Slingo Fortunes Slot Machine. Slingo Original; Slingo Fortunes is a fast, fun and exciting Slingo Original full of lucky red envelopes with real cash prizes inside. Spin the reels to match the numbers with those on the grid and reveal what’s inside your lucky envelope – a top prize of £100,000 is up for grabs! Slot Machines Defined, part 3 completes the slots glossary. This part includes slot terms, lingo and jargon unique to the slots playground for reel spinners who love these mini games. Examples: Short Win, Signature Slots, Tilt, TITO and X. Slot Machines Defined: S - T. Finding a loose machine is just about the best thing that can happen to a. Slot machine slang for the trading of information between players and hosts. Slot Testing Slot testing is a reference to a form of player evaluation of a slot game where they will play an entire roll of coins to determine the payout ratio for that machine. Slot Machine Glossary The slot machine is by far the most popular and profitable casino game, and with slot machines dominating the online, mobile, and social markets, there’s been a resurgence in interest in the one-armed bandit. This glossary covers terms used by slot players and the slot machine industry.

Slot machines are among the easiest and most popular games found in both online and brick and mortar casinos, though there is more to it than simply pulling a lever and spinning the reels hoping to hit the jackpot. In order to master the slots and win big, you need to master a bit of the language of slot machines.

A

ACTION – Also called ‘Play’, this refers to the total amount a player wages at a machine.

ACTIVE PAYLINE – Payouts will occur if the payline a player has bet on has a winning match.

ANNUITY WINNER – Jackpot winners who choose to get paid out in yearly instalments.

AUTOPLAY – A feature on many slots that can be triggered by the player to spin automatically.

B

BANK – A row of machines placed side by side that often match a theme.

BARS – The most common symbol found on reels are marked with the word ‘BAR’.

BET – The amount of money a player wages on per spin.

BIG BERTHA – A machine used by casinos as a marketing device to attract attention.

BIG WIN – The highest payout available on a specific slot game or jackpot.

BLANK – A blank space found between the symbols on a reel.

BONUS FEATURE – Reference to an additional feature that awards a win on top of the active payline.

BONUS MULTIPLIER – A game type that includes a bonus prize.

BONUS SLOTS – Specific machines that will award free spins or other bonuses.

BRANDED SLOTS – Themed slots often based on popular TV shows or movies.

BUY-A-PAY-SLOT – A type of slot in which each bet unlocks new potential winning matches.

C

CAROUSEL – Another term for the Bank.

CANDLE – The small light often found at the top of a slot machine.

CASHBACK – A feature on some slots that award players with money back on their bets.

CERTIFIED SLOTS – A type of slot game that has a 98% to 100% payout rate.

Slot Machine Lingo

CICO – An abbreviation for ‘Coin in Coin out’ that tracks the coins in and out of a machine.

CLASSIC SLOT – A term for the earliest slots that featured only three reels.

COINS – The currency used by players to make bets at slot machines.

COIN SIZE – An indicator of how much a coin is worth.

COIN-FREE PLAY – This style of slot machine will pay out tickets instead of coins.

COINS PER LINE – The number of coins allowed, or required, to play a specific pay line.

COINS PER SPIN – The number of coins a player chooses to bet on a single spin.

D

DENOMINATION – The value of each credit played at a specific slot machine.

Slot Machine Slang

DOUBLES – A rare occasion where symbols come up two or three at a time for double payouts.

DRAGONFISH – A famous online slot gambling manufacturer.

DROPS – A feature where the symbols on slots fall into place on the reel.

E

EDGE – The advantage that the house (or casino) has over the player.

EXPANDING WILDS – A symbol that expands to cover the entire reel to increase chances of winning.

F

FEATURE – A feature in slots could be a reference to bonuses, free spins and more.

FILL – A slang term for a bag that contains coins that fills a coin hopper.

FIVE LINER – A slot type where the player has the chance to win on five payout lines.

FREEPLAY – Slots that can be enjoyed for free, without risking any money.

FRUIT MACHINE – A nickname for slot machines coined in the UK.

G

GAMES PER HOUR – Reference to the number of spins made by a player per hour.

H

HAMMER A MACHINE – The act of playing the same machine or game for a long time.

HIT – A term for a winning spin.

HIT AND RUN – A style of playing slots that involves rotating between machines frequently.

HOT SLOT – A term for a machine that seems to be paying out more than others.

I

INSTANT WINNER – Jackpot winners who get all their winnings paid out immediately.

J

JACKPOT – The top prize offered by a particular slot.

