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GameMasters Secret's Page
The GameMaster's Secrets
Beatable Slots

I just finished reading an interesting book called "Advantageous Slot Machines" by Charles Lund which I bought for $11.95 from Conjelco (www.conjelco.com). In it, Mr. Lund describes quite a few slot machines that have a 'banking' feature built into them which can be exploited by knowledgeable players.

The microprocessor (computer chip) has changed slot machines from vacuum cleaners to sophisticated vacuum cleaners by enabling them to offer 'bonuses' for lengthy play. The 'grand daddy' of these machines was the one called 'Piggy Banking' where the credits which had been wagered on a spin were placed into a 'piggy bank' whenever the reels on the machine hit a no-pay zone. Initially seeded with 10 credits, they would build until a 'break the bank' symbol appeared on the pay line of the far right reel and at that time all the credits in the bank would be paid out to the player. If a player, who had accumulated a number of credits, ran out of time or money and left the machine, the credits remained in the bank. A knowledgeable player could then sit down at the machine and, if there were enough credits in the bank, make a profit by playing 1 coin at a time until the break the bank symbol appeared. The idea here is that it will take fewer 1-coin plays than credits in the bank to break it, so a profit is realized.

That 'banking' of credits undoubtedly motivates slot players to stay longer at the machine and spend more money in the hope of collecting the bonus and that's a losing proposition, I assure you. But, if someone else has made the investment to build up the bank, the slot may be advantageous to play. And that's what Mr. Lund details in his book: just which machines are beatable and at what level the bank has to be to make a profit. Some machines collect symbols like daggers or diamonds, but it basically all boils down to playing only when it will require a smaller investment in tokens than will be collected when the bonus hits. Mr. Lund makes specific recommendations for when to play each type of machine, but he seems to have gathered his data on an empirical basis (trial and error), rather than on information from the various machine manufacturers, so some of this may have changed by now. Gamblers seem to forget that casino personnel and game makers also read these books and visit sites like this, so I'm not so sure that what he writes should be treated as gospel.

But, I did take his advice and played a "Wild Cherry Pie" machine recently when its bank was at what Lund described as an 'advantageous' level and it worked! I didn't win a lot of money, but it bought lunch. The problem to all this is that none of these bonuses are much over $30-40 in a dollar game, so it's no way to get rich. But, my first play paid for the book and now I know how to approach the 20 or so 'bank' slots which are out there. If the bank is high enough, I'll go for it.

See you here next time.

  

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