Slot Strategy: Which Tips Actually Hold Up?

What Is a Slot Machine Strategy?

A slot strategy is a plan for how you approach a game, with the aim of getting the best possible results. However, both online slots and slot machines in physical casinos are games of chance. They run on an RNG (random number generator) that picks the result of a spin at random every time you press play. Want to know more about how that works? Our guide on whether slot machines are rigged explains it.

Unlike games with skill-based decisions, such as blackjack, slots give you no decisions that can overcome the house edge. This is why the best slot machine tips focus on how you manage your spending and which game you pick, instead of promising you guaranteed wins.

Slot Machine Tips That Actually Work

Instead of making you wait until the end of this article, we'll get straight into the tips that actually work. They'll help you keep the fun in gambling while you still play responsibly.

Set a budget before playing

Gambling sites offer lots of ways to make deposits as easy as possible, so it's up to you to keep your spending under control. This is why the first slot machine strategy is setting a budget before you start playing. When you set it, keep these things in mind:

• Only play with money you can afford to lose, so never use money that should go to bills, savings or other monthly costs.
• Never go into debt to gamble.

Expert's suggestion: If you're not sure how much you should spend, compare it to a fun night out. If you'd usually spend $20 to $50 on a regular night out, that could be the right budget for you to enjoy slots like Wanted Dead or a Wild or Gates of Olympus Super Scatter.

Understand the game's rules

Most new players create their casino account and claim the welcome offer right away. That offer often gives you free spins on certain slots so you can try them out. The second slot strategy you should use is doing some research on the game first. Before you wager real money, you should know:

• The paylines of the slot.
• What each symbol is worth, which you'll find in the paytable.
• The minimum and maximum bet.
• Special features, such as bonus rounds.

To find this information, press the "i" button, usually somewhere near the spin button, to open the game info. In the example below from Rich Wilde and the Tome of Madness, the info button is yellow and sits right next to the player's balance.

Expert's suggestion: Before you play with real money, try the demo version of the game here on Betaro. You'll find free demos of over 9,600 slots that let you try each game's mechanics firsthand.

Choose a stake that fits your budget

Another slot machine strategy that helps you make your sessions last as long as possible is choosing a stake that fits your budget. Say you have $20 for the night. A stake of $0.20 or $0.40 per spin gives you 100 or 50 spins if you don't win anything. At $1 per spin you'd get 20 spins, and your session could be over in less than 3 minutes.

More spins also means more chances at the rare big hits. On Gates of Olympus 2500, 1 in 96 of the real money bets we tracked over 30 days paid 100x the stake or more. Over 100 spins at $0.20, that works out to about a 65% chance of landing at least one of those hits. With 20 spins at $1, it drops to about 19%.

Keep in mind that these are odds, not promises. Every spin is still random, and a smaller stake also means a smaller payout when a big hit does land.

Set time limits

Slots have different ways to keep you engaged and playing, even after you've won money. So make sure you set a specific time when you want to stop playing. Having a set time to stop makes it a lot easier to stay in control of your gambling.

Expert's suggestion: Make this step easier by setting an alarm on a clock or your phone and leaving it in a different room, so you have to physically get up and walk away from the screen.

Keep track of your spending

This is one of the more optional slot tips we're sharing, and it's mainly a way to keep yourself in check. Keeping track of how much you spend at online casinos each month gives you a chance to budget for your sessions. And by tracking your deposits and withdrawals, you can see how much money you've spent compared to how much you've won.

How to Pick a Slot Machine

Picking the right slot can be as much a part of your slot machine strategy as the tips above. There are a few things that shape how a game pays, and you can check and compare them before you wager any money.

Check the RTP of a slot

The RTP, or return to player, describes the theoretical payout of a slot, calculated over a huge number of spins. Games with a higher RTP have a lower house edge and pay back more over time. However, the RTP alone doesn't guarantee a better result in a single session. Our guide on what RTP means in slots explains how it works, and our list of high RTP slots is a good place to start looking. Many slots also come in several RTP versions and the casino picks one, so check the game info at the casino you're actually using.

