Modern slot machines are powered by software called “random number generator” software — RNG, for short. If you can beat the RNG software, you can beat the slots.
- How To Beat A Slot Machine Electronically Game
- Tricks To Beat Slot Machines
- How To Beat A Slot Machine Electronically
That means winning money.
If you are playing slots today, you are primarily limited to either of two options: online slot machines, or electronic slot machines in a casino. The latter is played in-person, whereas the former is played on a PC (or mobile), but fundamentally both of these ways of gaming are enabled by a computer of some sort.
There is a way to beat these computers, disguised as slot machines. And the secret lies in the very precision in which these machines are programmed to play. How Can You Beat a Machine Programmed to Only Pay Back 97.3% of the Money Played? As we said there is no way to manipulate a slot machine by any means, but what you can do is to identify the functionality of a slot machine at any online casino or offline casino. This will help you understand the facts behind the slot machines and their cheat or hacks.
At one time, slot machines were powered by physical reels and springs, but no modern casino uses such gadgets. Even the machines that LOOK mechanical are powered by RNG software.
Can having an understanding of how that RNG software works enable you to change the return to player (RTP) percentage in your favor?
These are the questions this post tries to answer.
Some Definitions
Understanding what’s happening on a slot machine and with the RNG and RTP is easier when you understand some of the following expressions:
- Hit Frequency: How often you can expect to see some kind of winning result on a slot machine
- House Edge: A statistical prediction of how much of each bet the casino will win in the long run. It’s expressed as a percentage, and if you add the house edge to the return to player percentage, you’ll always get 100%
- Independent Trials: Events that don’t affect subsequent events and which aren’t influenced by prior events. In the case of slot machines, every spin of the reel is an independent trial
- Jackpot: The amount of the biggest win available on a slot machine game
- Long Run: A large number of trials. The actual long run is infinity. Every spin of a slot machine’s reels takes you nearer the long run
- Odds: One way of expressing probability (see below). Also a measure of how much a bet pays off compared to the amount bet. With slot machines, winnings are expressed as “X for Y” rather than “X to Y.” I’ll explain that further in this post
- Payback Percentage: The same thing as the return to player percentage. A predicted estimate of how much of each bet you’ll get back as winnings. This is always a number under 100% so that the casino can make a profit
- Payout: The amount you win from a specific combination of symbols
- Probability: How we measure the likelihood of an event happening. A probability is always a ratio or a fraction and can be expressed in multiple ways — as a fraction, as a decimal, or as a percentage
- Random Number Generator (RNG): A computer program that cycles through thousands of numbers per second. When a slot machine player hits the spin button, the number that is being “thought of” at that instant determines the results on the spinning reels
- Reels: The reels are the things that spin on a slot machine. They have multiple symbols on each of them
- Return To Player (RTP): This is a percentage that predicts, in the long run, how much money a slot machine will pay back to a player in winnings. This is always under 100%, because otherwise, the casino wouldn’t make any money
- Short Run: What happens on a small number of trials. The fewer trials, the closer you are to the short run. The ultimate example of the short run is a single spin of the reels on a slot machine
- Slot Machines: Any gambling machine with spinning reels with symbols on them
- Symbols: The pictures on the front of the slot machine reels. If these pictures match, you get winnings
- Weighting: How the random number generator assigns a probability to a specific symbol coming up. Some symbols are weighted to come up more often than others, and vice versa
How Does a Slot Machine Work?
Early slot machines had three reels with multiple symbols on each, and they paid out when you got a winning combination. The reels were housed inside the machine and were activated by pulling a lever on the side of that machine. Springs set the reels into motion.
Calculating the probability of getting various results on a mechanical slot machine was easy. You just took the number of symbols on each reel and divided to get the probability on one reel. Then you multiply by the other reels.
On a slot machine with eight symbols on each reel, the probability of getting a specific symbol on a reel is 1/8.
The probability of getting that symbol lined up on all three reels is 1/8 x 1/8 x 1/8, or 1/512. That can also be expressed as odds of 511 to 1, or 0.2%.
These slot machines generated returns for the casino by paying out less in winnings than the odds of winnings. Since you have 512 possible outcomes with this machine, as long as the total payouts for all those outcomes total less than 512, the casino makes a profit.
You divide those payouts by those outcomes to get the predicted payback percentage or return to player.
Let’s say you have a total of 450 coins you could win after adding all the winning combinations together.
The payback percentage for the game would be 450/512, or 87.9%.
In the long run, you’ll win 87.9 cents for every dollar you put through the machine. The casino will keep the rest.
