Can I Be Barred or Refused a Win for Playing Advantage Slots?

I'm coming to Vegas in December for my yearly trip. I have read and applied the slot methods, from Gambling 102, in my local casinos here in Alberta. They work. It will be my first time applying them in Vegas. How much static/monitoring will I get doing this? Most of my play will be NSUD, but I will check the slot machines also. Can I be barred or refused a win?

[Editor's Note: We've been getting more questions about advantage slots of late, so it's a very good thing that we have a new expert, Ben Rosenthal, who's happy to answer them. Ben is the author of our upcoming book tentatively titled Breaking the Slot Code -- Beat the Machines through Advantage Play.]

I've never heard of a casino refusing a win on a slot machine because someone is suspected of being an advantage player. That's not to say it hasn't happened (and I have heard of casinos going so far as to confiscate chips from card counters, though that's rare these days and is almost certain to lead to a legal battle), but it doesn't come anywhere near my experience. And if you're mostly playing video poker and checking an occasional advantage machine, you'll essentially look like most other players on the slot floor.

How much monitoring you might attract depends on a few factors, some of which are beyond your control. Certain casinos may have instructed their staff to look out for advantage players. Or if you're gambling at 4 a.m. versus 9 p.m., for instance, you might attract more attention because you're one of the few people in the casino. Or if you're clearly stalking a machine or set of machines, waiting for someone to leave a favorable setup behind, that could raise a red flag or two. That said, try not to overthink it. As I write in my book, it's impossible to fully hide from the eye in the sky and if a casino wants to kick you out for this, it can and will.

I felt myself being watched at a few casinos on my last trip to Vegas and it was most unnerving at The Venetian. Because of that, I slammed on the brakes whenever I was near security or slot attendants and stopped my little finger dance on the machines until it felt safer. If you feel like you're being watched, you probably are. Take a few minutes to fiddle around on your phone.

That said, you'll have no issues the vast majority of the time. You're most likely to run into potential hurdles at bigger casinos like those under the MGM and Caesars umbrellas. In fact, both giants are actively trying to combat APs by cutting slot offers. For that reason, I suggest being judicious about using your players card for smaller plays, regardless of the casino.

So I'd say in your case, it's almost outside the realm of possibility to be refused a win. It's possible, though highly unlikely, for you to get banned. I've been banned from three establishments, but that was over thousands of hours of advantage slots. It would be mighty unlucky for this to happen to you during a relatively short trip to Vegas.

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O2bnVegas Oct-27-2024

please explain

For the life of me I cannot understand the term "advantage slots."  I've read Bob Dancer's take on watching the 'bonus' amounts for supposed nearness to hitting one of the bigger ones.  Isn't that why people play slots at all, to hopefully hit a big one?  Next someone will be writing about evicting a player for having a lucky charm perched on their machine. I have probably hit at least 40 Royal Flushes (I stopped keeping count at 30, which I read has nothing to do with advantage play, and I've done pretty well at blackjack before ever reading about AP. I wouldn't enjoy the games if I worried about any of that.  Sorry.  I'm grinchy today.

Candy

Bob Nelson Oct-27-2024

Explanation

The bonuses on advantage slots are roughly equivalent to progressive jackpots on VP machines.  At some point the jackpot can grow high enough so there is a positive expectation in playing the game.  The real trick is figuring out where the bonus turns a slot positive.  With VP it can be calculated in a straightforward math problem, with slots it has to be guessed by observation unless you have inside information from the manufacturer.

Ben Rosenthal Oct-27-2024

O2bnVegas (please explain)

It's tough to explain it all here (that's what the book does!). The short answer is that many of the newer machines eventually get to a point where they become profitable to the player. Now, that "advantage" can come in many different forms; it rarely, if ever, involves looking at a machine's jackpot. You don't need to know any inside information from the manufacturer, though that would always be nice! You don't need to be a math prodigy to understand this stuff, either. It's usually simple things like bubble placement in Ocean Magic, the number of "ways" in Hexbreaker, the number and placement of coins in Golden Egypt, etc. There are hundreds of advantage games out there. So the term "advantage slots," at least to me, means a slot machine that can become profitable at a certain point. If a slot can never be profitable long term and it's all luck, it's not an advantage slot. It's not "[hoping to] hit a big one"; it's more like many small/medium wins over a large sample.

Marla Corey Oct-27-2024

The Eye in the Sky

Ben, not sure why you are concerned about the human watchers when the cameras see everyone and everything.

Ben Rosenthal Oct-27-2024

The Eye in the Sky

Oh, I'm concerned about both!

Sandra Ritter Oct-27-2024

I wish

I won enough to have them watch my play :)

Jon Anderson Oct-27-2024

advantage players

i believe anthony c. himself has mentioned more than once he has lost a pile of money on machines that were deemed ready to pop... if it's your time then it's your time...still a shot in the dark but you just don't know how long the darkness will last...same with card counting...they can lose a pile of money when the deck is right just cuz...an edge is only an edge when you get the payoff...otherwise you're just like the poor regular folks who add to the kitty pull after pull...card after card...
that's gambling baby !!!!
fin

Ben Rosenthal Oct-28-2024

advantage players

For sure. You can lose on advantage machines just like you can win on non-advantage machines. The bigger the sample, the more pronounced the advantage becomes until it gets to a point where you mathematically cannot lose if you're playing things correctly. But over a small sample (even hundreds of spins), you 100 percent can and will lose on some advantage machines.

Crazy Oct-28-2024

🚩 at Venetian

I heard that the Cosmo was actively kicking out slot AP’s, and that the guy in charge of doing that moved to Venetian/Palazzo, and is doing the same thing there.
That would explain why Venetian
Is now promoting a tier matching program- They are kicking out real APs who can take advantage of that.
That would also explain why Ben is getting heat at Venetian.

Ben Rosenthal Oct-28-2024

🚩 at Venetian

Good to know, and funny you mention Cosmo because I previously ran into some problems there.

Hi Ho Silver Nov-01-2024

Once in a lifetime

Don't those top-level jackpots count for a good chunk of the overall return? After a long while, sure, you'll be ahead of the game, but if you don't ever get that jackpot, I'd think you'd still be in the minus. I'd think you wouldn't want to go it alone for that reason.

Ben Rosenthal Nov-04-2024

Once in a lifetime

They do not. I hit a "top" jackpot on a machine one time, but that's over what must be millions of spins lifetime. And it wasn't for $500,000 or anything life-changing like that. Other than some must-hits such as River Dragons and ones like that, which are so rarely left in an advantage state, I can't think of many machines where the goal is to chase whatever big jackpot is showing on the screen. A lot of small and medium-sized wins add up, and every so often I'll have a nice $3,000 or so hit. If I were to hit something enormous for six figures, it would more than likely be because of dumb luck rather than any planning on my part.

Question of the Day - 27 October 2024

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