VIDEO SLOT BASICS Slot machines have their roots in three-reel mechanical games, but the large majority of slots in modern brick-and-mortar casinos are played on video screens. Online, of course, all games are on video. Like slots with mechanical reels, video slots and online slots are easy to play. Play new slot machines most often, the welcome package covers several deposits with free credits for placing bets. There is no skill involved and no secret system to be determined that will effect a guaranteed outcome, take in the live entertainment in the Treasure Chests Caribbean Showroom. You can play slot machines online for free on your desktop computer and a range of mobile devices. We provide slots for fun– We allow you to play online slots for fun with all the same features of real money. Born of a San Francisco mechanic’s tinkering in the late 1800s, slot machines have gone through a multitude of phases and incarnations. Among slot machines’ phases are: They’ve been used as business builders on shopkeepers’ counters, sometimes dispensing sticks of chewing gum or golf balls instead of cash.

• Simple Slot Machine Game
• How To Play On A Slot Machine

Slot game is very easy to master if the player is familiar with all the options of slot machines and knows which buttons are used to choose the betting amount, the paylines, make bets or activate the slots reels. No matter what type of the game you play and how much you are going to spend during the play (your bankroll) the procedure of a slot game is always the same. If you visit a real casino and are not sure about the game rules or payouts, feel free to ask the casino employee how to play slots. However, if you play slots online, you can learn the complete rules of slot machines at SlotsDoc.com.

Slots Rules

Before starting to play and risking money you must decide on your bankroll which is the amount of gambling dollars you are ready and can afford to wager or lose on playing the slot games. The second and very important step is to select the “appropriate” slot machine with a high payback percentage and a coin denomination that suits your overall bankroll. This is crucial if you don’t want to lose all you have in a moment and wish to “stretch” your cash. Today casinos offer many themed slots of different types and that is why you can select a game that is really pleasant to play, with great images, animation and sounds. After you decide on a slot machine, then it is time to play. These are the basic rules of playing real casino slot machines (installed in land gambling halls) and online slots:

Casino Slots

1. Buy special slot coins, chips, tickets or use slots club card.
2. Choose an “appropriate” slot machine.
3. Insert a coin into the slot machine coin receiver.
4. Choose the coin denomination by pushing special +/- Coin buttons if you are playing a multi-denomination slot machine.
5. Select the number of coins you wish to play. Use Bet the One Credit or Bet Max Credits buttons.
6. When you play multi-reel video slots select the number of paylines to bet on.
7. Pull the lever or push the Spin Reels button to set the reels spinning.
8. After the reels stop Cash Out to get the winning.

Online Slots

1. Download the casino software.
2. Sign up to create a casino account.
3. Make a real money deposit.
4. Select the online slot game you wish to play.
5. Choose the coin denomination by clicking on the special +/- buttons.
6. Select the number of paylines by activating special Payline indicators or clicking the Lines +/- buttons.
7. Choose the number of coins if possible.
8. Click Spin or Bet Max to activate slot games.
9. After the reels stop spinning check the Paytable.
10. The winnings are automatically added to your money balance.

NB: The names of the buttons and options found on the slot machine can vary. You can learn about the most common buttons, options and features in detail by visiting our slot machine basics page.

Slot Machine Technology

The main feature of slot games which distinguishes slots from other casino games is, of course, the spinning reels. The reels on slot machines stop on their own or by a player pushing the Stop button (this is the so-called skill stop option), the period of spins and the time of stop are influenced by the RNG which generates random numbers determining the game results. When the reels stop, the symbols on the lines player bet on are compared to the winning payline patterns in the game paytable. If there is a match then the win is calculated and paid out. The amount of the win is the value of a bet per line multiplied by the winning amount in the paytable.

Modern slot machines and online slots use a different number of symbols on the reels. This influences the number of possible combinations that can occur during the game and thus affects the slots odds. Here are several examples of 3-reel and 5-reel slots with different number of symbols on the reels. You can see how the number of possible combinations in the game depends on the number of symbols on each reel.

