7 Reasons Not to Play Slots

When you think about casinos, you often picture poker games and roulette wheels. But you also think about slot machines. In fact, when it comes to quantity, slot machines tend to rule the casino floor.

I personally used to enjoy playing slot machines, but I realized that there are just too many things that I don’t like about them. One of the main reasons I hate playing slots nowadays is because the odds of winning are worse than many other options in the casino.

And that’s just one of the reasons to stop playing slots. Here’s a list of seven reasons why you should think twice about heading over to these one-armed bandits.

1 – The Constant Noise

This is 100% personal, but I stopped playing slots in a live casino environment years ago. I still played them online for a while. But eventually, I pretty much gave that up, too.

When you play real money online slots, you have the option to turn off the sound. But when you play slot machines in a live casino, there’s simply no way to get away from all of the noise.

I can usually block out most noise, but the constant clanging and ringing and reel noises are simply too much when you’re in a casino. In most casinos, it’s even hard to block out all of the slot machine noises while you play table games.

Some gamblers love the sound of the slot machines. They feel at home as soon as they walk into a casino and hear the ringing and the spinning reels. But this simply isn’t something that I enjoy, and maybe you’d prefer a quieter experience, too.

2 – Too Many Paylines

I’ve been accused of being old-fashioned because my taste in slot machines definitely leans that way. I enjoy playing an old-school, three-reel machine with nine or fewer paylines. That’s just how I roll!

Some slot machines with more reels and paylines can be fun to play, even for me, but I hate when there are so many paylines that I just can’t keep track of them all myself. I understand that it doesn’t really matter if I can track all of the paylines or not, but this doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Being able to track all of the paylines doesn’t have anything to do with winning or losing. The slot machine tracks all of your wins and losses. But I still want to be able to see if I win or lose based on looking at the paylines instead of waiting for the machine to tell me.

3 – Auto Spin Option

The first time I saw an option to set the slot machine to play a set number of spins was several years ago when I was playing online slots. At first, this seemed like an interesting option. If you’re planning to play for a long time, why not let the machine run everything for a while?

But I realized that this was just another way for the casino to maximize how much I was risking. Even if it just took an extra second for me to take each spin, when I spin the reels myself, it’s not as fast as when you use the auto spin option.

Some slots players love this option because they want to play as quickly as they possibly can. But I don’t want to do that because I understand that the faster I play slots, the faster I lose my money. And the faster I lose, the more I’ll want to spin again and again. This is why I hate the auto spin option, and it’s another good reason why you should think twice about heading for the slots.

4 – Minimum Wager Amounts for All Paylines

This isn’t an issue on all slot machines, but some popular slots require a larger bet than the minimum to unlock all of the paylines. The most common place you see this is on progressive slot machines.

I’m not talking about activating all of the paylines by wagering one coin per line. The thing I hate is when you have to risk multiple coins on every paylinejust  to unlock the top prize or prizes. The next time you find a penny slot machine, take a look at how much you have to risk to be eligible for all of the paylines and the top prizes. You certainly can’t bet a penny to play; the name is rather misleading.

I understand that this is something that may be a personal preference. A lot of slots players don’t mind this, and they can certainly play these machines all they want. On the other hand, I can also choose not to play on these machines, and this is what I choose to do.

5 – Hidden Return to Player Numbers

Every slot machine has a programmed return to player number that dictates how much money is returned to you and how much the machine keeps. This isn’t really any different than the casino edge on other games.

The main difference is that you can access the return to player numbers and casino edge for almost every game offered in the casino. But it’s rare to find a slot machine that has a public return to player number.

To make matters worse, slot machines usually have a lower return to player number than other casino games. It’s not unusual for a slot machine to have a return to player number of 95% or less. Some are even as low as 88% or worse.

In comparison, games like blackjack, craps, baccarat, roulette, and video poker all have wagers available with a return to player of 96% or higher. A few games offer bets at 99% and higher. But the thing that I hate about return to player numbers is that you simply can’t find the information available for most slot machines.

6 – You Can’t Use Strategy

I like to use strategy when I gamble. It helps me improve my odds of winning and keeps me more interested in the game. The thing I hate about slot machines and strategy is that you can’t use it when you play.

The important thing you need to understand is that there’s a difference between actual strategy and systems you can use. You can find certain systems when you play slots, but they don’t actually do anything that helps you win.

When you use strategy while you’re gambling, it uses facts based on math in order to help you make decisions. For example, when you play blackjack, you might make the strategic decision to split eights. Statistically, you win more often in the long run by splitting the eight than you do if you don’t split them.

However, when you play slots, there aren’t any decisions you can make that alter the results of your wins or losses. You can choose how many paylines to activate on some slot machines, but this doesn’t really change the odds of winning.

7 – The Huge Casino Edge

You learned a little bit about the return to player numbers earlier. The return to player percentage tells you how much of the money you wager is returned to you. If you subtract the return to player percentage from 100%, it shows you what the casino edge is.

The fact is that slot machines have a higher edge than most other games you can play. Many slots players think it’s only $1 or $2 per spin. But when they play 500 spins every hour, they end up risking $500 or $1,000 every hour.

When you’re playing slots with a high casino edge and risking so much money every hour that you play, you end up losing a lot more than you anticipated. You’re almost always better off playing a table game. This is the main reason why you shouldn’t play slots, and it’s exactly why I rarely play them anymore.

Conclusion

Most of the reasons why I hate slot machines are personal. You might not feel the same as I do about most of the things on this list. The great thing is that we don’t have to agree. You can play slot machines as much as you want, and I can choose not to play them.

But there are a couple of things listed in this article that you need to know about if you’re still a huge slots fan. The huge casino edge and hidden return to player numbers are a problem for all slots players. And the fact that you can’t use slots strategy to improve your results is a big deal. Perhaps it might be a good idea to take these reasons to heart and try a few different games that yield better results without hoping for a stroke of luck.