A whole lot has been written about the honesty of land-based slot machines. A fantastic article by Steve Bourie is titled, "Are Slot Machines Honest?" and originally appeared within the 1999 American Casino Guide. (It may be found online by searching for the title in Google or Yahoo!.) Physical, land-based slot machines have a lot of "variations" (being polite) than can deceive the player. Simply, they're all illegal and do not happen. But read the article, closely.

In contrast, online casino slots use an electronic "random number generator" or RNG, operating inside a really 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 no "sense switch" (see the Bourie article) that can be flipped to give players worse odds. Regarding control parameters, each usage of the RNG matches the last use, and may be the same as the next use. The numbers will come out randomly, however the pattern of randomness never changes. This is a true benefit from software-based online casino slots.

Land-based slot machines may also have payout percentages as low as 83%, which isn't true with online casino slots. In online gaming, each machine has the same winning percentage as the other machines. You can see the payout percentages for many online slots gambling (visit the up coming post) gaming sites, and also you shall see that it rarely drops below 95% - that is, the house makes a 5% profit, on the normal. The truth is, most casinos can document that their payout percentages will be in the 97% - 98% range. This means that you can spend an hour, gamble your $100 stake about 3 times, and on the average it will cost you $7.50. But players don't gamble to be average: the true reward is the high-paying win. And also the well-paying win is balanced, of course, 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. That's a far cry from the specific situation with land-based slot machines, appropriately called "one-armed bandits".

Players get better odds, they get absolute consistency across all games - but nobody can guarantee a win every time. That's just the nature of gambling, and that is a division 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 can be a far better bet.