However, modern technologies have allowed to increase the player odds by offering a great variety of bonuses, special substitute symbols and paylines which substantially influence the game results. Today a player can try 3-reel classic slots with up to 5 paylines and 5-reel video slots with the number of paylines from 1 to 100! Casino comps can be also counted as a great benefit and an additional chance to save up money for playing and to decrease losses.

Slot machines usually offer different coin denominations from $.01 to $100.00. These are multi-denomination slot machines which allow the player to choose the coin denomination they want to play rather than always bet the set amount. Multi-denomination slots have an extra +/- button which when pushed allows the player to increase or decrease the coin denomination. These machi¬nes automatically calculate the number of credits to pay out in exchange for cash. Large slot machines which offer bets of $5, $10 or more on one line are often for high-rollers and are usually placed in special casino areas.

Slots Paylines

Slots payline can be defined as a line (straight or zigzagged) that crosses one symbol on each reel and is what the players bet on; or a combination of symbols on the slot machine reels for getting which the player is paid out if he has made a bet on that combination. Paylines are usually depicted as standard patterns in the paytable. Let’s consider an example of the payline patterns on the free slot machine game available at SlotsDoc.com. This is a 5-reel video slot game with 25 paylines which means that the player can bet on 1 to 25 paylines and get paid out for any of the 1-25 combinations that occur on the reels.

NB: For any combination to win, the reels MUST have at least two identical symbols one after another, and the first one MUST occur on the first reel. Otherwise the combination doesn’t pay out.

For a better understanding of the slots paylines let’s consider the examples of winning combinations on the reels and the payline patterns from the paytable they correspond to.

Payline Patterns

There are 25 standard paylines used in most 5-reel slot games. As you see, slot paylines can be lines of different directions: straight, zigzagged, diagonal, vertical or horizontal. To be easily distinguished each payline is marked with a definite color.

The examples below show what the paylines look like on the reels. Moreover, all the combinations you see on the slot game reels are winning ones as they contain sequences of at least 2 matching symbols starting from the first reel.

If you want to try playing online slot games with different number of reels and paylines we suggest you use our slots catalog. Choose the slot games by type, software or theme and play online for free or real money.

Introduction to How to Play Slot Machines

Do you remember the first time you entered a casino as a beginner slots player? I know I do. What I remember most is being extremely confused. It was so dark, yet with so many lights. And the smoke everywhere! Perhaps you remember something similar?

My intent is to be genuinely helpful to slots players. While I think I still have a long way yet to go before I’ve shared everything that’s needed, I also believe I have been somewhat of service so far.

But perhaps you are only just beginning your slots journey. What have I done for you to ease your way into becoming a healthy, happy slots enthusiast? So, this article is for you, the beginner slots player, to, well, help.

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Entering a Casino for the First Time

My first experience at slot machine gambling was in 2003 at a small tribal casino (Kewadin Casino in Manistique, Michigan) in the upper peninsula. I was taking a long drive back to graduate school in Iowa after visiting family in the lower peninsula and had found a hotel at which to spend the night.

A casino was located just down the highway from that hotel. I wasn’t aware of the casino being there until the hotel provided $20 worth of tokens to play at it.

I remember feeling a little nervous about entering a casino for the first time in my life. I mean, what would my family of non-gamblers think? But I gathered up my courage and went on in.

I found it to be a highly distracting place: loud, lots of flashing lights, and smoke. This was a time when smoking was more fashionable than it is today, so there was a great deal of cigarette and cigar smoke in the air. This is still true today in some states, such as Nevada, although ventilation has gotten a whole lot better.

I distinctly remember rapidly spending the $20 worth of tokens on slots. Plus, another $50 besides which I could ill afford to lose. At the time I was a poor graduate student on a research stipend working a side job as a temporary instructor of college physics. I’d just spent my food money for the trip home.

