You’ve checked in, made it through security, queued to get on the plane and struggled with your luggage – but still, when you’re finally on board you hear the captain say: “We’re waiting for a slot.” What exactly is a slot?
While the technology behind slots has changed a lot over the years, the basic concept hasn’t. A player pulls a lever or button to spin a series of reels that have pictures printed on them. If any of these pictures line up with a pay line, the player wins. The amount won depends on how many symbols land on the payline, and some machines have multiple paylines.
A computer at the heart of a slot machine controls the spins, and a random number generator decides which stops will be winners. In other words, the visible reels are just a display for what the machine has already chosen to do.
For generations, players were told that maximum bets on old three-reel games brought the highest payout percentages – but this isn’t always true on video and online slots. In fact, maximum bets tend to have lower payback percentages than if the player is playing fewer coins.
It’s also important to learn how to read a slot pay table, which will show the odds of winning different symbol combinations and how much you can win on each one. If you want to improve your chances of winning, try to stick to the types of symbols that have the best chance of appearing on the paytable.