More About Slots

The Competition

Obviously, the more competition a casino has for business, the looser their machines are going to be. The slot manager isn’t going to order a bunch of low payback machines if there are five other casinos within a short driving distance. Players will notice and won’t come back. Naturally, this means that places like Vegas, Reno, and other high-concentration gambling areas will generally have better-paying slots, whereas remote, out-of-the-way Podunk casinos will have machines that pay out much less - within reason, of course. If the slot machines are too tight, players just won’t bother to show up.

Penny Machines: Paying for the Entertainment

Slot machines cost money, whether it’s the cost of renting them, the electricity required to run them, or the cost of maintaining them. And of course the
casinos would like to make a small profit from them. It goes without saying that a customer has to push a lot of pennies into a slot machine for a casino to make any money from it. As the denominations go up - nickels, quarters, dollars, five dollars, and more - the payback percentage can be higher for the customer because the casino doesn’t need to keep as much to be profitable. As one slot manager told me, “If you’re going to play penny machines, you’re going to pay for the entertainment.”
Also, when a casino orders their machines, they’ll order the same payback percentage for each of their denominations. So if a slot manager wants a nickel machine to pay back 92.5 percent, all nickel machines will be 92.5 percent. It’s a rare casino that mixes the same denominations with different paybacks.