... when table games have a lower house edge?
Those who play slots do so for a number of reasons, but one reason stands out from the rest. No other game gives you the opportunity to turn one small bet into a life-altering win. Standard table games (which have no progressive bets or bonuses built in) don't give you the chance to score big on a single bet. When's the last time an average player walked away from the blackjack table $500,000 richer? But this seems to happen all the time to people who play slots. Players know, however, that many table games have a lower house edge than slots, so what's happening here?
Imagine you play slots with a $500,000 progressive jackpot, which you can win with a single dollar bet. If the machine has a 90% return rate, the house has a 10% edge. Let's say one percent of the slots return is put towards the jackpot. The payoff is pretty much 500,000 to one, and the odds of winning are 50,000,000 to 1, since the jackpot is one hundredth of the return. If the slot machine gets one hundred million spins a year, the casino can expect to pay off a jackpot every six months or so.
Compare this to a blackjack player who faces a house edge of about 0.5%. If you were an average player, you might buy in for $100 and bet in $5 increments. If you were to press your luck and play until you were $500,000 up, even if you were to consistently win, it would take you a number of years to achieve your goal. The odds of being able to accomplish this are probably closer to 10,000 to 1, which is more favorable than the slots example, except this virtually never happens. Not so when you play slots.
This happens for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the simple fact that more people are playing slots, a great number more in fact. The laws of probability will dictate that there are more wins when more people play.
More than that though, the average person can play slots and make $500,000 from $1 in one split second! Sure it's a low probability, but the most fortunate blackjack player who needs hundreds and hundreds of sessions, all winning ones, to do the same is facing not just bad odds, but a low chance of actually completing what would be required to make that large pile of cash. It would mean coming back to the casino frequently, and not stopping when you realize you're $5000 up, and still not stopping when you're $250,000 up. You can see how and why it's next to impossible for a blackjack player to reasonably win $500,000.
Again, when you play slots, even though you're only risking $1 at a time, you can still hit the jackpot. A blackjack or table player would need to be a high roller to pull in the same cash. Most would lack the incentive to continue on after winning a few thousand at the table. You would essentially need to be able to play comfortably at five thousand dollars a hand, to build up $500,000 in winnings in a reasonable length of time.
Thus, the best reason to play slots is a clear and intelligent one. Other games simply don't offer the same potential fortune. GoldenPalace.com is proud to offer the Internet's first and only $1,000,000 jackpot slot machine. Prove the table players wrong, and take a spin that could change your life.