Are Slot Machines Required to Pay Out During Bonus Rounds?

Deep inside every slot machine is a computer chip with a Random Number Generator (RNG) that makes decisions at top speed. It starts when the machine is manufactured, and continues until destroyed, even when the slot machine is not in use. The decisions are random, as determined by accepted computer algorithms. No legitimate slot machine manufacturer would risk their business by programming a chip with decisions that were not truly random. No legitimate casino would want such a slot machine. There’s too much money to be made in legal gambling to risk losing its license with the regulatory gaming enforcers.

What the casino can and does control is the machine’s long-term average payout. It can choose to set a machine’s payout to the lowest amount allowed by law (in Nevada, that’s 75 percent) or 99 percent. They will not set it at 100 percent or higher, unless for some kind of special promotion, because then the slot machine would be losing money for the casino, and they’re not in business to lose money.

However, slot machine players need to understand those payouts are averages. They can lose almost everything or win a jackpot. And the long-term is long. Over the course of one night a slot machine might pay out several jackpots or 25 percent of what’s played on them.

Bonus slot machines are newer kind of game where the player or players (because sometimes people quit in the middle of working toward a bonus round) accumulate credits toward some kind of bonus round or multiple bonus rounds. Wheel of Fortune and Monopoly are early examples.

The casino is not required to let the slots player win any money on one or multiple bonus rounds. It’s a matter of luck.

Casinos do not let bonus slot machines in to be generous. There is no extra money, although the “bonus” implies that to some bettors. In reality, the money that can be paid in the bonus rounds comes from the earlier play. The play leading up to the bonus round pays out less money than it might to fund the bonus rounds.

But that still does not guarantee a bonus round payout.

However, one strategy slot machine players could find is to search for bonus machines that have been abandoned in the middle of a game cycle. That means an earlier player has paid for the early rounds. Therefore, you don’t have to play as much money to get to the bonus round. While winning there is not guaranteed, you have better odds and a better payout than during the rest of play.