Consider volatility

On top of the RTP, you can also check the volatility of a game. Volatility describes how often a slot pays and how big those payouts tend to be.

• High volatility: fewer winning bets, but when you do win, it's more likely to be a big one.
• Low volatility: more frequent winning bets, but the wins are often on the smaller side.

You'll find this information in the game rules or on the game's page on the studio's website.

Expert's suggestion: If you're playing on a smaller budget, low volatility slots help you manage your bankroll and give you more chances of winning something. Keep in mind that those wins aren't guaranteed.

Check out the tracked data on Betaro

At Betaro, we want to give players real information about how slots pay. To do that, we track millions of real money bets every month across multiple online casinos. So if you're trying to find a slot that fits your playstyle, check whether it has a page on Betaro too. Some of the information we show for each slot:

• The share of bets that got the stake back or more.
• How often bets doubled the stake.
• How many bets returned 100x or 1,000x the stake or more.
• The share of bets that lost or paid back less than the stake.
• The top multiplier hit that month.

Below is what that looks like for Gates of Olympus 2500. Out of 1,549,716 real money bets over 30 days, 28% got the stake back or more. That means 72% paid back less than the stake, often nothing at all, which is a useful reality check before you decide on a stake.

Slot Machine Tips That Don't Work

Now that we've covered the tips that can help you get the most out of your sessions, it's time to debunk the slot tips that don't work. We've picked the most popular myths and explain why each one falls apart.

Increasing your bets after losses

This strategy is known as the Martingale strategy. It tells you to double your stake after every loss, so that one win recovers everything you lost. However, it doesn't work, because raising your stake doesn't change your chance of landing a winning spin. It can drain a bankroll quickly, especially for players on smaller budgets.

Here's what that looks like with real numbers. On Gates of Olympus 2500, 1 in 4.9 of the bets we tracked doubled the stake or more, so roughly 4 out of 5 didn't. Say you start at $0.20 with a $20 budget and double up after every spin that doesn't double your stake. After six misses in a row you've spent $12.60, and the next bet of $12.80 is more than you have left. Based on our data, six misses in a row happens in about 1 in 4 runs. And when the system does work, a 2x win only puts you $0.20 up, no matter how long the losing streak was.

Waiting for a machine to pay out

If you're on a long losing streak, the best idea is often to just leave the slot alone. A long losing streak doesn't mean a slot is due a big win in one of the next spins. The RNG running in the background decides the result of every spin at random, and it doesn't take previous bets into account.

Looking for hot and cold slots doesn't work either. Recent payouts, or the lack of them, don't predict future results. A game that just paid out isn't less likely to pay again, and a game that hasn't paid in a while isn't more likely to. That's also why our hot slots list shows which games are getting the most play right now, not which ones are about to pay.

Expert's suggestion: Choose a game you enjoy playing, with a theme you like and bonus features that make the experience more fun.

Using timing tricks

Another popular slot strategy is playing at certain times of the day, or using a certain spin speed to influence the outcome. Neither works. Turbo mode or stopping the reels early only changes how fast you see the result, not what the result is. The only things that shape a game's payouts are its RTP, its volatility and the RNG.

Expert's Verdict: Is There a Slot Machine Strategy That Actually Works?

No, there is no strategy that will turn your sessions on online slots into guaranteed profit. The games are based on luck and run on programs that keep every result random. So if you want to play for as long as possible, use the slot tips that help you manage your bankroll and the way you play. Healthy boundaries and limits make sure you're having fun, while you still have a chance of winning money.

Keep in mind that gambling is a form of entertainment, and it should stay that way. If you feel like you're losing control over your gambling, or you don't enjoy playing anymore but can't stop, reach out to professionals for help. Our responsible gambling page lists where you can find support.