Did I win anything that first time at a casino? No, I don’t think so. Why don’t I know if I had won or not? Frankly, how would I have known if I had? If I did, it wasn’t enough to grab my attention.

Maybe a few numbers changed on the player’s console, and the slot machine made an unusual sound. So? What of it? From my perspective, it was doing that every time I made a bet anyway.

I left the casino after having spent $50 I could barely afford to lose. As I continued home on that long road trip, I started thinking about gambling with slot machines. Since then, I’ve more-or-less never really stopped doing so.

After a few months of dwelling on that first experience, I happened to be visiting the Omaha Zoo just over the western border of Iowa in Nebraska. There, I saw a casino (Lakeside Casino in Osceola, Iowa) on the river. Hint: it was a riverboat casino.

With those months of thinking figuratively behind me, I’d concluded from my first visit that I needed a rule for how much I should allow myself to spend whenever, or if ever, I entered another casino.

The careful rule I came up with was this: “Take a fixed amount into the casino, say $25, and spend only that plus whatever you make from it.”

With this simple rule and $25 in hand, I entered this second casino at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon on a Saturday … and left almost 12 hours later at 1 a.m. Yes, that’s right, 12 hours. Why? Because I’d carefully followed my rule.

My error was that I hadn’t been prepared for success. This has continued to plague me, by the way. The error which my simple rule didn’t account for was this: Almost immediately after entering this second casino, I won $500 on a 25-cent slot machine.

Doing so left me feeling quite emotional, which inclined me to try to stick firmly to the rule – which I proceeded to do. As the afternoon and evening passed into the early morning, I continued to win additional small, nontaxable jackpots.

Eventually, I spent my $25 along with what I’d won with it. And so, this was my second experience at a casino. I’d gone from slots gambling for 10 minutes to a marathon 12-hour session.

I did try to find a hotel that morning, instead of driving home at such a late hour (and coming as close as I’ve ever gotten to hitting a deer on the highway), but the nearby hotel wouldn’t accept a credit card – only cash.

The hotel staff insinuated that people would provide a credit card to the hotel upon arrival, but afterward max out their credit limit at the casino. At check-out, they wouldn’t be able to pay their hotel bill the following morning. That shocked me.

My point here isn’t about my not being able to get a hotel room, but that this was my first real clue that gambling was … complicated. It consisted of more than just the act of making a bet by pushing a button.

It exists in a unique environment where loud sounds, flashing lights, second-hand smoke, and even gambling abuses can occur. How fascinating!

My Initial Gambling Rules

After these first two casino gambling experiences, I spent more and more time thinking about them without much progress in learning how to win. I wasn’t yet thinking about how to win, however. Rather, I was mostly thinking about the potential dangers of what I was getting myself into.

Eventually, I made a decision to keep trying to figure out this whole slots gambling thing. I wasn’t expecting to win any significant amount of money, not ever. But I was hoping not to lose a significant amount of money.

At the time, for me, my primary motivation was wanting to develop better control over my emotions while gambling at a casino. When there, I was feeling overwhelmed by my strong emotions. I didn’t like feeling ruled, at times almost controlled, by my emotions.

If my reaction to these strong emotions was a personal weakness, I knew I wouldn’t just find myself exposing this behavior at a casino. I could potentially be surprised by it at any other time. For example, while living my life or when working professionally. I felt I needed to understand and, if I could, address it.

So, with this reasoning in mind for proceeding with gaining additional slot machine gambling experiences, I took a long look around where I lived for any nearby casinos within driving distance. As it happened, there was a nice casino relatively nearby.

This local casino (Prairie Meadows in Altoona, Iowa) had table games, floors of slot machines, a high limit slot room, and horse racing. And, oh, the splendor of the buffet!

To all my senses, it was simply delightful. So, with that limited assessment of a gambling establishment, about every month or more I’d take about $25 from my monthly stipend to go there with the full expectation of gambling it all away on slot machines.