L

LINE BET – The total amount a player wagers on the pay lines.

LOOSE SLOT – A term for a machine with a high payout rate.

LOW-LEVEL SLOT – A machine with a chair or seat is referred to as a low-level slot.

LOW-VOLATILITY SLOT – A slot that pays out often but only on small to medium-sized bets.

M

MAJOR JACKPOT – The larger payout of a slot that offers multiple progressive jackpots.

MAXIMUM BET – The highest bet allowed at a particular slot per spin.

MULTI-LINE SLOT – A term for a slot that contains multiple paylines.

MULTI-SPIN SLOT – Specific slots that have up to 9 reel sets instead of only one.

N

NEAR MISS – When a player misses a win by only one symbol.

NICKEL SLOTS – Slots that are played only with a denomination of a nickel (5 cents).

NUDGE – A button found on some slots that allow the player to push a reel up or down.

NUMBER SYMBOLS – Symbols that pay the least and are commonly represented by 10, J, Q, K, and A.

O

ONE-ARMED BANDIT – One of the most popular slang terms for a slot machine.

ONE LINER – A game that only has one reel.

ONESIES – A slang term for playing with only one credit or coin per spin.

P

PAYLINE – The payout of each game depends on the pattern of symbols that must be matched.

PAYTABLE – A table displayed on slots that show all the possible payouts and bonuses.

PENNY SLOT – Slots that are played with the lowest denomination of just a penny (1 cent).

PICK TO WIN – A bonus game offered by some slots that is similar to a pick and match game.

POKIES – An Australian slang term for slot machines.

PROGRESSIVE JACKPOT – A jackpot that increases over time.

PROGRESSIVE SLOT – Refers to interlinked slots that offer a progressive jackpot.

Q

QUARTER SLOTS – Slots that are played with only a denomination of a quarter (25 cents).

R

RAINING – When a slot machine pays out and it sounds like rain.

REELS – Rotating barrels that contain the game symbols that must be matched.

ROLL-UP – A suspenseful sound made by a machine when a player wins.

S

SCATTER SYMBOL – A symbol that doesn’t need to be in any order or combination in a spin.

SELECT LINES – The number of selected paylines in one game.

SHORT WIN – A win that doesn’t pay out due to a low denomination bet.

SKILL-BASED GAME – A common bonus round that resembles a video game.

SLOT CLUB – A rewards club for players in a casino or online.

SLOT TALK – When players exchange information about a game with a host.

STREAKY SLOTS – A slot that is referred to as both ‘hot’ and ‘cold’.

STRAIGHT MULTIPLIER – A type of slot that can have all winning matches triggered by a single coin.

T

TAKE – An assumption that slots have a cycle during which they will pay out after enough bets.

TICKET – A printed ticket that players receive that can be exchanged for their winnings.

TILT – A term for a malfunction or an error in a live or online slot machine.

TOTAL BET – The total amount of bets a player makes at a specific machine.

TWO LINER – A type of slot that has two reels allowing for a potential double payout.

TASTE – A small payout from a slot and the assumption that it will keep the player spinning.

V

VOLATILITY – A reference to how difficult or easy it is to hit a jackpot in a specific game.

VIDEO SLOTS – A type of slot with an electronic display that doesn’t contain mechanical reels.

VIRTUAL REEL TECHNOLOGY – A system that allows for more losing and fewer winning matches.

W

WELL – The tray into which coins fall after a payout.

WILD SYMBOL – A game symbol that can be used as a substitute for others in a winning pattern.

WINNING COMBINATION – A pattern of symbols that, when matched, pays out a win.

Z

ZIGZAG – A winning combination that forms a zigzag pattern on the reels.

#

234 PAYLINES – A special game with a high number of paylines that cover every line.

3-REEL SLOTS – A slot game that features 3 reels.

5-REEL SLOTS – A slot game that features 5 reels.

Time to Spin

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The gaming industry is big business in the U.S., contributing an estimated US$240 billion to the economy each year, while generating $38 billion in tax revenues and supporting 17 million jobs.

What people may not realize is that slot machines, video poker machines and other electronic gaming devices make up the bulk of all that economic activity. At casinos in Iowa and South Dakota, for example, such devices have contributed up to 89 percent of annual gaming revenue.

Spinning-reel slots in particular are profit juggernauts for most casinos, outperforming table games like blackjack, video poker machines and other forms of gambling.

What about slot machines makes them such reliable money makers? In part, it has something to do with casinos’ ability to hide their true price from even the savviest of gamblers.

