Atlassino Academy · Slots · Lesson 5 of 10
When the lights flash for a loss
A machine can pay you eight credits for a spin that cost nine, and light up as though the evening had turned; the payout minus the spin cost is what settles whether that spin gave you anything.
The panel flashes, a line lights up, the machine pays you 20 credits. That spin cost 50. Was that a good spin?
The short answer
No. The spin took 30 credits off you, and the panel goes off for a payout of 80 on that same bet as well — a payout of that size really does leave you better off. The lights say that a line matched. Whether the spin gave you anything is a subtraction: what the machine paid, minus what the spin cost.
What the machine paid, minus what the spin cost, makes what the spin did to your credits.
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
I spent years walking a floor, and this is the thing I watched people get wrong most often — not because they are careless, but because the machine is louder than the arithmetic. Somebody would wave me over, pleased, on a spin that had just taken money off them. They were not misreading the screen. They were reading the part of the screen that was shouting.
There is one number on that machine that never shouts: the credit meter, the count of credits you have left to play with. Everything I am going to say is a way of getting you back to the credit meter.
Payout minus bet, and nothing else
A machine can flash and make noise on a spin that has just taken money off you, and nothing on the screen does the subtraction for you: the credit meter counts in credits (what a machine counts your money in on screen, which is not the same as dollars until you cash out), and the sum is yours to do.
The teaching machine, nine lines at one credit each: one line lit and the panel going off in both pictures. Only the subtraction under them differs.
| The spin cost | The machine paid | What changed hands |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | 20 | 30 gone |
| 50 | 45 | 5 gone |
| 50 | 50 | your own credits back |
| 50 | 80 | 30 gained |
Three outcomes, then, and not two: a payout equal to the bet is only your own credits handed back.
Why a payout can be smaller than the bet
This is not a trick played on your eyes, it is the arithmetic of paying by the line. You pay for every line you cover — one credit each, so nine lines cost 9 before the reels move — and the machine pays for the lines that matched, one line at a time, whether one line matched or all nine lines did.
One strip of ten positions is used by all three reels, and it carries one A, two B, three C and four blanks. Nine lines can be covered on a window three rows deep: the three rows straight across, the two diagonals corner to corner, and four lines that dip or rise once.
One strip used by all three reels, and nine lines. A line pays only when its first two symbols match and are not blank; 4 of the 10 positions are blank, so most spins light nothing at all.
Three C symbols on the rising diagonal pay 8 credits, whether nine lines are covered or five.
Only the number of lines paid for changed: 1 credit down at nine lines, 3 credits up at five.
| On one line | Pays | On a 1-credit bet | On a 5-credit bet | On a 9-credit bet |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Three A | 170 | +169 | +165 | +161 |
| Three B | 30 | +29 | +25 | +21 |
| Two A | 8 | +7 | +3 | -1 |
| Three C | 8 | +7 | +3 | -1 |
| Two B | 3 | +2 | -2 | -6 |
| Two C | 2 | +1 | -3 | -7 |
A minus means the payout is smaller than the spin that produced it. At nine lines four of the six matches on this paytable — two A, three C, two B and two C — take money off you on the very spin that lights them up. At one line none of the six does.
How often a payout does not clear the bet
At nine lines the panel goes off often, and going off is not the same as paying you. Of every hundred spins that light the panel on the teaching machine with nine lines covered, about 43 leave you level with where you were before the reels moved, or worse than that.
Four bars, for one line covered, three lines, five lines and nine lines, and each bar is a hundred spins split into the four things a spin can do.
- Pays nothing
- Pays less than the bet
- Pays exactly the bet
- Pays more than the bet
Each bar is a hundred spins. As lines are added, spins that pay nothing get rarer and payouts smaller than the bet get more common; the other two bands go up and down, so read those in the table.
| Lines covered | The spin costs | Pays nothing | Pays less than the bet | Pays exactly the bet | Pays more |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| One | 1 | 86% | 0% | 0% | 14% |
| Three | 3 | 74% | 6.3% | 3.2% | 16.5% |
| Five | 5 | 69% | 8.5% | 0% | 22.5% |
| Nine | 9 | 64% | 14.1% | 1.4% | 20.5% |
Fewer lines is a smaller bet, not a cheaper machine
Covering fewer lines looks like the obvious answer to all that, and covering fewer lines does not make the machine any cheaper. The share of every credit staked that comes back is the same at one line as at nine. What falls when you cover fewer lines is the size of the bet, and what falls with the bet is how much noise the machine makes while your credits go.
One line and nine lines take different amounts out of your pocket for one press, and the same share of every credit staked comes back from both.
92% of every credit staked comes back, at one line and at nine lines alike
Over the same thirty spins, one, five and nine lines stake very different amounts and light the panel a different number of times:
Bar length is credits staked. Choosing how many lines to cover feels like control over the reels; what a player really sets is the time and the money.
The credit meter settles what the panel cannot
The credit meter moves once a spin, by exactly what that spin did. Read it as you sit down and again after the reels stop: the difference is what the spin did to your money.
The credit meter read three hundred and forty-one before the spin and three hundred and forty after it, and the spin lit a line and paid eight credits.
