$5 Slot Machine Strategy

You can find me spinning on penny slots or going all the way up to high limit slots at $100 per spin! 🕵 Show your support and JOIN the SPIES on PATREON! Slot Machine Strategies That Actually Work. Slot machines account for 70% of all gaming revenue. That means there are a lot of people coming home with empty pockets after visiting the casinos. Slot machines are no longer used to keep the women occupied while the men bet the “real” money on table games. Slot machines now bring in the “real.

When playing slots, there are no decisions to make after the reels start spinning. Without these human elements to worry about, the rules of slots are simple enough on the surface — put some money in the machine, press the “SPIN” button, and wait to see what happens.

In reality, though, you’ll notice that the modern slots you can play have evolved from the old 3-reel “spin and stare” dynamic.

Today’s slots use advanced video technology to shower players with an endless stream of graphics, animations, and sound effects. These modern slots have been designed to offer side-screen bonus games, free spins, scatter pays, wild symbols, and even skill-based elements like target shooting, memorization, and trivia.

When you throw in payline counts that can run from one to 100, a new payout format that ups your “ways to win” to 243 or 1,024, and topline progressive jackpots that require a precise wager amount to be triggered, it turns out slot players have a lot on their plate.

With so many rules to factor in, successful players try to apply certain slot strategies to give themselves a fighting chance against the house.

The idea of slot strategy might sound like a misnomer, but only when you don’t have a good grasp on the game’s nuances.

To help you navigate the maze of rules and strategies needed to thrive as a modern slot enthusiast, check out the list below for a bunch of slots strategies that most players don’t know much about.

1 – Betting the Maximum Number of Coins Is Always the Best Approach

Take a look down below at the Wheel of Fortune slot machine from IGT and pay close attention to the placard below the wheel and jackpot amount display.

As you can see, this version of the wildly popular Wheel of Fortune game distinguishes between “1^st Coin Winners” and “2^nd Coin Winners.”

On the left, as you’re reading the paytable, notice how the 1^st Coin Winner table offers a top payout of $10,000 if you land three Wheel of Fortune logo symbols. That’s a pretty sweet return on a $5 per spin bet, which is this particular machine’s coin denomination.

But over to the right, those 2^nd Coin Winners score much more than 10 dimes — they trigger Wheel of Fortune’s famous progressive jackpot.

At the time this photo was taken, IGT’s $5 Wheel jackpot kitty had climbed to $3,070,893 and change.

That massive haul clocks in at 307 times what you’d win for a single coin wager, and all you have to do to earn it is bet a second $5 coin.

And I do mean “have to” because even when you line up three Wheel logos perfectly to trigger the jackpot, you can’t collect the seven-figure payday unless a max bet was in play.

On a $5 machine reading “Play 2 Credits” like the one in the photo, a max bet obviously comes to $10. Other versions of the Wheel of Fortune game read “Play 3 Credits” instead, but no matter how many credits the max bet comes to, just multiply that number by the coin denomination to figure out your per-spin cost.

Betting the max on today’s top-rated online slots is also the only way to activate the game’s full complement of bonus features, including side-screen games, prize multipliers, free spin rounds, and stacked or wild symbols.

Without these features in play, you’ll be spinning with one hand tied behind your back, as the game’s payback percentage plummets without all of those additional ways to win.

And on a final note, don’t let that $5 -> $10 example scare you off the max-betting path. You can always find the same game using a lower coin denomination nearby, and online slots make it easy to toggle between bet sizes with a few mouse clicks. You can bet pennies, nickels, quarters, or dollars. Just make sure you’re always multiplying that coin denomination by the machine’s max bet to unlock the biggest jackpots and best bonus features.

2 – You Can Track Progressive Jackpots to Ensure You’re Always Playing for Max Value

Speaking of the Wheel of Fortune progressive jackpot, the top prize amount is seeded with a different starting amount — based on coin denomination — right after a lucky winner cashes in.

For the $0.25 machines, that starting seed is $200,000, and players must max-bet three coins ($0.75) to be eligible. The starting seed climbs to $1 million on both $1 and $5 machines, which both require a two-coin max bet.