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For slot machine grinders like me, the Holy Grail that motivates me to keep playing is the pursuit of loose slots.

1. The loose slot machine is the slot player’s Holy Grail. Much as King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table searched Britain for the Holy Grail of myth, slot players search casinos for loose machines. Slot players have formulated many theories about where casinos place their loose.
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Now, before I go any further, let’s discuss what the term loose really means in the slot machine industry.

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Many players mistakenly believe that individual machines can be programmed to play loosely – paying out winning spins more frequently – while others are programmed to play tight. In fact, as you make your way through the slot world, you’ll meet players who believe with all their heart that loose machines are always placed on the end of a machine bank, or casinos loosen the games on weekdays, or any number of similar myths and misconceptions.

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Fortunately for reasonable slot enthusiasts, that’s just not how it works.

Any given slot machine model is designed and manufactured by a particular company –Aristocrat, International Game Technology (IGT), WMS Industries and so on. Before a machine ever hits the casino floor, these companies build random number generators (RNGs) into the game cabinet, and these RNGs provide truly random results on the reels.

Those results are based on the game’s probability of hitting certain combinations on the reels, and the payouts are related to those combinations. That’s it, and that’s all.

A machine can be designed to payout small winners relatively often, with large jackpots sprinkled in as long shots. Or, the designer may opt for a flatter pay out scheme, with small and large wins occurring with the same frequency. That’s all up to the folks creating the game, and with thousands of slot machine models out there today, you’ll find plenty of variety when it comes to payback percentage.

When a machine arrives at the casino, operators there have no control whatsoever over those probabilities and payouts. They’ve been pre-programmed into the random number generator, and for the duration of the machine’s life, they’ll remain constant and steady.

Most slot machine beginners don’t realize this is how it works, which is where the idea of loose and tight machines, as it is commonly understood, came from. After all, wouldn’t casinos want to tightly control the odds being offered to players?

Well, they do just that.

But not by influencing an individual machine’s pay out frequency from on high. Rather, a casino can modulate its own slot machine payout rates by choosing which types of slots to carry.

Remember, some slots are designed to be “people pleasers,” paying out small winners every other spin or so. These games run with payback percentages between 93 percent and 97 percent, and can occasionally go even higher.

On the other hand, many machines – especially those offering progressive jackpots – pay out winners much less often. But when they do, the returns are typically larger than the people-pleaser games. For these machines, the payback percentages usually range from 87 percent to 92 percent – rates I’d refer to as “tight.”

While a casino operator can’t control each machine’s payback percentage, they can pick and choose how many of the loose and tight machines are offered on the floor. One venue may elect to spread 20 loose games to 10 tight games, while the joint next door rolls with a 20 tight/10 loose arrangement.

In this way, every casino you visit will hold an inherent payback percentage for its slot games, which is calculated by averaging the payback rates for all machines on the floor. When a casino operator wants to tinker with its own paybacks – perhaps to provide a higher profit margin for owners – it doesn’t need to reduce the “looseness” on individual machines. Instead, the operator can simply remove a few high payback machines from the floor, while replacing them with lower paying machines to bump the casino’s overall average payback rate down.

Now that you know what loose slots really are, let’s dive into the important stuff: where to find the loosest slot machine games in your area.

The following guide is intended to help players anywhere in America locate the nearest loose slot games. I’ll run through as many individual states as possible, but before I do, take a look below at a prime directive for finding loose slots:

Popular Spots = Tighter Slots

One item of advice that regular slot players will regale you with involves the old Strip vs. Downtown dichotomy.

Boiling it down, these players believe that casinos on the Las Vegas Strip run much tighter slots than you’ll find elsewhere in the Off Strip or Downtown areas of Sin City. Unlike the many slot machine myths out there, however, this one is definitely true.

Take a look at the following table, provided by the Nevada Gaming Control Board, which covers July 2015 through June 2016:

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As you can tell, slots found on The Strip average a much lower payback rate (93.03 percent) than their counterparts Downtown (94.78 percent), on the Boulder Strip (95.60 percent) or in North Las Vegas (95.74 percent).

The reason for this discrepancy is quite simple to grasp, and is based entirely in economics.

Casino operators on The Strip – and any area’s most popular casino destination for that matter – know that a steady stream of recreational gamblers will be flocking to the floor. These venues are practically guaranteed to receive action from the hordes of tourists wandering about, so they don’t need to offer competitive payback percentages.

Venues on The Strip tend to spread slightly tighter machines, thereby bringing their property wide average down.

