Slots Myths and Facts - What's the deal?

Playing online slots doesn’t only offer a high level of entertainment and excitement, but there’s always a chance of hitting that big win and even winning life changing amounts. Unfortunately there are a lot of myths in circulation that could affect our gaming experience in a negative way, should we take this false information to heart.

Maybe you’ve heard that slots pay better on certain occasions than others and that the chance of hitting a win is bigger if you’ve had many losses in a row? Perhaps you’re of the opinion that slots have a better payout on certain casinos than others and that the casinos themselves are able to change the payout settings? Have you ever heard that a jackpot has a higher probability of being won the bigger it is or that the chances of winning in the casino can’t be affected? These are all very common myths which we in this article will reveal the truth about.

Slots pay better on certain occasions

This is a widespread myth amongst many casino players, which has a few variations. Some people claim that the slots pay out more at a certain time of the day, while others say that the slots have the most generous payouts after an account has just been created with a casino. They say that the reason for this is to give us a great first experience and have us hooked, and then have the payouts automatically lowered to get all our money.

Fact: Slots have a random number generator (RNG), which guarantees that every spin is unique and independent of any external factors. No matter when or how a spin is made, the chance of hitting a certain win is always the exact same.

The longer the losing streak, the higher the chance of a winning hit

Unfortunately a lot of casino players wrongly assume that a winning hit must be right around the corner if there has been several losing spins in a row. Many imagine that the longer since a win, the higher is the chance of a winning hit, which creates a false a hope and many times lead to disappointment if that hit doesn’t happen.

Fact: Slots have something called “hit frequency”, which is the probability for a certain winning outcome to happen on each spin. As every spin is unique with the random number generator, it doesn’t matter how many times one have won or lost in a row. The probability for a winning outcome is always the same.

The slot's settings can be changed by the casino

This is one of the most common myths in circulation, which mainly has its origin from players that have had incredibly bad slot sessions they’ve never experienced before. An example would be that one would be used to always hitting a bonus game within 200 spins, but have now spun close to 1000 times and still haven’t hit it. The unlucky player is then assuming that the casino must have changed the settings so that it’s now harder to get the bonus game.
Fact: No slots can in any way ever be affected by casinos. These slots are rented by the companies that have created them and therefore the casinos themselves have no access to the slot’s settings. Having bad and even terrible sessions is completely normal as luck always plays a huge role. The same way that long, bad sessions can occur, it can also happen that really good ones will, with one bonus game being closely followed by another.

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The slots payout better at other casinos

This myth is very much alike the previous one and is based on the same phenomenon, but between two different casinos. That is that a player is only or very often experiencing bad sessions on a certain slot playing at one casino, while usually winning on the same slot on another one. When playing online slots this is more or less always a myth, even though there actually is some truth to it.

Fact: All slots have a certain probability for a winning outcome (hit frequency), which together with the value of each outcome creates the slot’s theoretical payout percentage, also known as return to player (RTP). How high the RTP is can always be easily found out by reading the information provided in the slot. The truth is that there’s usually a few different RTP settings that the game provider could apply to the slot, but these are more or less always the same between online casinos, which can be easily verified by just reading the slot’s information about RTP on each casino. Should you however find the same game in a land based casino, there’s a high probability that the RTP is way lower as that’s usually the case with land based slots.

The higher the jackpot, the higher the chance of winning it

Many believe that there are occasions when the jackpot has a higher probability of being won than others and that this probability is linear to how big the jackpot is. In other words, the assumption is that the higher the jackpot, the higher the chance of winning it.

Fact: The chance of winning a jackpot is always the same and independent of the jackpot’s size. For some jackpots higher bets do in fact have a higher chance, but the size of the jackpot never matters. It is however true that we rarely hear about jackpots being paid on smaller amounts, but this is simply because the marketing value isn’t as high as when a huge one has been won.

There's no way to improve the chance of winning

If you weren’t already of the opinion that the chance of winning can’t be affected, there’s a small risk that our talk about probability and unique game rounds have made you believe so. What we’ve previously said is of course true, but there are still ways you can affect your winning chances.

Fact: All slots have different settings when it comes to the probability of a winning hit and the theoretical payout percentage. There are indeed slots which are better than others as they would pay you back more in the long run. Furthermore, slots also have a volatility which determines how high and low the risk of the slot is. Because of this, you’re chances of winning can in fact be improved by simply choosing the right game. In addition to this, using a bonus is also something that could improve your chances of a profitable withdrawal.