Playing slots online or in person can be a lot of fun, but it’s more fun to win than it is to lose. Because of this simple fact, it’s important that you develop strategies for improving your odds at this game. There are strategies that you can use to maximize your chances of winning big, but it will take some preparation and planning on your part to get it done. If you follow the tips and tricks we’re going to lay out here, then you’ll increase your chances of winning and decrease the casino’s advantage against you.

Game Selection and Knowing the Odds

It’s not uncommon for a single casino to offer more than 100 different slots to play. With such a wide selection of games available, a player who wants to increase their chances to win will choose his or her game based on the average payout percentages. If you’re playing in a live casino, you’ll need to do research to find the payout percentages of the different slots available. However, it’s fairly easy to find the payout percentages for slots offered in online casinos since most licensing bodies require online casinos to post these percentages on their websites. If you can’t find these figures, feel free to message the support staff of the online casino you play at. By targeting the games that have a higher payout percentage, you start off on the right foot before you place your first wager.

Multi-Coin Games and Payout Table Analysis

For slots that support the use of multiple coins, you’ll have to take a careful look at the payout tables to see which number of coins is optimal. This is necessary because the payout tables do not always scale according to the number of coins you’re playing with. For example, there is a popular video slot that awards a 500x payout for a certain prize with one coin, a 1000x payout for the same prize with two coins, but a 2000x payout for that prize if you’re playing with three coins. This means that playing with three coins is going to give the player more of an advantage in this particular game.

Progressive Jackpots Matter

In a perfect world, you would have a few slots in mind that you like to play that all use a progressive jackpot and have good payout percentages. The reason for this is that the size of a progressive jackpot changes your edge in the game, and if it gets large enough, the players can actually have a clear advantage over the casino. Therefore, if you have multiple games to choose from, you can go with the one that has the highest progressive jackpot relative to the amount of money it takes to play the game. The only thing you have to watch out for with this approach is that you actually qualify for the progressive jackpot. Some slots require that you bet a certain number of coins or activate a certain number of paylines before you are eligible to win the jackpot.

The Effect of Bonuses on Your Edge

Whenever possible, you should be clearing the play-through requirements on a bonus while you play the slots in an online casino. Even though most bonuses these days have strict play-through requirements that take a while to clear, clearing a bonus still has an effect on your mathematical advantage or disadvantage against the casino. For example, suppose you have a 100 USD bonus with a 40x play-through requirement. After you have wagered the 4000 USD necessary to receive your 100 USD bonus, the net effect is that you subtracted a percentage equal to 100/4000 from the house edge. That is, you removed 2.5 percent of the house’s advantage by playing the bonus. If you spent this time playing slots that had a starting payout percentage of over 97.50 percent, then you actually held the mathematical advantage during your play.

Practicing for Skill-Based Bonus Games

Something that’s becoming a popular feature in new video slots is the existence of skill-based bonus games that can help you to win extra prizes or free spins. Instead of relying on pure luck, these bonus games offer a special interactive aspect to a player’s gaming experience. Fortunately for you, it’s possible to increase your skill level at some of these games, which effectively decreases the house edge. Because most of these special bonus games are obscure, your best bet when it comes to developing strategies to beat them is to play the free version of the slots until the bonus game comes up to give you a chance to practice. This can take some time and effort, and it’s definitely not for everyone, but it basically comes down to how seriously you want to take your preparation for these games. If you’re dedicated and really want to win, then you’ll be willing to put in the time necessary.