That’s a long-term average based on the probability and the payouts. The game doesn’t know where it’s at in terms of that expectation, and it doesn’t change its randomness based on how much you’ve won or lost before now.
In other words, the probability of getting three cherries on the next spin is always 1/512, regardless of what happened on the previous spin, the previous 10 spins, or the previous 100 spins.
Some people might think that if you just got three cherries, the probability of getting that result again on the next spin drops.
It doesn’t.
It’s still 1/512, just like it was before.
How Random Number Generators Changed How Slot Machines Work
With a random number generator creating these results, slot machine designers can change the weightings for the symbols. You can still have eight symbols per reel, but the probability for the cherries might be set at 1/16 instead of at 1/8, while the probability of bars might be set at 1/4 instead of 1/8.
This enables the slot machine to offer bigger prizes while maintaining a profitable return to player percentage.
Each of the numbers that the random number generator program cycles through corresponds to a combination of reel symbols on the payline. Those weightings are accounted for in the assignment of the numbers.
All of this takes place “under the hood,” too, so you have no way of knowing what any of the probabilities are.
In fact, you can have two identical slot machines sitting right next to each other programmed for different payback percentages. Slot machine A might have a payback percentage of 88%, and slot machine B might have a payback percentage of 92%.
They might both be Wheel of Fortune slots games, too. The only difference is the probability with which the symbols come up.
The Difference Between the Short Run and the Long Run
The rule of thumb when dealing with random events is that anything can happen in the short run — anything at all.
But the closer you get to the long term, the more likely you are to see results that mirror the predicted expectation.
- You’re playing a slot machine game with an 88% payback percentage. You make one spin, and you bet $1 on that spin.
- Practically any result is possible at this point. Some results are more likely than others, but your return on that single bet absolutely will not match the statistical expectation of 88 cents.
- There’s a good chance — maybe 50% to 75% — that you’ll lose your dollar altogether.
- The rest of the time, you might win a dollar, $10, or even $1,000 on that single spin.
Those are all possibilities.
In fact, even if you make 10 spins or 100 spins, you probably won’t see results that line up with the mathematical expectation. Your sample size is too small.
As the number of bets you make approaches infinity, though, the more likely it is that your results will start looking like the results you’d expect. Remember, these expectations are averages over the course of those bets.
Let’s say you make 1,000 bets at $1 each, and when you finish, you have $880 left. You’ve lost $120 over 1,000 spins, so that’s a $0.12 loss per spin on average.
That also represents an 88% return to player percentage.
That’s exactly what probability would have predicted.
But even in that situation, it wouldn’t be unusual to have results that are skewed by variance in the short run. Win the 1,000-coin jackpot twice in those 1,000 spins, and it would be almost impossible for you to achieve results that resemble the mathematical expectation.
What About Hit Frequency? How Does the Slot Machine Know How Often to Pay Me?
The slot machine doesn’t “know” anything. In fact, it has no memory of what happened on your previous spin. The hit frequency is established by the programming of the random number generator.
Most of the time, the hit frequency for a slot machine will be at least 25%. Usually, it’s more than that. 33% to 45% isn’t uncommon.
But that’s strictly a function of probability. In the short run, you might win far more often than that — or far less often.
Slot machines don’t know what happened on the previous spin.
These are independent trials. Those predictions are just predictions based on probability.
So How Do You Beat the Random Number Generator?
I have a good friend who claims that his aunt used to pay her rent and bills by playing the slot machines. He said that she would watch the machines and get an idea of how often they paid out. When the right amount of time had passed between payouts, she would bet on that machine and win.
He claims that he went to the casino with her on multiple occasions, and she would point out a machine to him, and he’d play on it and win.
He’s convinced that they were able to beat the random number generator by paying attention to the cycles that the computer program was going through. That way, when the right number was about to come up, they could be there and bet on that number.
Do you see the trouble with their logic?
Yes, a random number generator program cycles through numbers.
But the program cycles through thousands of numbers PER SECOND. This isn’t a case of the computer program cycling through 120 numbers per hour or something like that. If it were, then sure, you could easily figure out when a machine was “due” for a payout.
The cycles happen so fast that they might as well be random.
How did he and his aunt win?
A combination of factors is in play here. One of these is confirmation bias. They expected to see certain results, so those are the results they’re most likely to remember. This is a common psychological foible with anyone.
The other factor is that they might have gotten lucky a few times. Everyone wins occasionally if they play long enough. If they didn’t, the casinos wouldn’t make any money because they wouldn’t have any customers.
How Do You Win Against an Electronic Slot Machine, Then?
Your only hope of winning against the random number generator is to get lucky in the short run and quit immediately.