Thirty spins at nine lines put 270 credits through the machine, and at the end of those thirty the credit meter reads lower than it did at the start in 64 sittings out of a hundred.
Lost track? On an Ontario floor a machine has to be able to show a complete record of the game that has just finished and the nine games before it. The rule does not say whether you ask staff or press something on the machine, so ask rather than hunt.
| Game | The spin cost | The machine paid | What changed hands |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 9 | 30 | 21 credits gained |
| 2 | 9 | 0 | 9 credits gone |
| 3 | 9 | 8 | 1 credit gone |
| 4 | 9 | 0 | 9 credits gone |
| 5 | 9 | 9 | your own credits back |
| 6 | 9 | 0 | 9 credits gone |
| 7 | 9 | 6 | 3 credits gone |
| 8 | 9 | 0 | 9 credits gone |
| 9 | 9 | 2 | 7 credits gone |
| 10 | 9 | 0 | 9 credits gone |
| Ten games | 90 | 55 | 35 gone |
Rows like these add up and a panel does not. Ten games tell you about those ten games and nothing else.
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
Here is the habit, and it takes four seconds. When you sit down, read the credit meter. Then read the credit meter again when you next wonder how the evening is going — when you wonder, and not when the machine invites you to look. The lights are timed by the machine, and that look is timed by you.
On a screen the lights follow a different rule
A slot drawn on a screen charges for the lines the same way a cabinet does, and a payout smaller than the stake takes money there exactly as it does in a room. What differs is what the game may do about it afterwards. On a gambling site registered in Ontario, a slot may not use the sound and the lights of a payout when what comes back is the stake or less than the stake:
For slots games, the gaming system must not use auditory or visual effects that are associated with a win for returns which are less than or equal to last total amount wagered.
That rule is written for sites and does not reach a cabinet standing in a room, where the panel may still flash for a loss. A registered site also shows the running total for the session in money.
Practice: what did you get back?
Every screen below is a real stopping position of the teaching machine declared above: the reels are placed, and the payout is worked out from the paytable rather than picked to make a point. Level one shows the bet on the screen beside the payout. Level two hides the bet, which is how a real machine is laid out — the payout is the big number and the bet is the small one, when the bet is shown at all. Level three has no answers to score, because what level three asks about is money rather than reading.
Nothing in the practice table spins. There is no balance, no jackpot and no button that makes reels turn: every decision in the practice table lies before a press or between presses, because once the reels have stopped the arithmetic is the only thing left to do.
The whole lesson is one run: every square on the strip below is one screen of that run, and all the squares are there from the start. Only your first answer on each screen counts, and when a level’s squares are full the next level begins by itself.
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The teaching machine · nine lines covered, one credit on each
Three symbols have landed in a row and the panel has gone off. Against the nine credits the spin cost, what came back?
The answer: Less than the spin cost.
Three C symbols on the diagonal, and the paytable pays 8 credits for that line. The spin cost 9, because all nine lines were paid for and one line matched. One credit gone, with the whole panel going off.
Every screen in the practice table is a real stopping position of the teaching machine declared above, with its payout worked out from the paytable rather than chosen to make a point.
How the practice table works
Where the screens come from. Each one names three reel positions. The symbols in the window, which lines match and what the machine pays for them are then worked out from the strip and the paytable printed above — the same enumeration that produced every percentage on this page.
What you will not see. No money, no balance, no coins, no jackpot, no counter of good runs, and no button that spins anything. The celebration animation is here on purpose, because recognising it is the skill; it is also drawn as a still highlight, so it is still there when a browser is set to reduce motion.
Check yourself
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
Five quick ones. Pick an answer, then check it. No timer, no points: just whether it stuck.
Where to check this
19+ (18+ in AB, MB, QC) · Play responsibly · the line for your province is at Helplines by province
Further reading
- Minimum Technical Standards for Gaming, 11: Game Behaviour · Alcohol and Gaming Commission of OntarioWhat a slot machine in a room is allowed to do, clause by clause: the payout floor, the reel strip, the odds on the largest prize and the ten games of history every machine can show you.
- How to play slots · Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (PlaySmart)An operator walking through the arithmetic of one spin, with its own worked example: nine lines on a nickel machine, and what one press of it takes.
- How to play slots · British Columbia Lottery Corporation (Casinos BC)Reels, lines and the province’s average return, in the words of the corporation that runs the rooms.
- Understanding chance: slot machines · Loto-Québec (Wise Play)The near miss, volatility and the illusion of control, named and explained by a provincial operator rather than by us.
- Informed Gambling: slots and VLTs · Manitoba Liquor & LotteriesA short brochure on what a payout percentage is and is not, and why two machines with the same one can empty a wallet at different speeds.
- Registrar's Standards for Internet Gaming: game design and features · Alcohol and Gaming Commission of OntarioThe same machine on a screen: what a regulated site in Ontario may not do with the picture after the outcome has been drawn.
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
One last thing, and it is the reason I asked for this lesson. Nobody who reads a flashing panel as money in their pocket is being foolish. A slot machine is built to be read that way, and it is very good at being read that way.
