More than many other forms of gambling, online slots are designed, first and foremost, to be fun. You place your bet, you set the reels spinning and you see where they fall. Pretty often you get to enjoy bonus features like wild symbols, multipliers and free spins. Unlike a game such as poker, which involves a player making decisions and assessing the relative strength of other players, winning and losing on slots involves no skill. The results of each spin are entirely random, and anyone who promises a betting strategy that guarantees winning on slots is not being entirely honest. That’s not to say, however, that there aren’t certain steps you can take to try to minimize your losses, have fun playing slots for longer and – just possibly – increase the likelihood that you might win. At the very least, you can take note of the following tips to choose the next slot you play much more carefully, making sure that it fits exactly with your favored style of playing.
Set a Bankroll and Stick to It
This is the cornerstone of virtually every successful betting strategy, and not following it is the mistake which is most likely to set the keen amateur apart from an experienced gambler who plays slots on a regular basis. Before you start playing slots, sit down and decide exactly how much you would be happy to lose. Not how much you can afford to lose – but how much you could feasibly lose and yet still find the experience of playing slots to be fun and entertaining. Once you’ve decided what that figure is, you have to make sure you stick to it. This is a question of will power more than anything else, of course, but you can help yourself by matching the slots you play to the size of your bankroll.
If you’ve got a small bankroll of £30, for example, then it’s probably best not to bet on a game which involves a £2 stake for every spin. Before you know it, you’ll have run through your funds and be tempted to add ‘just a bit more’.
Don’t Chase Losses
Another key part of managing your bankroll is resisting the temptation to chase your losses. If you’ve played a slot for an hour without winning very much, the temptation is to believe that it just has to be on the verge of a big pay-out. This is a myth which dates back to the era of mechanical slots which would fill up with money before paying out, or could be expected to pay out every so many spins. Modern slots, whether land-based or online, are controlled by random number generators (RNG), which ensure that each spin is an individual event in itself and completely random. You’re just as likely to win for two spins in a row as you are if you haven’t won at all for fifteen spins.
High or Low Variance
It’s easy to assume that all online slots offer pretty similar odds when it comes to paying out. This isn’t true, however. The most obvious exceptions are the big jackpot progressive slots, which pay out very rarely but offer huge winnings when they do. Amongst standard slots, however, you’ll find high and low variance slots. Put simply, this means the following:
- Low variance – slots that pay out small amounts fairly regularly.
- High variance – slots that pay out more rarely, but offer bigger wins when they do.
The type of slot you choose to play will depend on what you’re looking for in slots. If you want some fun with regular pay-outs that keep your bankroll fairly solidly topped up, then opt for a low variance game. If, on the other hand, you’re willing to risk working your way through a lot of your bankroll in pursuit of a single spectacular jackpot, then look for a high variance game.
The good news is that there’s a way of trying to figure out which type of slot you’re playing. Online slots generally have a button linking to a pay-out table. Click on this and you’ll see lots of confusing looking facts and figures, but focus on the number of symbols in each combination, and how much that combination will win. If four or five symbol wins offer a decent sized pay out but wins with fewer symbols offer poor winnings, then you’re probably dealing with a high variance game. The number of pay lines on a slot can be another factor – the more pay lines there are, the more likely winning is, but the lower the pay-out will be – making this a low variance game.
Bonuses
Take advantage of every single bonus you can get your hands on. As the sector becomes more and more competitive, online casinos are going out of their way to offer increasingly generous bonuses, particularly when it comes to players enjoying online slots. Indeed, many bonuses, whether free spins or cash bonuses, are often linked to specific slots. It should be noted that terms and conditions such as wagering requirements often apply, but even a bonus which doesn’t end up paying out directly will help you to learn how a slot works, whether it suits your playing style and if it will enable you to make the most of your bankroll.
Maximum Bets
Most progressive slots have a rule which states that you have to place the maximum bet each spin in order to be eligible for winning the major jackpot. Bear this in mind when deciding how much your bankroll should be and how long you expect it to last you. If you’re chasing a big jackpot there could be nothing worse than hitting the right pay line only to find that you’d failed to place the maximum bet because you wanted to make your bankroll last a little longer.
It is possible to find more complex betting strategies for online slots, but these are generally just complicated ways of making a bank roll stretch a little further. At the end of the day, any slots betting strategy is at the mercy of the fact that every spin of the reels is completely random and that, no matter how high the Return to Player (RTP) percentage of the game in question is, the house always ends up winning in the long run. That’s why the best online slots betting strategy consists simply of:
- Set your bankroll
- Don’t chase your losses
- Select your slots with care
- Don’t bet your winnings
- Have lots of fun