you have ever played on slots for a prolonged period, you might be accustomed to this state of mind.

Given the addictive nature of these games, the importance of adhering to strict rules when playing slots cannot be undersold. If you’d like to learn more about playing slots the right way, the following guide has you covered.

Almost all casino games have a house edge that can be calculated.

Slots, on the other hand, are unique because there is no true way of determining tangible numbers. Some symbols pay out for particular combinations against the game’s paylines.

However, determining odds for games like blackjack or roulette is very simple. Providing you understand two critical factors.

• The Payoff for All Bets
• The Odds of Winning Each Bet

Most casino games use a deck of cards, a pair of dice, or something comparable to generate their random results. This is achievable in games where you know the odds of winning a bet.

After all, there are 52 cards in a deck, so the odds of getting a particular card are 51 to 1. All the other probabilities can be calculated if you know the makeup of the deck.

Some slot machine stats are available. But the odds of winning are almost impossible to determine. This is because you cannot determine the odds of getting a particular symbol on any particular spin.

There are only 6 sides on a die in a game of craps, so there are a finite number of combinations. Calculating the odds of any given outcome is relatively simple math.

As a result, the house edge for slot machines is often higher than the house edge for other games.

Blackjack has a low house edge of between 0.5% and 1% (assuming you play well). Even if you play badly, the house edge at blackjack probably maxes out at 4% or so.

The house edge for most slot machines is circa 5% or more. And you have no way of knowing if the game you’re playing has a house edge of 5% or 25%.

In fact, 2 identical machines sitting right next to each other can have dramatically different payback percentages. That’s because the random number generator is inside the machine. And you can’t examine it.

Does that mean slots are not among the best games at the casino? Read the next piece if you’re keen to find out.

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You wanted slot facts, and you’re certainly getting them.

If you’ve ever wondered how much money casinos make from slots, you’ll like this one especially if you remember the days when internet slot machines hadn’t taken over. We can pinpoint a crucial change in the industry before then, however.

Around the mid-1980s, slot machines were considered a game for those with a low level of interest in gambling. The real gamblers stuck with games like blackjack and craps.

The slots didn’t even have stools in front of them in those days. They were placed in the hall or near the elevator—the idea was to avoid taking up space on the gambling floor.

They were located in spaces where people were moving from point A to point B, as you will notice in some of the following footage.

It only took a decade for slot machines to start generating twice as much revenue per year as all the table games put together.

By 2003, gambling machines generated 85% of the casinos’ revenues. Almost two decades later, the average age of the casino goer lowered from 49 to 44.

Although some slot machine statistics vary from casino to casino, this is a good estimate of the importance of these machines to an operator. Especially with more younger players becoming interested in slots, you would think.

A progressive jackpot game is one in which the size of the top jackpot grows with every spin of the reels.

Generally speaking, you would find 3 kinds of progressive slots. But these days, there are more innovative progressive jackpot slots appearing. With the gambling industry expected to grow considerably, I can only imagine how far things will go.

I digress. Let’s cover the three main progressive slots types.

• Standalone Progressives – A progressive jackpot only grows when you play that individual machine.
• Local Area Progressives – These are networked with a group of other slot machines within the same casino. Playing on any of these machines causes the jackpot for all those games to grow. If the (shared) jackpot is hit on any of those machines, the jackpot on all the machines resets to its starting point.
• Wide Area Progressives – Known as “wide areas,” these games are networked across multiple casinos. Considered the more lucrative of the three, jackpots can pay out high enough to compete with many lottery prizes.

The biggest example of a wide area progressive is Megabucks. The largest jackpot of all time was won on this network in March 2003. One lucky bettor bagged $39,713,982.25 at Las Vegas’ Excalibur.

This kind of jackpot game has some crucial differences from the lottery.

Even though the odds of winning a progressive jackpot are significantly better than the odds of winning the lottery, a progressive jackpot is still a bet where the odds are stacked against you in an almost comprehensible way.

The odds of winning the lottery are about 1 in half a million. The odds of winning the MegaBucks jackpot is about 1 in a quarter million. According to information in our progressive jackpots guide, there is, even more, to be excited about.

Another difference is that you’ll see smaller payouts more frequently when playing on a MegaBucks slot machine. It is a slot machine, after all.