But would I…? For what happened next, see The World’s Oldest Winning Slots Strategy is Still in Play!!

But that’s just my story. Instead, let’s talk about your story.

The Changing State of Gambling, in Brief

Legal large-scale gambling in the U.S. started in Nevada in 1931. There was Las Vegas, of course, but also Reno, Lake Tahoe, and others. It basically stayed there until legalized in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1978.

Legalized gambling in Atlantic City provided casinos convenient to gamblers on the east coast. And this balance of gambling between Nevada and Atlantic City continued until around the end of the 1980s. At that point, everything started changing more and more rapidly.

Basically, in 1988 tribal casinos became permitted by federal law. Although, tribes did need to negotiate state-tribal compacts with the state their reservations were located within. These negotiations typically took years.

Another substantial change happened in the early 1990s when riverboat casinos became legal in several midwestern states. Originally, state law required these casinos to travel on water, or at least unmoor from a dock, before any gambling could occur.

In the mid-90s, online gambling started up outside of the U.S. This got out of control fast, until various legal restrictions began protecting players. For a while, this protection was to block online gambling in the continental U.S.

By doing so, the U.S. Senate was not just protecting players, but also land-based casinos hurt by online gambling from outside the U.S. Not long after, Canada did much the same. Besides tribal gaming, this was the limit of federal laws restricting gambling in the U.S. until the banning and recent un-banning of sports betting at the federal level.

What all this means is simple. Gambling has become prevalent in the U.S., especially the most popular type of gambling there is: slot machine casino gambling.

There is another side of the coin, as it were, to all this growth and expansion of gambling. All through these changes to the gaming industry in the U.S. and abroad, the technology of gambling was also growing and expanding.

For example, as you might imagine, the impact of microchips and the internet was profound to slots. For a succinct article capturing these near-constant technological developments of slots machines, see The Ultimate Guide to Slot Machine History.

My point of view is that slot machine casino gambling has changed a lot in the last few decades. Further, I believe that these changes will keep on happening. Knowing what has happened in the past will help us understand the future.

Some of the biggest changes occurring right now are related to slot machines no longer being fully random. Frankly, there are degrees of randomness. In the past, most casinos controlled the odds of winning on a slot machine by having slots mechanics physically adjust the odds on a regular schedule perhaps 2 weeks long.

Nowadays, at casinos built or heavily renovated since 2012, this is automated. Doing so both reduced the casino labor force and provided a near real-time understanding of the performance of the casino for its operator.

And therein lies the secret to winning at slot machine casino gambling. But all that is a bit much for the beginner slots player. What you need to know is, the randomness of slot machines isn’t always fully random. There are patterns to this randomness and, if you know to look for them, you can find them.

Beginning Your Slots Journey

Maybe you’ve yet to visit a casino. Maybe you have visited a casino and wondered what the heck just happened. You might even have gone many times but want to restart your slots journey for one of several reasons.

If you’re just started on your slots journey, you may not know how much playing slots has changed so much in the last few years. That’s fine, as more than a few regular slots players haven’t kept up with all the changes of late. Or, rather, what the changes mean.

So, let us begin your journey together. Your first step? Well, it’s probably not visiting a casino. Your first step is to search for info online. Maybe that’s how you found me!

Most people have several casinos near them. In Iowa, for instance, every resident has at least one casino within an hour drive.

What about you? How many casinos are near you? Well, I shouldn’t explain how to use Google, but here’s a hint: Type “casinos near me” in Google. Doing so will show a map with all the casinos in your area. Cool, huh?

Or use my Online Resource for U.S. Casino Slots Enthusiasts with links to my state-by-state slots review articles including lists of state’s casinos as well as their websites … and a map!

What you want to do is visit the websites of casinos near you. See what they have to offer that you might like. Don’t focused entirely on gambling. For instance, you’ll probably want a nice meal occasionally, right? So look at what nearby casinos have to offer which might interest you.