And why not?

The players will be there regardless, spinning away without paying close attention, so ensuring a slightly higher profit margin is in a business’ best interest.

On the other side of the coin, casinos in the Downtown district, the Boulder Strip, or North Las Vegas don’t receive the same guaranteed flow of patrons like venues on The Strip. These properties must compete for a smaller slice of the Las Vegas gambling market, and competition always provides a better climate for customers.

For this reason, casino operators running things at an Off Strip venue tend to purchase looser slots, increasing the average payback percentage across the property.

Knowing these facts, you should always be prepared to go off the beaten path as you pursue the loosest slots around. Generally speaking, the more popular a casino is, the tighter its machines will be – so branch out and explore some of the lesser known gambling halls in your area.

Pay the Piper for Higher Paybacks

This one’s simple, so we’ll keep it short and sweet.

No matter where you play, the coin denomination you use tends to be linked directly to average payback rates.

For penny slot players, the average will lean towards the lower end of the spectrum. High rollers, on the other hand, are afforded a higher average overall.

With this in mind, remember that the high limit slot parlor in your local casino will always offer a higher average payback than the regular machines. And even if you don’t make your way to the high limit room, moving up in stakes from penny slots to nickel, quarter, or dollar is a surefire way to increase your average payback.

State by State Slot Guide

Every state that offers legalized gambling, either in commercial or tribal casinos, is subject to its own gaming regulator.

In many cases, these regulators mandate a “floor” for slot machine payback rates, ensuring that a minimum payback is met. Otherwise, some unscrupulous casinos would simply spread the worst paying games in the world, counting on players to not know any better and blow off their bankroll in a hurry.

The Arizona Department of Gaming, for example, requires any tribal operator to run slot machines with an average payback between 80 percent and 100 percent. In Maine, the Gaming Control Board mandates an 83 percent payback rate or higher for slot games.

These statewide systems can vary wildly, so it can be useful to break things down on a state by state basis to see where the loosest slots in your area can be found.

Below, you’ll find a listing of all states that make their slot machine payback rates public, complete with venue or area specific payback rates. If you don’t see your state listed here, that’s because regulations don’t require slot machine payback information to be released.

Arkansas

The Oaklawn Racing and Gaming facility is the state’s best slot destination, with an average payback rate of 93.23 percent

Southland Park Gaming and Racing is quite close, however, averaging a payback of 93.11 percent.

Colorado

Payback rates for the three major casino regions in Colorado are below, with the highest for a given region in bold:

Connecticut

The table below highlights average payback rates at the Foxwoods casino complex – and its main rival, Mohegan Sun – as recorded by the Connecticut’s Division of Special Revenue:

Foxwoods

Mohegan Sun

Delaware

Per data released by the Delaware Lottery, which covers the period between July 26, 2015 and June 26, 2016, slot machine paybacks at the state’s three “racinos” breaks down as follows:

Florida

Average payback rates – as recorded by the state’s Division of Pari-Mutuel Gaming from July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2016 – are as follows:

Illinois

Property averages, provided by the Illinois Gaming Board, can be found below:

Indiana

Property averages, provided by the Indiana Gaming Commission, can be found below:

Iowa

Property averages, provided by the Indiana Gaming Commission, can be found below:

Louisiana

Regional averages, provided by the Louisiana State Police Riverboat Gaming Section, can be found below:

Maine

Per the Maine Gaming Control Board, between July 1, 2015 and June 30, 2016 the average payback percentage for the state’s various slot providers breaks down as follows:

Mississippi

Regional* averages, provided by the Mississippi Gaming Commission, can be found below:

*Key

• Coastal = Biloxi, Gulfport and Bay Saint Louis
• North = Tunica, Greenville and Lula
• Central = Vicksburg and Natchez

Missouri

Property averages, provided by the Missouri Gaming Commission, can be found below:

Nevada – Las Vegas

Regional averages for The Strip, Downtown, the Boulder Strip, and North Las Vegas can be found below:

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Nevada – Laughlin

Average payback rates by coin denomination for Laughlin’s casinos, as provided by the Nevada Gaming Control Board, are as follows:

Nevada – Reno

Average payback rates by coin denomination for Reno’s casinos, as provided by the Nevada Gaming Control Board, are as follows:

New Jersey

Property averages, provided by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, can be found below:

New York

Property averages, provided by the New York Lottery, can be found below:

Ohio

Property averages, provided by the Ohio Casino Control Commission, can be found below:

Pennsylvania

Property averages, provided by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, can be found below:

Conclusion

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Finding the loosest slot machine games depends on where you’re located and how far you’re willing to travel. Use this guide of where to find the loosest slot machine games right now the next time you want to venture out to play slots.

by John Robison
Do the slot machines on the ends of aisles pay better than the machines in the middle? How about the machines near the table games? They’retight, right? And are the machines near the coin redemption booths loose? Join us on our journey for finding loose slot machines.
The loose slot machine is the slot player’s Holy Grail. Much as King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table searched Britain for the Holy Grail of myth, slot players search casinos for loosemachines. Slot players have formulated many theories about where casinos place their loose machines to aid them in their quest.