So the fix is not to try harder. The fix is to pick a number before you sit down — Game plan walks you through picking one, and then to read the credit meter on your own schedule instead of the machine’s. If the lights are what keeps you in the chair, that is worth saying out loud to somebody. The lines below are for exactly that, and they are confidential.
If it stops being fun
If gambling stops being entertainment, help is available. 19+ in most of Canada; 18+ in Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec. More on responsible gaming.
How it’s worked out
Sources, numbers and hosts
Sources. Every published rule on this page is quoted from whoever publishes it, with the address and the date it was read, one tap from the sentence that rests on it. A rule quoted from one province’s standard belongs to that province: the page says which one every time it matters, and never presents a provincial rule as the way machines work everywhere. Where a rule is named as Ontario’s, that is the standard that was read for this page, and it is not a statement that no other province asks for the same thing.
Numbers. The machine on this page is ours, and it is declared in full: one reel strip of ten stops used by all three reels, a three-row window, nine paylines over it, and the paytable printed above. Every share of what one spin can do comes from counting all thousand stopping positions, not from sampling them, and the return per credit staked is checked by the build rather than typed. The thirty-spin figures, including how many sittings in a hundred end lower than they started, come from the same engine that runs our how-long-will-it-last tool. No maker or operator we could read publishes the reel strip or the symbol weightings of a real machine, which is exactly why this page models a machine of its own and prints it rather than pretending to model a real one.
The ten games of history. Those ten rows are ten stopping positions of the same declared machine, and each row is worked out from the paytable. They were picked so that all four kinds of row appear among the ten — a payout over the bet, a payout under it, a payout equal to it and a spin that paid nothing — which also means the ten of them are not a sample of anything. What the machine does over every stopping position is the table of shares by line count, further up the page.
What is not here. No cost per hour: what an hour of a machine costs is a lesson later in this track, and it needs a denomination and a pace this one deliberately does not have. No advice on how many lines to cover — the rate does not move, so there is no cheaper setting to recommend, and the page says that rather than hinting at one. No advice on which machine to sit at, and no way of coming out ahead: this page is about reading one spin correctly and about nothing else.
Hosts. Maya is an illustrated character. Her backstory, a former floor supervisor, is written for the course: she is not a real person and does not speak for any casino. The rules and numbers on this page come from the sources it cites, not from her experience.
No promise. This lesson is about reading a screen correctly. Nothing on it says an evening at a machine is a good idea for you, and nothing here can tell you how one would end.
A payout under the bet is a loss
When you win less than what you bet, you've actually lost.
OLG PlaySmart · Slots — how to play: Breaking slots down · read
The lights go off for a loss too
Sometimes a machine will flash and make noises that seem like a win when you’ve actually lost money on that spin.
OLG PlaySmart · Slots — how to play: Breaking slots down · read
What you choose and what you do not
The fact that you can choose the game or the number of lines to bet on can create the illusion of control. But in reality, it’s impossible to predict or influence the outcome. The amount of time and money you spend playing are the only factors you can control.
Loto-Québec · Wise Play — Understanding chance: Slot machines · read
Ten games of history
All Gaming Devices must have the capacity to display a complete Play history for the most recent Game played and nine Games prior to the most recent Game.
Section 11.12 Game History
AGCO · Minimum Technical Standards for Gaming — 11. Game Behaviour · read
A payout under the bet is a loss
When you win less than what you bet, you've actually lost.
OLG PlaySmart · Slots — how to play: Breaking slots down · read
Ten games of history
All Gaming Devices must have the capacity to display a complete Play history for the most recent Game played and nine Games prior to the most recent Game.
Section 11.12 Game History
AGCO · Minimum Technical Standards for Gaming — 11. Game Behaviour · read
The lights go off for a loss too
Sometimes a machine will flash and make noises that seem like a win when you’ve actually lost money on that spin.
OLG PlaySmart · Slots — how to play: Breaking slots down · read
A payout under the bet is a loss
When you win less than what you bet, you've actually lost.
OLG PlaySmart · Slots — how to play: Breaking slots down · read
What you choose and what you do not
The fact that you can choose the game or the number of lines to bet on can create the illusion of control. But in reality, it’s impossible to predict or influence the outcome. The amount of time and money you spend playing are the only factors you can control.
Loto-Québec · Wise Play — Understanding chance: Slot machines · read
Ten games of history
All Gaming Devices must have the capacity to display a complete Play history for the most recent Game played and nine Games prior to the most recent Game.
Section 11.12 Game History
AGCO · Minimum Technical Standards for Gaming — 11. Game Behaviour · read
Effects at or under the stake, on a registered site
For slots games, the gaming system must not use auditory or visual effects that are associated with a win for returns which are less than or equal to last total amount wagered.
Section 2.20
AGCO · Registrar's Standards for Internet Gaming — Game Design and Features · read
The session total on screen
For slots games, gaming sessions must clearly display a customer’s net position (the total of all winnings minus the sum of all losses since the start of the session), in Canadian dollars.
Section 2.21
AGCO · Registrar's Standards for Internet Gaming — Game Design and Features · read
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