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Slot Machine About To Hit – How On Earth Can You Tell? /

Slot Machine About To Hit – How On Earth Can You Tell?

Due to the large amount of luck every gambler needs when playing at the casino, it's no surprise that many players become superstitious. Among the silly ideas that can emerge from this mumbo-jumbo voodoo, is the idea that a player can tell when a slot machine is about to hit. They believe that there are any number of physical signs you should be watching for. The problem with this is that the slot machines are programmed to produce results which are totally random. The player has no influence.

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Image source: Jeff Kubina from the milky way galaxy, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Why You Can’t Tell if a Slot Machine is About to Hit

Walk the floor at any casino and listen to the chatter of the players sitting around on the slots gaming floor. You’ll constantly hear a couple of phrases being bandied about. Namely, talk about when this or that slot machine will become “due,” or talk about where the “loose” slot machines are situated in the casino. The general idea is that there are methods of telling just when a slot machine is about to hit. Yes, that sounds nuts and it probably is. But where does this type of illogical thinking come from and why do these myths persist? Let’s have a look at the sign slots players are looking for.

Random and Independent Gambling Events

Before we go on, it’s important that we are all reading from the same page when it comes to ideas about probability. The first concept we need to know is the concept of the random, independent event. In the casino, this covers just about every bet you’ll make. The keyword here is “independent.” This means that previous results will not affect the next result. So, if you’re playing roulette, then you’ll know that there are 38 possible outcomes. So your chance of winning on a single number is 1:38. Suppose you landed that same number three times in a row. The probability of you landing it again is still 1:38. Those previous results play no part in the following results.

It’s the same story when you’re playing the slot machine at the best online casinos with jackpots. Each time you hit the spin button, the spinning reels are another independent event.

What if a Slot Machine Has Been Running Hot or Cold?

Though many gamblers would consider a slot machine that’s running “hot” or “cold” to be a real thing, it’s just a result of the variance. There may well be a sequence of wins or losses, but that’s down to the random nature of the game. These machines are pre-programmed. Maybe the hit frequency is 30%. This will translate into one every three spins resulting in a win. So with this machine, you could just as easily hit three times in a row, or conversely, lose three times in a row. Remember that the odds don’t change between spins. The easiest way to look at the hot and cold machine scenario is to look at it in retrospect, as there’s nothing predictive about those results. After all, it’s not as if these slot machines are programmed to “catch up” after a big loss or a big win. It’s the same story with online casinos. King Billy Casino pays out thousands of winners every day. And it’s the best casino site to play. But you still can’t tell when the online slot you’re playing is going to hit.

Does the Zig Zag Method Identify Slots That Are About to Hit?

This was another madness from a few years back. When you look straight on to a slot machine, you’ll see three symbols running across the pay line. There are also symbols both above and below the pay line. Now we move onto the bonkers part. The idea is that you should be searching for slot machines that are showing all the winning symbols on the screen at the same time. If you can see them all, even in a zig-zag pattern, then that jackpot slot is primed to payout. There’s a certain attractiveness and simplicity to this idea, though you’d need to be pretty simple-minded to believe it.

Within the DNA of every slot machine, there’s a computer program called a random number generator. So every combination of slot symbols simply corresponds to a random number. This program is cycling through numbers at a rate of millions of times each second. Hitting the spin button or pulling the lever will show those symbols that the random number generator stopped on. There’s no pattern here. It’s called a random number generator because it’s random.

Can I Use My Intuition to Predict When a Machine Is About to Hit?

The short answer is “no”. The long answer is also “no, and stop being silly.” Intuition belongs on daytime TV, and superstitions belong in times gone by. No one can predict the future, though if you happen to ask this question out loud, we can predict that people will laugh at you. Some years ago, the skeptic, Jame Randi offered $1 million if anyone could step forwards and prove their psychic powers under controlled laboratory conditions. No one was ever able to win the cash. There’s a world of difference between predicting an event versus having a guess. We’re sure that you could stand in front of a slot machine and be right with your guessing some of the time. These are, after all, random events. But to have someone say the exact spin or time in the future that you’ll have a hit is just not going to happen.

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So can I Tell When a Slot machine is About to Hit?

To be frank, the answer is a big fat “nope.” Sitting in front of a slot, shoving in those coins or tokens, many players must be dreaming of scoring that one big jackpot. That life-altering amount of cash. But no matter how much we want it, a dream is just that. Maybe you believe that if certain other factors are aligned then a win is assured. Say a prayer to your deity, clutch those prayer beads harder, or wear your special, lucky shoes or underwear. Whatever your lucky ritual, it all means nothing in the face of slot machine computer programming. A gambler who starts to fall into these illogical and slightly nutty factors is destined for disappointment. You can certainly guess. But don’t go believing that you can make an educated guess.

Real life can be hard. And for the majority of people, it’s a struggle. But don’t start going off into the world of fantasy and dreams in the hope that it’ll bring your desires any closer. And stay well clear of those offering solutions that come on broomsticks with black cats. Falling into these beliefs will only make the struggle harder when they are proved to be false.

Conclusion: Why You Can’t Tell if a Slot Machine Is About to Hit

Though you may well visit casinos to win the jackpot, the bottom line is that there’s no way to tell if a slot machine is about to hit. To think otherwise is both delusional and smacks of wishful thinking. If you playing at the casino, then it’s safe to assume that you’re over 18 years of age, and thus an adult. So leave those childish thoughts and ways of thinking behind. Pull up a stool in front of a slot machine. Or open your laptop and head over to King Billy Casino. Put in your money and hit the spin button. From this point forwards, it’s all out of your hands as the machine randomly spins through millions of possible combinations before coming to a stop. You’ll be lucky. Or not. That is all.