I previously mentioned the importance of some of the new changes in the world of progressives. For example, new hot drop jackpot slots at Bovada are designed to pay out guaranteed wins hourly and daily.

There is a super jackpot that has frequently dropped huge prizes, too!

Among the more interesting slot facts, this one involves the science behind modern games.

From video slots to progressives, we’re pretty much living in the future! Especially when you consider that slot machines were originally made up of a few mechanical parts such as coin slots, hoppers, levers, and reels.

Modern slots are made up of over 1200+ individual components. These are put together by 300+ people from design to the manufacture and assembly of the games.

The parts involved now include items that Charles Fey, the inventor of the slot machine, wouldn’t even recognize.

When discussing facts about slots, it’s not a reach to suggest that most games were straightforward. You inserted coins, pulled a lever, and looked for a combination of symbols across a pay line.

Now you have to choose how much to bet, insert paper money or tickets, and press buttons or a screen to start the game. You can bet as little as a penny per line per spin or $100 per line per spin—on the same machine.

The reels are 3D animations on a video screen, and instead of a single pay line, you have potentially dozens of ways to win (and/or lose). The pay table is also available on the screen, but you must navigate to another screen to look at it.

And many of these games are now linked to other games and to computer programs that gather data ending up on the desks of most casinos’ marketing departments.

What do slot machine statistics have to do with video games? A lot, as it happens.

Multiple factors have added to the growth of these games’ popularity throughout the United States. Some of this has to do with the economy during the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Those two presidential tenures oversaw federal cuts to most states during a lengthy recession. The governments of the affected states needed to find ways to generate revenue without directly raising taxes.

Legalizing and taxing gambling proceeds was an easy way to do it.

And since most machine gamblers were casual players playing for low stakes, industry spokespeople began discussing their industry using a redefined term: “gaming” rather than “gambling.”

The combination of these factors with the technological innovations going on at the time created the perfect storm that made slot machines far and away the biggest source of revenue in the United States gambling industry.

How about that for some facts about slots?

A lot of interesting slot machine information stems from the fact that they were widely illegal across the country.

In the year 2000, slot machines were only legal in 31 states. That’s pretty significant when you realize they’ve been around since 1898.

They’ve since been legalized and regulated in most other regions of the country. Other states are considering legalization, too. This could lead to more US gambling laws and legislation changes than previously considered possible.

But these circa one million machines aren’t the only example of the industry in action. Countless underground machines are available, even in states where gambling machines aren’t legal.

These games are unauthorized and unregulated—you’ll find them in bars, gas stations, and restaurants in states like Texas, where there are no legal casinos.

These unregulated games are often billed as “amusement devices” or “sweepstakes games.” They don’t tend to have much coverage in articles covering varying facts about slot games.

In Texas, the colloquial term for them is “8 liners.” Entire businesses or “game rooms” are dedicated to allowing gaming enthusiasts the opportunity to play for prizes you could easily buy at Dollar General.

I visited one game room where you could win a dozen cans of creamed corn or some garden tools. But that strange type of prize is not unique to “The Lone Star State.”

The good news is that US gambling laws are being relaxed. Not all states are on board just yet, but that could change sooner rather than later.

Despite the figures that suggest it, it’s not all about slot machines in Japan. That is if you consider pachinko different from your regular machine.

It would seem that 900,000+ slot machines in one country would set a record. But it doesn’t. It just makes the United States #2 worldwide.

The #1 country for slot machines is Japan. It is estimated that there are five million slot machine games in the country, with most of them pachinko games. Considering that Japan has a population of roughly 1/3 of that of the United States, the number of slot machines per person is considerably greater.

So, yes, we have a lot of slots in the United States. But we don’t even come close to having the kind of slot machine fever that they have in Japan.

Then again, we do have legalized gambling in most states. Furthermore, the prizes paid out in pachinko parlors are usually teddy bears, kettles, and other random stuff.

Underground traders will buy your pachinko tickets for cash, as gambling is mostly outlawed in Japan. But that could change soon if Japan’s gambling laws are relaxed.

One of the more surprising facts about slot machines is that locals flock to ‘em more than visitors.

