Is there a way to estimate how much actual coin in you'll get from a deposit?

For example, if I put $300 into a quarter slot machine, I know I won't lose every single pull, so it'll be more than $300, but what is the rule of thumb?

I think it is just bank roll divided by house edge. So $300 on a 90% payback slot would be $3,000. With a small bankroll, there is large variance. A different way to say it would be if you bet $3,000 at 90% payback, you expect to lose $300.

Variance is the killer. If the machine has a very rare large jackpot, that is included in the payback percentage. Which means if you run $3 million thru the machine so you hit the grand prize jackpot, yes, you achieve the 90% payback. For shorter runs, or runs where you don't hit the jackpot, your actual payback is going to be a much lower percentage.

For example, in JOB video poker with a 99.64% return, if you don't hit a royal or straight flush, the return is reduced to 97% with perfect play. Theoretically, you have to play 40,000 hands to hit a royal, but there is a 37% chance you won't hit a royal in 40,000 hands, and a 13% chance that you won't hit a royal in 80,000 hands.

So you have a 1 in 8 chance of playing a 99.64% payback machine 80,000 times and actually getting 2% less payback.

Many years ago, upon request Stations would provide you with an annual statement of your coins in and coins out and win/loss ,broken down on a daily basis.

I think they stopped the practice .

Every machine has a - EV in the aggregate, even those which are +EV with "perfect play" by the occasional sharp player. A different player may in fact be simply rely on gaining enough value from external marketing/comps to offset the -EV from the machine play.

The maximum hold allowed in Nevada historically has been set by Gaming regulation, and it is mind-blowing how bad it can be. The reality is the market historically prevented an operator from jacking up holds to the "legal limit".

(The perception that everyone has a chance also is deemed valuable. A good example was the group of machines that were formerly offered under a "Flush Attack" format. The problem was that, given certain conditions, EVERY Flush Attack machine was +EV for a period of time. This led to mass attacks by sharks, who would occupy machines waiting for someone else to trip the "favorable conditions".)

Is this info publicly available..got a link or a place I can research this?

Yes, Nevada Gaming Regulations, including this sort of information, are publicly available.

I was writing from memory and did not go back and look the information up anew, which is why I said "historically". My recollection from years back is that a gaming machine back then could have been set to hold up to 15%, although you may want to verify that under current regs.

If you were to google for the current information, you should be able to find it quickly enough.

Nevada Gaming publishes a lot of this info, including the hold % of each casino. Most of them hold nowhere near the legal limit because they know people would stop gambling there.

Okay I will check it out.

I dont have any numbers in front of me but suspect that
most of the indian casino players WISH they could get 85perent payback.

Correct me if Im wrong but dont they tend the have MUCH worse odds overall.

I do not believe there is any way to find the hold for specific casinos for confidentiality reasons. The most detailed I have ever been able to find is by region, like Strip, downtown, Boulder Strip, Laughlin, unincorporated Clark etc.

Those numbers are not typically useful. The more video poker is played in a region, which is a favorite in the locals market and somewhat downtown, the lower the hold will be. When you see casinos say they are x% looser than the Strip, it may not mean the slots are looser, just that there are more video poker players.

The maximum permitted hold on a Nevada slot is 25% per gaming regulations. I doubt you will find any games that are worse than about half that.

You might be right, it was a few years ago that I looked at it. I remember being surprised at how low the hold was.

The only one that's close are the Megabucks machines, and I think they were separated out on the reports I saw. I think those stats are skewed because the casino doesn't actually pay out, or at least not all of it. I think they are paid by the Megabucks consortium that pools the take from all the casinos.

It's your bankroll (or play roll) divided by the house edge. A Vegas casino will have 6-15% house edge so your $300 could get you $2,000-$5,000 in play which would give you around 8,000 to 20,000 pulls or 14,000 pulls on average.

Plus, your bankroll money-wise is irrelevant. It's your bankroll bet-wise that would factor into the calculations.

I haven't played many slots but $300 for 14,000 pulls sounds like a heck of a deal. I can't be reading that right.

If each pull is 25c (which is what it is according to his $/pull calculations), that sounds reasonable, though even still I would say on the high side.

Well he said $2k-$5k in play. The maths isn't that difficult - $1 bets, 5 coins per pull, it's 400 to 1000 pulls.

My statement from Parx Casino listed coin in vs. coin out. Think I was like $226,000 in and $197,000 out last year.

Dude, that is a year's worth of mortgage payments on a $500k house.

And I still don't have the highest tier rating at Parx!

If you drop multiple houses through the coin slot they throw in a free set of steak knives!

I have seen machines in maintenance mode on the accounting page where the real hold was like 40%, even though the machine was set to 92%. Of course if the machine hits a top progressive tomorrow it could fall back into the legal range but without some big payouts, the slots hold can be ridiculous.

@Gzesh Win/loss statements should be available from any casino with player tracking cards. Stations does provide them and you can get it instantly online by logging into your player's account and finding the will/loss statement link.

I played a couple of VP sessions on my recent trip and according to my online statement the numbers were as follows:

Coin in: 11,772
Coin out 9206

Thanks, but I don't play VP, slots or even log in with a players card. The only loyalty points I get are from charge card non-gaming activity on a branded card.

I have to put $1 through a machine like every six months while logged in to keep my non-gaming points

Geez, that's more than I do in a year. Where was this?

Cosmopolitan