That’s about all the preparation you’ll need to start, other than The Golden Rule of Slots.

The Golden Rule

There is a danger to gambling for the first time. I’m not a medical professional, so I cannot explain this danger as well as I would like. But this is the danger: You don’t know how you will involuntarily react to gambling until you do it the first time.

It’s kind of like that first alcoholic drink. With it, some people immediately realize they are an alcoholic. It can ruin lives and doing something about it successfully will be a life-long endeavor.

I don’t mean to scare you. Not at all. Many people find recreational gambling to be quite entertaining. But others find out they are compulsive gamblers. This can be hard on everyone. So, I have a few things to share about it.

First, please understand that casino’s reprimand employees, or fire them, if they tell a patron they are spending too much money and should go home. That’s just the sad truth. On the other hand, advertisements all over casinos explain how to get help.

Second, I don’t encourage non-gamblers to gamble. I assume anyone who finds me is deliberately looking for information on slots gambling. But, if you decide you want to gamble, then I take it as my responsibility to explain how to do it.

Third, there truly is a Golden Rule. Here it is: Don’t spend any money at a casino which you cannot afford to comfortably lose. That means you’re spending disposable income, which is money left over after paying all your bills along with an additional amount put into your savings account of choice.

Journey into the Unknown … Together

I suppose we should also discuss how a slot machine operates. Most newcomers sit down at a slot machine, put some money in, and start pushing some buttons. But what do the buttons do?

There are several physical components to slot machines, including various interfaces with the player. I’ve already written an article about the common elements of a slot machine called How Slot Machines Work from a Player’s Perspective.

That article, or at least the schematic of a slot machine found in it, should go a long way toward taking the mystery out of how all the buttons, panels, and interfaces work on a slot machine.

Another thing you’ll want to do is get a player’s club card from the casino. At its simplest, this is like your grocery card. In exchange for your contact information, you can earn points by spending money on gambling. They’ll also make some interesting offers.

You’ll get free stuff from the casino, most likely starting when you sign up. Sometimes, in the long term, it’s often the only way gamblers make a profit. Here’s another article with my explanation about these casino rewards clubs called Seven Advantages of Players Clubs for Playing Slots.

So, let’s recap what I’ve pulled together for you to start at slots:

Simple Slot Machine Game

1. Go to the websites of casinos near you to understand their differences relative to your wants and needs.
2. Check to make sure you have some amount of disposable income if you want to play slots.
3. Visit your casino of choice and get a player’s club card at the front counter or kiosk.
4. Pick a slot machine, make a bet, and see what happens next.

So, what does happen next? One example would be what happened to me, as explained. Or something similar. If I had one wish for you, it would be this. I hope you don’t win.

That’s probably shocking, but it really is for the best. If you win big at your first visit to a casino, it sets an unrealistic expectation you might take years to recover from … if ever. I hope you win big on your second visit to a casino. That’s what happened to me.

How To Play On A Slot Machine

Once you’ve visited the casino a few times, maybe you’ll want to know more about why casinos are the way they are. If so, I have plenty of articles about them. But, that may be too soon. When you’re ready, they (and I) will be waiting here for you.

I hope you have a great time at the casino playing slots. As I’m always saying: Have fun, be safe, and make good choices.

Summary of Learn How to Play Slot Machines

Too often a beginner slots player gets lost. So much happens at once in a casino! Lights! Sounds! Smoke! There really is a lot going on for beginners. And, unfortunately, a casino doesn’t help. After all, it isn’t in their best interest to help.

Savvy slots enthusiasts understand what they are doing. We are all self-taught. Well, it’s time to fix stop leaving all that learning up to chance. With this primer, a beginner slots player no longer starts from scratch.

When you’re ready for more information on playing and winning at slots, it’ll be here for you. Best of luck and let me know if you have any questions!

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Have fun, be safe, and make good choices!
By Jon H. Friedl, Jr. Ph.D., President
Jon Friedl, LLC