The price of a slot

An important economic theory holds that when the price of something goes up, demand for it tends to fall.

But that depends on price transparency, which exists for most of the day-to-day purchases we make. That is, other than visits to the doctor’s office and possibly the auto mechanic, we know the price of most products and services before we decide to pay for them.

Slots may be even worse than the doctor’s office, in that most of us will never know the true price of our wagers. Which means the law of supply and demand breaks down.

Casino operators usually think of price in terms of what is known as the average or expected house advantage on each bet placed by players. Basically, it’s the long-term edge that is built into the game. For an individual player, his or her limited interaction with the game will result in a “price” that looks a lot different.

For example, consider a game with a 10 percent house advantage – which is fairly typical. This means that over the long run, the game will return 10 percent of all wagers it accepts to the casino that owns it. So if it accepts $1 million in wagers over 2 million spins, it would be expected to pay out $900,000, resulting in a casino gain of $100,000. Thus from the management’s perspective, the “price” it charges is the 10 percent it expects to collect from gamblers over time.

Individual players, however, will likely define price as the cost of the spin. For example, if a player bets $1, spins the reels and receives no payout, that’ll be the price – not 10 cents.

So who is correct? Both, in a way. While the game has certainly collected $1 from the player, management knows that eventually 90 cents of that will be dispensed to other players.

A player could never know this, however, given he will only be playing for an hour or two, during which he may hope a large payout will make up for his many losses and then some. And at this rate of play it could take years of playing a single slot machine for the casino’s long-term advantage to become evident.

Short-term vs. long-term

This difference in price perspective is rooted in the gap between the short-term view of the players and the long-term view of management. This is one of the lessons I’ve learned in my more than three decades in the gambling industry analyzing the performance of casino games and as a researcher studying them.

Let’s consider George, who just got his paycheck and heads to the casino with $80 to spend over an hour on a Tuesday night. There are basically three outcomes: He loses everything, hits a considerable jackpot and wins big, or makes or loses a little but manages to walk away before the odds turn decidedly against him.

Of course, the first outcome is far more common than the other two – it has to be for the casino to maintain its house advantage. The funds to pay big jackpots come from frequent losers (who get wiped out). Without all these losers, there can be no big winners – which is why so many people play in the first place.

Specifically, the sum of all the individual losses is used to fund the big jackpots. Therefore, to provide enticing jackpots, many players must lose all of their Tuesday night bankroll.

What is less obvious to many is that the long-term experience rarely occurs at the player level. That is, players rarely lose their $80 in a uniform manner (that is, a rate of 10 percent per spin). If this were the typical slot experience, it would be predictably disappointing. But it would make it very easy for a player to identify the price he’s paying.

Raising the price

Ultimately, the casino is selling excitement, which is comprised of hope and variance. Even though a slot may have a modest house advantage from management’s perspective, such as 4 percent, it can and often does win all of George’s Tuesday night bankroll in short order.

This is primarily due to the variance in the slot machine’s pay table – which lists all the winning symbol combinations and the number of credits awarded for each one. While the pay table is visible to the player, the probability of producing each winning symbol combination remains hidden. Of course, these probabilities are a critical determinant of the house advantage – that is, the long-term price of the wager.

This rare ability to hide the price of a good or service offers an opportunity for casino management to raise the price without notifying the players – if they can get away with it.

Casino managers are under tremendous pressure to maximize their all-important slot revenue, but they do not want to kill the golden goose by raising the “price” too much. If players are able to detect these concealed price increases simply by playing the games, then they may choose to play at another casino.

This terrifies casino operators, as it is difficult and expensive to recover from perceptions of a high-priced slot product.

Getting away with it

Consequently, many operators resist increasing the house advantages of their slot machines, believing that players can detect these price shocks.

Our new research, however, has found that increases in the casino advantage have produced significant gains in revenue with no signs of detection even by savvy players. In multiple comparisons of two otherwise identical reel games, the high-priced games produced significantly greater revenue for the casino. These findings were confirmed in a second study.

Further analysis revealed no evidence of play migration from the high-priced games, despite the fact their low-priced counterparts were located a mere 3 feet away.

Importantly, these results occurred in spite of the egregious economic disincentive to play the high-priced games. That is, the visible pay tables were identical on both the high- and low-priced games, within each of the two-game pairings. The only difference was the concealed probabilities of each payout.

Armed with this knowledge, management may be more willing to increase prices. And for price-sensitive gamblers, reel slot machines may become something to avoid.