A great deal has been written about the honesty of land-based slot machines. An excellent article by Steve Bourie is titled, “Are Slot Machines Honest?” and originally appeared in the 1999 American Casino Guide. (It can be found online by searching for the title in Google or Yahoo!.) Physical, land-based slot machines have a great deal of “variations” (being polite) than can deceive the player. Of course, they are all illegal and don’t happen. But read the article, closely.

Conversely, online casino slots use an electronic “random number generator” or RNG, operating inside a very large computer program that manages the game graphics, the player accounts of those that join the game, the statistics of every hand played, and even more. The random number generator is hard-coded software instructions that do not change. There is absolutely no “sense switch” (see the Bourie article) that will be flipped to give players worse odds. Regarding control parameters, each usage of the RNG matches the very last use, and will be the exact same as the next use. The numbers will come out randomly, but the pattern of randomness never changes. This really is a true advantage of software-based online casino slots.

Land-based slot machines can also have payout percentages as little as 83%, which just isn’t true with online casino slots. In online gaming, each machine has the same winning percentage as the additional machines. You may see the payout percentages for many online gaming sites, and also you shall see which it rarely drops below 95% – that is, the house makes a 5% profit, on the regular. In fact, most casinos can document that their payout percentages will be in the 97% – 98% range. This means you may spend an hour, gamble your $100 stake about 3 times, as well as on an average it shall cost you $7.50. But players don’t gamble to be average: the true reward will be the high-paying win. As well as the well-paying win is balanced, bear in mind, by a range of players who lose and finance that win.

So are online casino slots fair? Yes, they clearly are. The software that operates the games is tested regularly by independent testing laboratories (look for logos at the bottom of the casino website), and no game is individually controllable to be biased. Which is a far cry from the matter with land-based slot machines, appropriately called “one-armed bandits”.

Players get better odds, they get absolute consistency across all games – but no one can guarantee a win every time. That’s just the nature of safe gambling (description here), and that is a part of the thrill.

So the next time you want to play a slot machine, even if there’s a land-based casino right next door, you are better advised to go to your computer and play the internet casino slots. They may be a far better bet.