Before we can figure out where the loose machines are, we have to figure out what they are. There is no U.S.D.A. system for grading the looseness of machines and no national orinternational standard that determines whether a machine is tight or loose.

So, what is a loose slot machine?

Say we have two 94% payback machines. Are they loose? I bet some people say yes and some say no. Why isn’t there agreement? Let me add a little more information to thescenario to see if it gives you an idea of why one person calls a 94% payback machine loose and another calls it tight. What if I told you that one machine was a nickel machine and theother a dollar machine? For most people who play nickel machines, a 94% machine is among the best-paying machines in their area. For most people who play dollar machines, on theother hand, a 94% machine is among the worst-paying machines in their area. The person who called 94% loose probably plays lower-denomination machines, while the person who called 94%tight probably plays higher-denomination machines.
Let me add one more piece of information. The dollar machine is a video poker machine. Dollar video poker players would rather have root canals onall their teeth with no anesthesia while their fingernails and toenails are ripped off than play a 94% payback machine. They have many adjectives for a 94% payback machine, but loose isnot one of them.
You see, loose isn’t an absolute. Looseness depends on your frame of reference. Looseness is actually a comparison. We shouldn’t say “loose.” We should really say“looser”. We should really be asking where the looser machines are. But let’s bow to common usage and continue using the term loose machine.

So, what is a loose machine?

Quite simply, a loose machine is a machine that has a higher long-term payback percentage than another machine. The loose machines in acasino are those machines that have the highest paybacks. These are the machines that will take the smallest bites out of your bankroll in the long run. No wonder slot players areconstantly searching for them.
Over the years, players have developed a number of theories about finding loose slot machines. Casinos place loose machines near the entrances, for example, so passersby can see playerswinning and are enticed to enter the casino and try their luck. The loose machines are also at the ends of the aisles to draw players into the aisle, where the tight machinesare.
And, of course, a loose machine is always surrounded by tight machines. You never have two loose machines side by side. That’s done for players who like to play more than onemachine at a time. If they should happen to stumble upon one of the loose machines, they’ll be pumping their winnings from it into the tight machines around it.
More theories. The machines near the table games are tight because table games players don’t want to hear a lot of bells and buzzers going off and happy slot players whooping it up aftera big win. Another reason the machines near the table games are tight is because table games players will occasionally drop a few coins into a slot machine and they don’t expect to winanything, so why give them a high payback.
Similarly, the machines near the buffet and show lines are tight. People waiting in line are just killing time and getting rid of their spare change. They’re not going to play for along time or develop a relationship with those machines, so the machines can be like piggy banks – for the casino! Money goes in and rarely comes back out.
The machines near the coin redemption booths, on the other hand, are loose. Players waiting in line for coin redemption are slot players and the casino wants them to see other playerswinning. Seeing all those players winning will make them anxious to get back on the slot floor to try their luck again.
Finally, finding loose machines in highly visible locations is most likely. Again, casinos want players to see players winning and be enticed into trying to get a piece of the casino’sbankroll themselves.
These are the theories I can think of off the top of my head. Maybe you know of some others. Most of the theories have a basis in psychology. When we see others winning, we’llwant to play too because 1) we’re greedy, 2) we’re envious, or 3) we see that at least some machines really do pay off and if we keep trying we might find one too.
Based on my own discussions with slot directors, interviews with slot directors, and seminars I’ve attended, I don’t think these theories are relevant in today’s slot world. To see why,we have to look at how slot machines and slot floors have changed.
Picture a slot floor of 10-20 years ago. Even if you don’t go back that far, I’m sure you’ve seen pictures on TV or in books. The slot machines on a casino floor in that era arearranged in long rows, much like products out for sale in a supermarket aisle. There’s no imagination used in placing the machines on the floor. The machines are placed using cold,mechanical precision.
On page 193 in Slot Machines: A Pictorial History of the First 100 Years by Marshall Fey, there’s a great picture of Bally’s casino floor in Atlantic City that illustrates my point. Thepicture shows hundreds of slot machines all lined up in perfect rows like little soldiers. The caption reads, “Like a Nebraska cornfield, rows upon rows of Bally slots extend as far asthe eye can see.”

