Well over a century since the first "one-armed bandits" appeared in the saloons of San Francisco,
slot machines
are more popular than ever. Thanks to glitzy new technology and highly competitive odds - not to mention some truly huge jackpots - the casinos have largely dispelled the old image of slot arcades as joyless places where tight-lipped seniors pump bucketfuls of small change into unresponsive machines. These days, even casinos like the
Mirage
make twice as much money on slots as they do on the tables, and slot-players are no longer second-class citizens.
Traditionally, the house advantage on slot machines used to be around twenty percent, which is to say that for every dollar you gambled, you might win back eighty cents, while the operator kept the other twenty. Those would now be regarded as "tight" odds, as casinos vie to offer "looser" machines - promoted with slogans such as "99% SLOTS GUARANTEED!" - where the house advantage is as little as five or even one percent. The main reason they can do that is that gamblers these days are prepared to invest much higher stakes, staking $1 or $5 a time rather than the old standard of 25¢. So long as each time you spin the reels, the casino can expect to win 5¢, they're equally happy to achieve that with quarter slots that pay 80 percent, dollar slots that pay 95 percent, or $5 slots set at 99 percent.
Modern, computerized slot machines are far more sophisticated than their mechanical forebears. Most still contain giant wheels decorated with different symbols - customers have proved suspicious of machines that just show pictures of those symbols on video screens - but, contrary to appearances, the reels don't simply spin until they stop. Instead, a micro-chip inside each machine generates an unending stream of random numbers. Whenever you set the reels spinning, the current number determines where they will stop. Just because you hit a combination that looks close to a jackpot doesn't mean that you nearly hit the jackpot, and no sequence of combinations, or lack of winners, can ever indicate that a machine is "ready" to hit.
All kinds of new machines are constantly appearing, targeted at different consumers. There are machines that play Elvis or Sinatra tunes, or mimic board games like
Scrabble
or
Monopoly
, or pay homage to favorite TV shows and movies. Thus the
I Love Lucy
machines, which release a delicious chocolate smell when players hit a bonus round, tend to be positioned to catch the eye of senior gamblers, while the raucous
Austin Powers
models are found in the hipper, youth-oriented joints.
To play the slots, you must be over 21 and have the ID to prove it; underage winners are not paid off. US citizens must pay tax on wins of $1200 or more.
Beneath all the surface glitter, there are basically two different types of slot machine. "
Non-progressive
" machines have fixed paybacks for every winning combination, and in principle pay lower prizes, more frequently. "
Progressive
" ones, such as
Megabucks
or
Quartermania
, are linked into networks of several similar machines, potentially covering the entire state of Nevada. The longer it takes before someone, somewhere hits the jackpot, the higher that jackpot will be - digital displays show mounting totals that can run into millions of dollars.
All the major casinos operate
slot clubs
, which keep track of how much you gamble and reward you with points redeemable for discounts and upgrades, show tickets, or even cash. The value is never that high - at the
MGM Grand
, for example, inserting $2000 into the slots entitles you to $12.50 cash back - but it costs nothing to join, so if you plan to gamble for any length of time you might as well.
As for
where to play
, the slots are "loosest" (which is good) downtown, and anywhere locals play regularly, and notoriously "tight" at places such as the airport or supermarkets, where most customers are just passing through. Strip options range from the
Riviera
, "where the nickel is king" and you can play for days on end, to the $500 machines in the marble-walled High Limits room at
Bellagio
.