The longer you play, the more likely you are to see results which resemble the predicted results.
There’s no way of guaranteeing you’ll beat the computer program other than by cheating or re-programming the machine. That’s beyond the scope of this post, and it’s a major crime, anyway. (In Nevada, cheating at gambling is a felony.)
Slot games that are free. What’s your best strategy then?
Since most slot machines played for a higher denomination have a higher payback percentage, it’s probably a good idea to play as few spins as possible for as much money as possible.
The penny slots players are the ones least likely to win big because the house edge grinds away at your money over time like compound interest.
If you have $100, you’re better off betting all of it on a single spin of the reels than you are making 100 spins on a $1 machine or 2,000 spins on a nickel machine.
You’ll spend less time playing, but you’ll have a better probability of going home with some big winnings in your pocket.
The trick is to walk away once you’ve won and never go back.
I have a buddy who hits the Winstar Casino at least once a week. He wins occasionally — maybe once every four or five trips. Sometimes he even wins big money, which he puts in the bank.
But he keeps going back.
Since those games are negative expectation bets, he’ll inevitably lose his money if he keeps playing.
Even though he sometimes wins, he keeps exposing his bankroll to the house edge.
And that’s a sure way to lose.
The only way to beat the random number generator is to get lucky in the short run and walk away forever once you’ve won.
That’s probably not the way most people are going to play, so here’s a compromise for someone who wants to get some more gambling under her belt while still having a chance to beat the random number generator.
Set a win goal. I like to find a flat-top slot machine with a 1,000-coin jackpot. Hitting that jackpot is my goal.
I set aside 600 times the size of the bet on that game. If I’m playing a game with a $1 cost per spin, I’ll set aside $600.
I’ll then play the game until I’ve hit the jackpot or lost my entire $600, whichever comes first.
This doesn’t give me any kind of mathematical advantage over the casino, by the way.
It just gives me a fighting chance of winning some money and going home with it.
Conclusion
Do you want to know how to beat RNG software?
Failing that, play with some kind of strategy that keeps you in the short run and out of the long term.
Besides cheating and hacking, there’s no other way to beat the random number generator.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Cheating at Slots 2020
Cheating at slots is often frowned upon but it is certainly an interesting subject. There are many stories of people who have successfully attempted cheating at slots.
Reading about various methods used by these people to cheat slot machines may be exciting, but you should definitely be cautious when you give it a try in real life. Modern slot machines are highly advanced and very difficult to take advantage of.
There are as many as 3 million slot machines in brick and mortar casinos across the world. Slots are often one of the biggest contributors to a casino’s revenue. As much as 80% of a casino’s income may come from its slot machines. So slot cheats can do some serious damage to a casino’s business.
According to estimates, gaming establishments in Nevada alone have had to bear a loss of millions of dollars every year as a result of slot machine cheating. This is one of the reasons why modern casinos have surveillance cameras covering every inch of the place.
Various Slots Cheat Methods
A big casino can have around 5,000 slot machines or more and continuously monitoring all the machines may not be possible. This provides an opening for slot cheats to try their luck. Slot machine cheaters have tried a number of different techniques in an effort to make big money, these include:
Cheating with coin and string or yo-yo method
This was one of the oldest methods used by cheaters to trick slot machines. The concept was simple. Cheaters used to attach a string to a coin before inserting it into the slot machine. After the machine registered that a coin has been inserted, the person used to simply pull out the coin using the string taped to it.
This enabled the person to use the same coin over and over again to add to his/her credit without investing a single penny. Because of the yo-yo like action of dropping the coin and pulling it back up, this method is also called yo-yo method.
Some cheats have tried using this same trick with bills as well. They would attach a string to a bill instead of a coin before dropping it into the slot machine and pull it out once the money was registered.
The problem with this method was that it involved a visible string coming out of the coin slot, which would be difficult to justify for the fraudster. Since the discovery of yo-yo method, the slot machines have been modified to ensure that the coins once dropped into the machine can not be pulled out.
Cheating with devices like the monkey’s paw
Devices like the monkey’s paw, which was a foot long flexible steel rod bent into the shape of a claw, were also a popular method of cheating at slots. The device was inserted into a slot machine through the payout outlet and used to tamper with the coin counter to cause overpayment.
The monkey’s paw was one of the early devices used by slot cheats. Since then other devices that can tamper with a slot machine’s coin comparator have also been invented and used. Such devices, when inserted into the machine, could generate fake signals so that credit would be registered without any coins being inserted.
This enabled the cheater to play without making any payment or make money simply by cashing out. Today most casinos use highly sophisticated machines that cannot be tampered with such devices.
