Page 22 - May 2005 • Southern California Gaming Guide

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
Page 22
May 2005
Those Wonderful New Penny Slots by Bill Burton
I am often asked about the latest innovations hitting the casino oors and lately, the hottest trend in the gaming industry is penny slot machines. You can read about some of these incredible new games in this issue.
But don’t think you are going to be playing pennies for pennies.
Names can be deceiving and nding the right name for a product can be the di erence between its success or failure. Part of this is due to the fact that we tend to associate mental images or feelings to words when we hear them.
Column: About Gambling with Bill Burton
e poor penny is the lowest denomination of currency in our country. It is lower than low since most people can’t even name a product or thing that can be purchased for a penny anymore.
As a society, we have gotten used to hearing about big sums of money. We speak of the national debt in trillions of dollars, and most states have billion dollar budgets (and de cits). We have become somewhat desensitized to hearing about large sums of money. In this day and age when million dollar slot jackpots are quite commonplace
machine. I saw a penny slot machine at a recent gaming show that had a maximum bet of 1,600 coins! at’s $16 a spin! (Surely a machine for the high-limit room.) While this is certainly not the average penny slot, many have 20 lines that can take up to 50 coins per line which would be $10 a spin (that is, if you
choose to play the maximum bet).
If you want to play penny slot machines, and
I’m sure you will, de nitely be aware of the cost. You will not be betting a few pennies. Don’t just automatically hit the maximum spin button or you might be in for a real surprise. Read the help screen and nd out how many coins it takes to bet on all the lines. en decide how many coins/credits you want to risk per spin. You may choose to start with
2 or 3 on each line.
In fact, many players who love the new penny
slots tell me they start out playing lower credits and only bet the maximum if and when they have won enough credits to feel OK about betting the maximum. Indeed, these new machines have a higher hit frequency—increasing your fun—even though you might win back less than your initial wager on a spin. If you get ahead, you can increase the number of coins you play per line. If you are losing, you can go back to a single coin per line.
e new penny slot machines can be great fun to play. Just remember even a penny has value. e casinos know this, and you should, too. Remember even though they are penny slots you can still win or lose big dollars.
Until next time, remember: “Luck comes and goes... nickel games increased, KnowledgeStaysForever.”
and winners of poker tournaments become instant millionaires, it’s hard to think of the penny as having much value.
But slot makers and casinos have discovered how valuable pennies can really be. In fact they have found that pennies really equal pro ts, and can enrich playing time.
“...the cost of playing maximum bet or coins per
spin on the new penny slot games can often far exceed playing maximum
could be played on slot machines had increased. Video slots could take so
many coins per spin that it became cost prohibitive for many players to play maximum coins at the twenty- ve cent level, so the denomination of coins dropped down to a nickel.
When we hear about
penny slot machines the rst thing that comes to mind is the image of sitting down and inserting a few coppers—“Abe Lincolns”—into a slot machine and spinning the wheels in hopes of winning a dollar or two. Nothing could be further from the truth.
e new penny slots are multi-line video machines that can accept many coins per line. Over the last
spin. Some of these games again became too expensive for the average player to play maximum coins even at the nickel level. So the next logical step was to drop the denomination down again to the penny.
But the cost of playing the maximum bet or coins per spin on the new penny slot games can often far exceed playing maximum coins in a three-coin dollar
machine.”
slot makers wanted to make games that would take even more coins per
Bill Burton is the Casino Gambling Guide and columnist for the Internet portal About.com. He also writes for several national gambling publications. He is the author of Get the Edge at Low Limit Texas Hold’em available for $15 postage paid. Send checks to Bill Burton, PO Box 310299, Newington, CT 06131-0299 or online at www.billburton.com. Bill Burton’s website is located at: http://casinogambling.about.com.
Join Bill Burton at the Gambler’s Jamboree on May 21 and May 22 at Casino Windsor in Ontario, Canada (minutes from Detroit!) For more information call 1-800-944-0406 or online at www.gamblersjamboree.com.
few years slot makers have been adding more lines to their games. ey have also increased the number of coins that can be played on each line. is innovation was due primarily to the introduction of the “coinless machines” with bill acceptors and ticket-out payo s. is technology did away with the need to have a hopper lled with actual coins. It’s amazing how quickly players accepted coinless slots, and now prefer them!
A few years ago, we saw a surge of nickel slots as the number of coins that
coins in a three-coin dollar As the popularity of the