Yet another example of how the gambling landscape in the United States has changed is the rise of the local gambler. The population of Las Vegas quadrupled from 1980 to 2010, from 450,000 people to 2 million.

It is also believed that two in every three Vegas residents gamble.

Those gamblers are said to play at least monthly for 4+ hours per session. Many of those play twice a week or more. Neighborhood casinos cater to these local players by offering them amenities specific to their needs, much like childcare.

These factors have combined to make low-rolling local gamblers a more dominant force in the economy of local Vegas economy than high-roller tourists.

Station Casinos, in particular, cater to local gamblers in Las Vegas. They’re known for offering some of the best odds-on video poker machines in the world.

Their house edge might be lower on these games, but they make up for it in volume.

Some slot machine facts are off the mark. Many feed into what is known as “gambler’s fallacy.”

One of the best examples of a gambler’s fallacy is the belief that a slot machine game gets hot or cold. The idea is that a game that is paying out a lot is somehow “hot” and will continue to pay out.

Alternatively, if a game is not paying out much, it will continue to be “cold” and will be less likely to pay out. The reality is that in any situation dealing with random results, apparent streaks of luck (both good and bad) will happen.

But those streaks of luck are only apparent in retrospect. They don’t affect future results in any way.

Why? Well, that’s just not the way probability works.

Modern slot machines use a random number generator to determine their results.

This computer program generates thousands of random numbers per second, each of which is tied to a particular result on the reels. The split second that you hit the “spin” button (or pull the lever), the RNG (random number generator) stops.

There’s no way to really predict which number it will land on, as the machine goes through too many numbers per second. However, some will strongly disagree with that statement.

We have some tips for finding hot slots that you can use to settle the debate. Check them out!

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The antecedent to all modern slots was created in 1898 by Charles Fey.

The illustrious Liberty Bell slot is also the blueprint on which video poker games were devised. While the first-ever slot is miles from what we enjoy today, it’s still incredible to consider how old slots are.

These days, we can access games from the palm of our hand. Or play fully-immersive slots with more bells and whistles than you could imagine.

Charles Fey had been making coin-operated machines in SF for nearly ten years before creating his Liberty Bell in 1898. #GamesofChance pic.twitter.com/3xIufT3n4P

— SFO Museum (@SFOMuseum) January 12, 2017

But one of the best facts about the history of slot machines is that, if not for Fey’s first creations in the 1880s, we likely wouldn’t have the games we do today.

That’s pretty cool, huh?

If you’re all about slot machines, you should know where to find ‘em!

In other words, slots in some areas of Nevada pay better than others. Consider that on your next trip to Las Vegas, especially if you’re looking to strike it rich on the Strip.

You can find stats published by the Nevada Control Board Gaming Commission for any year on record. I lifted data about the average RTPs of the most popular areas, which you can read below.

These numbers don’t appear crazy to the untrained eye. But if you’re a gambler who values every cent, this could make a huge difference in the long run!

Brick-and-mortar slot machines might look and sound slightly different from the games you play at online casinos.

But in reality, they’re quite similar in how they work under the hood. The big difference is the technology you’re using to access the results.

Online casinos use the same kinds of random number generator programs as land-based casinos. They just serve up your results via animation that is sent to your computer via the Internet.

Land-based casinos are using slightly different hardware to give you your results, but the games work the same way in terms of how the random number generator works.

If you want to continue comparing online vs. land-based casinos, then our guide below will provide six answers to these questions.

One of the more difficult slot machine facts to digest is that they are made to lure you in.

What is it about slots that make them more addictive than other kinds of gambling? Well, multiple factors contribute.

First, it is said that the average slot machine player makes 600 wagers per hour. Compare that with the average of 100 roulette spins per hour or 200 blackjack hands per hour.

Those numbers are the average for a player with no other players at the table—if other players are at the table, the number of bets per hour can drop by 70% or more, which is interesting.

As for slots, they do bite harder for the following reasons.

Craps is all about adrenaline and excitement compounded with camaraderie at the table. While movies are all about entering a dreamlike state.

It is widely believed that slots and television both create more of a state of hypnosis. It’s a type of psychological numbness that can influence how you play.

You can read all about slot machines in the various guides we have on our site.