Cheating with shaved coins or tokens
This was another popular method of cheating at slots used by fraudsters in olden days. The cheats realized that if they shaved off a tiny bit of a coin and dropped such coin in a slot machine, the coin would be registered, but it would be rejected and discharged.
This meant that the person could keep using the same coin again and again to add credit just like the coin and string method, but without the disadvantage of a visible string sticking out.
In order to avoid such cheating, many casinos started using tokens instead of coins in their slot machines. But cheaters have tried the same trick with tokens as well i.e. using shaved tokens to cheat slot machines.
With hundreds of cameras surveying every inch of modern casinos, a fraudster is sure to draw attention, if he/she tried this method. Moreover, the sophisticated machines used today ensure that the rejected coin/token is not registered in the credit.
Cheating with foreign coins
Fraudsters have even tried cheating casinos using foreign coins. They used foreign coins having a close resemblance to the US currency, but a very low value. The value of these foreign coins would be as much as ten times lower than the American coin it would be mistaken for.
This resulted in a significant loss for the casinos. But it is almost impossible to fool the advanced slot machines of today with such a trick.
Cheating with fake money or token
The use of counterfeit money is not exactly a slot cheating method, but slot machines are often used to launder fake bills. Good quality fake bills can closely resemble the real ones and the electronic sensors on slot machines may not be able to catch the difference.
This means that there was no way to catch the cheat as he will be long gone by the time the machine is opened and fraud discovered. Some cheats have even tried producing fake tokens that resemble the ones offered by a particular casino.
The disadvantage of these methods is that producing fake bills or tokens is not so easy. Also, producing counterfeit bills is a very serious crime and the cheater can end up spending many years in jail. Counterfeit token are also taken very seriously by casinos and cheaters can expect strong action.
Cheating with mini-lights – Slot machine cheaters have even tried blinding the machines. They made use of mini-lights, which is a small battery operated light emitter, to tamper with the optical sensors of slot machines, which are used to count coins to be paid out. This sometimes resulted in overpayment. But the modern slot machines come with safeguards against such devices.
Cheating by a casino insider
In the history of slot frauds, there have been a few cheaters who have made ambitious plans of introducing errors in the slot machine program before its installation in a casino, so that it paid out on pressing buttons in a particular pattern.
The success of such a plot is impossible without the help of a casino insider and a real programmer. Majority of such plots have ended up in failure with the fraudsters serving long jail terms.
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As slots machines become more and more sophisticated, cheaters are also coming up with advanced techniques of cheating. But with the introduction of hi-tech slot machines that accept only cards, not coins, the future of slot cheats is bleak.
How To Beat A Slot Machine Electronically Game
One of the most famous fraudsters in the history of slot cheating
Tommy Glenn Carmichael is a slot cheating legend. He is probably the most famous person in the field. Although a cheater, Tommy’s mechanical genius can’t be denied. He started his slot cheating career using a device called a ‘top-bottom joint’. The initial success encouraged him to close his shop and leave for Vegas. But soon he was caught and sentenced to prison.
Five years of jail time could not change Tommy. On getting out of the prison, he realized that slot machine technology had changed. He soon educated himself and came up with the famous monkey paw device mentioned earlier. As the slot machine technologies kept changing, Tommy kept coming up with newer devices to cheat them.
When slot machines started using the optical sensor technology, Tommy invented a light wand that could blind these sensors. He managed to overcome the slot machine safety device called the actuator arm with his ‘hanger’. According to records, he took 7 cruises within 6 months in 1995, winning huge amounts of money in casinos at these ships.
The following year Tommy was arrested, but the charges were dropped. Online casino with free signup bonus real money usa. He still did not mend his ways. He was arrested once again in 1998-99 and in 2001 he was sentenced to a year in prison, 3 years of probation and prohibition from entering casinos.
He is listed in the Nevada black book, which lists various casino fraudsters and the methods used by them. Slot cheats account for about 27% of the entries in this book.
Tricks To Beat Slot Machines
Tommy has finally changed sides and is now working with casinos to develop an anti-cheating technology to prevent people like him from cheating. He now aims to make a fortune by selling products that prevent cheating, as opposed to earlier days when he was known for his inventions that helped fraudsters to cheat at slot machines. He has also been featured in “Breaking Vegas’ series on the History Channel.
How To Beat A Slot Machine Electronically
Rather than cheating and ending up on the wrong side of the law, strategic gaming can help you win big legally. If you get rid of the misconception that gambling is all about luck, you will realize that strategies do play a role in winning at any casino games, including slot machines.