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| | | The traditional historic name for slots was "The One Armed Bandit" and it is easy to understand why they got that name. But they have graduated from those early Western times and gained "some" more friendly names, the most popular of which is simply "slots" or slot machine. They have also gained in status from "machine" to high tech slots that have entered the computer age with a vengeance. Some of the more common terminology used in the slot trade are below.
Coin Size - This is the size of each bet. You can play more than one coin per spin.
Coins per spin - This is the amount of coins that you can play for each spin.
Fill - When hoppers run out of coins, a fill is called for which simply means an attendant gets a bag of coins from the cashier and refills the empty hopper.
Hit Rate - The average distance between winning spins and non winning spins.
Hold - This is the percentage of coins played that are held by the machine, the house profit. In most cases this number is from roughly 3% to 15% and up.
Hopper - This is where the coins are held in the machine. Often hoppers are filled to overflowing by players, so they don't only run empty they sometime are overflowing. When this happens the excess coins drop into a bucket underneath the hopper. This is the profit the casino takes.
Max Bet - The maximum amount of coins that can be played per spin.
Progressive Jackpot - A top prize which grows, giving much larger possible prizes.
Pay cycle - It is a widely held belief that slots go through pay cycles which means that after taking in a number of coins they must pay out in order to meet the percentage payout that has been programmed into the software.
Pay-line - The line or lines on which the symbols must line up to score a win.
Payout Percentages - Payout percentages vary from Casino to Casino and even from slot to slot within a particular Casino. You will often see signs posted regarding the percentage of payout particularly at the dollar carousels. You might see as high as 98.2 % payback, this does not mean that for every 100.00 you play you will get a return of 98.20, hardly. What it does mean is that over the "long" haul the machine will pay back the posted percentage. Calculated in all of this are the small wins and the jackpot wins, you could put 500.00 into a dollar slot machine and get very little back perhaps a hundred or two and even less. This does not mean the percentage payout is incorrect, it simply, means that you have not experienced the 98.2% payback. The next guy coming along may feed a few dollars into the slot machine and win a jackpot. In his case the payback far exceeded 98.2% posted on the carousel. And so you can see that over a longer period of time it all averages out to the posted percentage
Pay Table - The listing of available winning combinations on a slot machine.
Progressive Slots - This type of slot machine offer growing jackpots dependent on the amount of money that was played. A larger bankroll is required and all progressives are at least three coin max slots with two jackpot levels.
Random Number Generator (RNG) - This is the computer program that determines which symbols line up on the reels. Its sole purpose is to generate a sequence of numbers in milliseconds. Each random number it generates corresponds to a reel combination. Even when a slot machine is not being used, the RNG keeps doing its job of generating numbers. Whatever random number was generated the split second you pull the handle (or hit the "bet one" or "max bet" button) will result in the corresponding reel combinations that appear on your screen. The RNG doesn't care how much you bet, whether you bet one coin or five, whether you pulled the handle or hit the spin button, whether it's your first play or last, whether you are winning or losing, or whether you are playing with or without your slot card. It just continually generates random numbers. If you happen to be the lucky player that plays the very split second the RNG generated a number corresponding to a jackpot reel combination, you'll be a big winner.
Reels - The rotating part of a slot machine, symbols on the reels arranged vertically.
Symbols - The pictures on the reels. For example BAR symbols.
Take cycle - This is the opposite of the pay cycle. If you subscribe to the pay/take philosophy then you believe that a pay cycle is followed by a take cycle, whereby you may get the odd small hit but essentially it's feeding time for the slot.
Tilt - Slots tilt usually because they have run out of coins, it happens, or because a coin is jammed in the mechanism. They stop paying and the tilt light comes on. Coins owing the player are held in the slots memory and will pay after corrections have been made to the problem
Top Prize - The top payout, in coins on non progressive slots, playing max coins.
Winning Combinations - The amount of possible winning outcomes on the pay table
Wild Symbol - Like a joker will count as any other symbol and on some slots multiply.
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