Gamble Recommended 79
A lot has been written about the honesty of land-based learn slot machines. An excellent article by Steve Bourie is titled, "Are Slot Machines Honest?" and originally appeared in the 1999 American Casino Guide. (It can be found online by searching for the title in Google or Yahoo!.) Physical, land-based slot machines have a lot of "variations" (being polite) than can deceive the player. Keep in mind, they may be all illegal and don't happen. But read the article, closely.
However, online casino slots use an electronic "random number generator" or RNG, operating inside a very large computer program that manages the game graphics, the player accounts of people that join the game, the statistics of every hand played, as well as more. The random number generator is hard-coded software instructions that don't change. There's no "sense switch" (see the Bourie article) that can be flipped to give players worse odds. Regarding control parameters, each use of the RNG matches the very last use, and may be the same as the next use. The numbers will come out randomly, however the pattern of randomness never changes. This is a true benefit from software-based online casino slots.
Land-based slot machines could also have payout percentages as little as 83%, which is not true with online casino slots. In online gaming, each machine has the same winning percentage as another machines. You can see the payout percentages for many online gaming sites, and you shall see which it rarely drops below 95% - that is, the house makes a 5% profit, on the standard. In reality, most casinos can document that their payout percentages are within the 97% - 98% range. Therefore you may spend an hour, gamble your $100 stake about 3 times, and also on an average it's going to cost you $7.50. But players don't gamble to be average: the true reward is the well-paying win. And also the well-paying win is balanced, simply, by a number of players who lose and finance that win.
So are online casino slots fair? Yes, they clearly are. The software that operates the games is tested regularly by independent testing laboratories (look for logos at the bottom of the casino website), and no game is individually controllable to be biased. That is a far cry from the situation with land-based slot machines, appropriately called "one-armed bandits".
Players improve odds, they get absolute consistency across all games - but nobody can guarantee a win every time. That's just the nature of gambling, and that is part of the thrill.
So the next time you want to play a slot machine, even when there's a land-based casino right next door, you are better advised to go to your computer and play the online casino slots. They can be a far better bet.
