Contrary to Superstition, Slots are Random
There are still some people out there who believe that slot machines have brains. They believe that a machine is somehow “waiting” to payout to the right person and if they happen to “fool” the machine, that person can be them! We’ve all seen these people. They sit at a slot machine for hours waiting to make back their money. There is also another group that believes that if a machine pays out, then have to either move quickly to another machine or stay with the winning machine to extend their play. The underlying belief is that the machine “knows.” Both of these scenarios give the slot machine a decisive brain– the ability to reason and understand the payout process.
The reality is that a slot machine is run by a Random Number Generator, or RNG, that makes a completely random choice as to what symbols show up on the reels. That’s why you can sit at a slot machine for hours and have nothing, while another time you sit at the same machine and it pays you right away. It isn’t the slot machine making the decision, but rather the RNG deeply imbeded in the machine that is calling the shots.
The only deciding factor the game may have is its payout percentage. That’s how much the machine pays back versus how much is put in. That number though is preset within the machine however. It isn’t a moving number, but rather a one-time programmed number that never changes. Sure you want to play on games that have higher percentage payouts– that only makes sense– but remember that the money it is paying out is over a long period of time, say a year. You can’t sit at a machine and expect it to pay you because it hasn’t a certain number of times.
There are also some people who think that if a slot machine pays out, then it’s going to NOT payout to recoup the money it lost. Again, this won’t happen because the machine is working on a RNG and that mechanism keeps resetting every time you hit the “spin” button. There is no such thing as the machine “knowing” it hit out or wanting to strategically recoup its loss. The great thing about slots is that they are random. There is no rhyme or reason to their payouts, but they just payout when the numbers are right/ when the stars align/ when you get lucky. Put away the theories and just have fun!
Tags: random, RNG, slots, superstition