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Compare that image with the slot floor layout at a casino that was designed in the last five or so years. Studies have shown that players feel very uncomfortable playing in longaisles. They feel trapped when they’re playing in the middle of a long aisle, particularly if the casino is crowded. As a result, modern casinos have shorter aisles and when a long aislecan’t be avoided, it will be wider than others so players won’t feel like they can’t get out.
One of the finding loose machines theories has casinos placing loose machines at the ends of aisles to draw people into the aisles. Having shorter aisles means having more machinesat the ends of those aisles. Can all of these machines be loose?
In addition to being uncomfortable in long aisles, players are also uncomfortable being put out on display for the other players. Perhaps they feel like they might become a target iftheir good luck is too visible.
One slot director I heard speak said that he tried to create “comfortable niches” for his players. Instead of being in a fish bowl, visible to most of the slot floor, players in hisniches can be easily seen by only the other players in that niche.
Another theory about loose machine placement is that casinos place them in highly visible areas. Modern casinos still have highly visible areas, but the areas are visible to a smallernumber of players. A loose machine in this area will influence fewer players than before.
The last change in the slot floor that I want to mention is perhaps the biggest change of all. Casinos used to have hundreds of slot machines. Now they have thousands. Oneslot director in Las Vegas said in an interview a few years ago that with so many machines on his floor, he didn’t have time to micro-manage them. He and his management decided the holdpercentage they wanted for each denomination and he ordered payback programs close to that percentage for his machines. Furthermore, he said this was the common practice in LasVegas.
As much as the slot floor has changed, the changes on the floor are dwarfed by the changes in the slot machines themselves. One thing that struck me about that picture of Bally’s is howall the machines look alike. They really do look like soldiers being inspecting, all standing at attention and in identical uniforms, or like rows of indistinguishable corn plants. In fact, it looks like there are only three different games in the 10 machines in the first row in the picture. Granted, the majority of the machines in Bally’s casino were Ballymachines. Still I’m surprised by the lack of variety in the machines in the front row in the picture.
I heard that one theory why Americans have gotten heavier is that we have access to a wider variety of foods today than we had before. When meals consisted of the same thing time aftertime, it was easy to pass up second helpings of gruel and eat just enough to no longer be hungry. But now we have Chinese one night, Mexican the next, followed by Thai, burgers, pizza,and pasta -- it’s easy to overeat on our culinary trip around the world.
Just as variety in food creates desire, so does variety in slot machines. “Hey, I used to watch The Munsters all the time. I’ll try that machine.” “I never miss TheApprentice. I’ll give that machine a go.” “I played Monopoly all the time as a kid.” “I have a cat and a dog and a chainsaw and a toaster.”
Not only is there more variety in themes on machines, there’s also more variety in paytables. Back in the 1920s, a revolutionary change in slot machine design was paying an extra coin fora certain combination. Adding a hopper to the machine in the electro-mechanical era made it possible for the machine to pay larger jackpots itself instead of requiring a handpay from ajackpot girl. Adding a computer to the slot machine made it possible for today’s machines to pay modest jackpots of a few thousand coins all the way up to life-changing jackpots ofmillions of dollars.
The computer also makes it possible to add more gimmicks to machines. Gimmicks like “spin-til-you win,” symbols that nudge up or down to the payline, haywire repeat-pays, and double spinall add more variety and interest to the games.
Today’s machines are immeasurably more interesting and fun to play than those of even just a decade ago. Each new generation of machines has crisper graphics and better sound than theprior generation. Slot designers are working overtime to devise compelling bonus rounds that will keep players playing for just one more crack at the round. How many people playingWheel of Fortune are trying to win the jackpot? Not many. Most people keep playing to get one more spin of the wheel.
Slot directors today don’t need to pepper their slot floors with loose machines to stimulate play. Today’s machines themselves generate more desire to play than seeing a player doingwell.
Now I'll finish our discussion of where slot directors place loose machines with some additional thoughts, with a few anecdotes I've heard at slot seminars, and with what I think will be thefinal nail in the coffin of loose machine placement philosophies.
One of the placement theories says that tight machines should be placed near the table games because the table games players don’t like a lot of noise while they’re playing. Have the peopleputting forth this theory ever been near a craps table? A craps table with a shooter on a hot roll has to be one of the loudest places -- if not the loudest place -- in the casino. Crapsplayers can be a boisterous lot even when the table isn’t hot. Okay, I can see players needing peace and quiet at blackjack tables (It’s difficult to count cards even in a quiet casino.), butnot at craps, roulette, Let It Ride, and other tables. In any case, the casino can adjust the volume level on a machine. The slot director can put a very quiet, loose machine near the tablesand not disturb a single table games player.