That said, you’ll also find plenty of snake oil salesmen on the Internet who claim to have some kind of inside insight into how these games work and how you can win at them more often. But these people are typically full of it.

Many of them like to share the idea that you can get a clue as to which machines are ready to pay out based on the symbols that are showing on them while they’re at rest. This is called the “zig-zag” system.

And it’s nonsense. The reels are just for show. The actual results are determined by the random number generator inside the slot machine.

This kind of thinking might have had some relevance in the 1970s, but modern slot machines don’t have mechanical parts and aren’t subject to this kind of prediction.

As covered earlier, other systems have to do with using the gambler’s fallacy to predict which games are hot or cold.

These systems and strategies can make for an interesting way to pass the time and play, but they don’t do anything to increase your chances of walking away a winner unlike a true slot machine strategy that looks at ways to mitigate your losses.

If you are going to try some kind of betting system when you’re playing slots, please don’t spend money buying someone’s system. Those kinds of gurus are preying on the weak-minded and uninformed.

You shouldn’t support such business practices, online or off. One of the key facts about casino slots is that they cannot be controlled by the player.

One of my favorite facts about slot machines is the link between ‘em and Skinner Boxes.

B.F. Skinner was a behavioral scientist who studied how motivated animals became when they got rewards from a box.

He learned through his experiments that animals were more motivated by a box that gave our periodic rewards than they were by a box that gave out consistent rewards.

If you think about the implications of that for a minute, you’ll see the obvious application to slot machine technology. If you won on every spin, you’d be less motivated to play than if you won on occasional spins.

Slot machine designers and casinos can test various hit frequencies to see which games generate the highest TOD figures. (Remember “TOD”? It stands for “time on device”.)

This kind of testing is comparable to split testing in the world of marketing.

It’s a simple task to put 10 almost identical slot machines on a casino floor, but have half of them with a 60% hit frequency and half with a 70% hit frequency. All you have to do is track which game has the higher average TOD, then adjust the parameters accordingly.

Copywriters have used a similar approach with sales letters for decades. They’ll write 2 versions of the game letter, but they’ll change a single word from one letter to another.

Then they’ll send out 1000 versions of each letter and see which letter generated the better response rate. They use that as their new control letter to beat by changing another word.

The last of my slot machine facts deals with popular slot themes.

You might already know that you can find plenty of slot machines with original themes. Lucky Larry’s Lobstermania is a good example of such a game.

But you’re more likely to find games that are based on other intellectual properties. The most famous example of this is the Wheel of Fortune slot machine game.

You can find multiple variations of this game, and all of them are hugely popular. IGT was so interested in the popularity of this game that they did surveys to find out why customers like it so much.

Here’s what they found out.

Game shows are a popular source of intellectual property that is used to create slot machine games.

Wheel of Fortune is just one example. You’ll also find slot machines based on Jeopardy, the $20,000 Pyramid, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Many of these are available both online and off.

Television shows are also a popular source for slot themes. Peaky Blinders, Game of Thrones, and Family Guy are just 3 examples of this kind of game. You can find plenty more by visiting any nearby casino. Narcos is a more recent example.

Movies are also ripe for adaptation into a gambling game.

Titanic is one of the more popular slot machine games based on a movie, but you can find games based on The Terminator and Aliens, too. There are countless examples.

Even individual celebrities often lend their names and personalities to these games. Some of the more popular ones include Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton.

Online games inspired by other intellectual properties often include superhero-based games like those from Playtech.

This software developer also holds the license for online gambling games based on Marvel Comics characters like Captain America and Iron Man.

If you’d like to learn more facts about slots that were huge, or even play them, the next piece is for you.

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We’ve covered some data and cool facts about slot machines that should help you understand them better.

You might think that slot machines are a relatively uncomplicated subject, but the reality is that they’re a fascinating phenomenon.

Enormous amounts of revenue are generated for companies worldwide by these machines and the people who play on them.

If you intend to play online slots that pay real money, you owe it to yourself to know more about them.

As I touched on above, there are BS artists out there trying to sell you snake oil. Don’t fall for it!

Instead, remember to manage your bankroll adequately and play safe. If you need help choosing slots, the following article will help!

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Footnotes:

• Average casino goer age information is from Fox Business.
• First ever slot machine details are courtesy of Britannica.