I wrote a blogpost a few weeks ago saying that playing Ten Play has less variance than Five Play which has less variance than Triple Play which has less variance than single-line play, assuming you\u2019re playing the same total bet. A comment was posted, unanswered by others, which asked: \u201cWould this apply to all games of chance, including slots?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My answer is that slots generally do not have the same structure as the Triple Play family of games. And by the Triple Play structure, I mean all lines have the same starting position after the deal. I certainly haven\u2019t studied all varieties of slot machines, so maybe . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the accumulative type of slots that I play, every combination of denomination and number of coins bet is in a different position except immediately after the machine is installed or the machine is reset. In a hypothetical Yellow Bob machine, let\u2019s say they have a Mini meter, a Minor meter, and a Major meter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At any given point, the meters from bottom to top, might be 7-10-8 for 1\u00a2 100 coins; 12-19-9 for 1\u00a2 200 coins; and 15-10-12 for 1\u00a2 500 coins, etc. Each of these have a different EV. Playing the 100-coin version in this case would be a worse bet than the others simply because the meters are lower, not because you\u2019re betting fewer coins. Depending on how frequently the jackpots come about, and how much each spin is worth on average when it does hit, either the $2 or the $5 game could be the better play. It\u2019s possible that none of these have an EV exceeding 100%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s say the same machine also has games for 2\u00a2, 5\u00a2, and 10\u00a2 — each having three different \u201cnumber of coins.\u201d That\u2019s 12 separate games you have to check. Any of them might be the best play right now. Or, most often, none of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some manufacturers give you a higher return for higher denominations. That is, maybe the 1\u00a2 and 2\u00a2 games, in all three \u201cnumber of coins\u201d variations, have an overall return of 90% and the 5\u00a2 and 10\u00a2 versions have an overall return of 92%. You either have to have inside information on the RTPs (return to players), or capture a lot of data to know if this is true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This would seem to imply that the higher denominations are a better bet, but that\u2019s not necessarily the case. Assume \u201caverage\u201d meter readings, betting $5 at a 90% rate means you\u2019re losing 50\u00a2 per pull on average. Betting $50 at a 92% rate (still assuming average meter readings), means you\u2019re losing $4 per pull.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One older game, called Clover Link Xtreme, has games in the four denominations we\u2019ve discussed. You can have penny games with 500 coins (for a $5 bet), a nickel game with 100 coins bet (for the same $5 bet) and a dime game with 50 coins (again for the same $5 bet). These three separate games will all become positive at the same time. In this case, you want to be playing the dime game because hitting the Mini on the penny game is worth $10 while hitting the Mini on the dime game is worth $100. This is the only game I know that\u2019s like this, but, again, I certainly don\u2019t know all the games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On slots that don\u2019t accumulate, playing the higher denominations may have a better percentage return. So, if you\u2019re playing until you reach a specific goal, say 1,000 tier credits, you may lose less on average if you play it on higher denominations — if this is a machine where the larger denominations yield a higher percentage. This will be a higher EV, but also higher variance. The amount you bet each hand is a key part of the variance calculation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keep in mind, though, that these slots rarely return any percentage close to what you can get playing video poker. Even bad video poker games return more than most slot machines. If you have the knowledge to know which video poker machines to play, and know how to play them reasonably well, that\u2019s a much better bet than most slot machines. If you know how to identify advantage slots and can find them in a positive state, slots can certainly be more lucrative than video poker. But slot knowledge is hard to come by, and you\u2019ll have lots of competition. There is some information in Michael Shackleford\u2019s latest version of Gambling 102<\/em>, <\/strong>and a more comprehensive book about slots is in the works at Huntington Press. I don\u2019t know when it will be released.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I wrote a blogpost a few weeks ago saying that playing Ten Play has less variance than Five Play which has less variance than Triple Play which has less variance than single-line play, assuming you\u2019re playing the same total bet. A comment was posted, unanswered by others, which asked: \u201cWould this apply to all games […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15763,"featured_media":843442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[558,557],"tags":[561,585],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/spinach-2.png?fit=500%2C300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15763"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":867108,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867107\/revisions\/867108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}