Another problem with following a loose machine placement philosophy is that it limits the flexibility slot directors have in moving their machines around on the slot floor. If the directors aregoing to give up a little bit in payback on some machines, they certainly will want to get their money’s worth and ensure that these machines are in locations where they’ll be played, be seenbeing played, and entice other players to play. Slot floors have only a limited number of high visibility areas. Slot directors won’t want to waste any of their high-paying machines in the morenumerous less visible areas, where the machines won’t be encouraging other players.
Now I’d like to share some anecdotes I’ve heard at panel discussions during the big gaming show (first the World Gaming Congress, then the Global Gaming Expo) that’s held in Las Vegas eachyear.
First, one slot director described an experiment he conducted in his casino. He had a carousel of 5 Times Pay machines that all had the same long-term payback. He ordered new chips to lower thepayback percentages on a couple of the machines to see if anyone would notice. The machines with the lower long-term paybacks received just as much play as the higher-paying machines. Noplayer, furthermore, ever complained that some of the machines in the carousel were tighter than others.
In another seminar, a slot director shared the philosophy he used to place some machines that he had inherited from another property. These machines, he said, had lower long-term paybacks thanthe payback he usually ordered for machines on his slot floor. He said, 'I read the same books that the players read. I put these lower payback machines in the spots that the books said shouldhave the high payback machines.'
My last anecdote is about a decision made by the slot director at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas many years ago. He was ordering 10 Times Pay machines for his slot floor and he was concerned aboutthe low hit frequencies available for those machines. (Machines with multiplying symbols tend to have low hit frequencies, and usually the higher the multiplier, the lower the hit frequency.)The slot director was afraid that his players would think the machines were very tight because they hit so infrequently. He said that he ordered higher paybacks than he usually does for thosemachines in an attempt to offset the low hit frequency. The machines would still have a low hit frequency, but at least the average value of a hit would be a little higher than if he hadordered a payback percentage nearer the percentage he usually ordered. He hoped that would be enough to keep his players from thinking these were tighter than the other machines on his slotfloor.
Although I think these anecdotes are the exceptions that prove the rule that some casinos at least order the same long-term paybacks for machines of a particular denomination, there is evidencethat some casinos may not. In the first edition of Casino Operations Management, for example, Kilby and Fox list a number of “general philosophies that influence specific slot placement”including: “low hold (loose) machines should be placed in busy walkways to create an atmosphere of activity” and “loose machines are normally placed at the beginning and end of trafficpatterns.”
They then say that “high hit frequency machines located around the casino pit area will create an atmosphere of slot activity.” I’m not sure whether they’re saying high hit frequencyshould or shouldn’t be placed near the pit. In any case, note that one philosophy said that loose machines create an atmosphere of activity and another said that high hit frequency machinesalso create an atmosphere of activity. This is the perfect segue into what I think puts the final nail in the coffin about loose machine placement theories.
There is no correlation between long-term payback and hit frequency. A low hit frequency machine can have a high long-term payback. High hit frequency machines, in addition, can have lowlong-term paybacks. Larry Mak, author of Secrets of Modern Slot Playing, recently queried the Nevada Gaming Control Board to find out the payback reported on penny machines. The Board said itwas 90.167%. Most of the penny video slots have very high hit frequencies, yet the overall average long-term payback is very low.
The usual reasoning behind putting loose machines in highly visible areas is so slot players can see other players winning. Maybe we should be more precise here and say that players will seeother players hitting and assume that they are winning because they are playing loose machines. But because there’s no correlation between hit frequency and long-term payback, these players canactually be playing machines with low long-term paybacks.
I don’t put much stock in loose machine placement theories, but I do believe slot directors may follow a hit frequency placement philosophy. Slot directors may try to place high hit frequencymachines in visible areas to encourage play. This philosophy says and implies nothing about the long-term payback of the machines.

John Robison is the author of 'The Slot Expert's Guide
to Playing Slots.' His website iswww.slotexpert.com