Instead, higher paying symbols will typically appear only once or twice on each reel, while more common symbols earning a more frequent payout will appear many times. Video slot machines usually make more extensive use of multimedia , and can feature more elaborate minigames as bonuses.

Modern cabinets typically use flat-panel displays , but cabinets using larger curved screens which can provide a more immersive experience for the player are not uncommon.

Video slot machines typically encourage the player to play multiple "lines": rather than simply taking the middle of the three symbols displayed on each reel, a line could go from top left to the bottom right or any other pattern specified by the manufacturer.

As each symbol is equally likely, there is no difficulty for the manufacturer in allowing the player to take as many of the possible lines on offer as desired — the long-term return to the player will be the same. The difference for the player is that the more lines they play, the more likely they are to get paid on a given spin because they are betting more.

To avoid seeming as if the player's money is simply ebbing away whereas a payout of credits on a single-line machine would be bets and the player would feel they had made a substantial win, on a line machine, it would only be five bets and not seem as significant , manufacturers commonly offer bonus games, which can return many times their bet.

The player is encouraged to keep playing to reach the bonus: even if they are losing, the bonus game could allow them to win back their losses.

This is known as the "theoretical payout percentage" or RTP, "return to player". The minimum theoretical payout percentage varies among jurisdictions and is typically established by law or regulation. The winning patterns on slot machines — the amounts they pay and the frequencies of those payouts — are carefully selected to yield a certain fraction of the money paid to the "house" the operator of the slot machine while returning the rest to the players during play.

Within some EGM development organizations this concept is referred to simply as "par". Play now! A slot machine's theoretical payout percentage is set at the factory when the software is written.

Changing the payout percentage after a slot machine has been placed on the gaming floor requires a physical swap of the software or firmware , which is usually stored on an EPROM but may be loaded onto non-volatile random access memory NVRAM or even stored on CD-ROM or DVD , depending on the capabilities of the machine and the applicable regulations.

Based on current technology, this is a time-consuming process and as such is done infrequently. Other jurisdictions, including Nevada, randomly audit slot machines to ensure that they contain only approved software. Historically, many casinos, both online and offline, have been unwilling to publish individual game RTP figures, making it impossible for the player to know whether they are playing a "loose" or a "tight" game.

Since the turn of the century, some information regarding these figures has started to come into the public domain either through various casinos releasing them—primarily this applies to online casinos—or through studies by independent gambling authorities. The return to player is not the only statistic that is of interest.

The probabilities of every payout on the pay table is also critical. For example, consider a hypothetical slot machine with a dozen different values on the pay table. However, the probabilities of getting all the payouts are zero except the largest one. Also, most people would not win anything, and having entries on the paytable that have a return of zero would be deceptive.

As these individual probabilities are closely guarded secrets, it is possible that the advertised machines with high return to player simply increase the probabilities of these jackpots.

The added advantage is that these large jackpots increase the excitement of the other players. The table of probabilities for a specific machine is called the Probability and Accounting Report or PAR sheet, also PARS commonly understood as Paytable and Reel Strips.

Mathematician Michael Shackleford revealed the PARS for one commercial slot machine, an original International Gaming Technology Red White and Blue machine.

This game, in its original form, is obsolete, so these specific probabilities do not apply. He only published the odds after a fan of his sent him some information provided on a slot machine that was posted on a machine in the Netherlands.

The psychology of the machine design is quickly revealed. There are 13 possible payouts ranging from to 2, The payout comes every 8 plays.

The payout comes every 33 plays, whereas the payout comes every plays. Most players assume the likelihood increases proportionate to the payout. The one mid-size payout that is designed to give the player a thrill is the payout.

It is programmed to occur an average of once every plays. The payout is high enough to create excitement, but not high enough that it makes it likely that the player will take their winnings and abandon the game.

In contrast the payout occurs only on average of once every 6, plays. The player who continues to feed the machine is likely to have several mid-size payouts, but unlikely to have a large payout. He quits after he is bored or has exhausted his bankroll. Despite their confidentiality, occasionally a PAR sheet is posted on a website.

They have limited value to the player, because usually a machine will have 8 to 12 different possible programs with varying payouts. In addition, slight variations of each machine e.

The casino operator can choose which EPROM chip to install in any particular machine to select the payout desired.

The result is that there is not really such a thing as a high payback type of machine, since every machine potentially has multiple settings.

From October to February , columnist Michael Shackleford obtained PAR sheets for five different nickel machines; four IGT games Austin Powers , Fortune Cookie , Leopard Spots and Wheel of Fortune and one game manufactured by WMS; Reel 'em In.

Without revealing the proprietary information, he developed a program that would allow him to determine with usually less than a dozen plays on each machine which EPROM chip was installed.

Then he did a survey of over machines in 70 different casinos in Las Vegas. He averaged the data, and assigned an average payback percentage to the machines in each casino. The resultant list was widely publicized for marketing purposes especially by the Palms casino which had the top ranking.

One reason that the slot machine is so profitable to a casino is that the player must play the high house edge and high payout wagers along with the low house edge and low payout wagers.

Other bets have a higher house edge, but the player is rewarded with a bigger win up to thirty times in craps. The player can choose what kind of wager he wants to make. A slot machine does not afford such an opportunity.

Theoretically, the operator could make these probabilities available, or allow the player to choose which one so that the player is free to make a choice.

However, no operator has ever enacted this strategy. Different machines have different maximum payouts, but without knowing the odds of getting the jackpot, there is no rational way to differentiate. In many markets where central monitoring and control systems are used to link machines for auditing and security purposes, usually in wide area networks of multiple venues and thousands of machines, player return must usually be changed from a central computer rather than at each machine.

A range of percentages is set in the game software and selected remotely. In , the Nevada Gaming Commission began working with Las Vegas casinos on technology that would allow the casino's management to change the game, the odds, and the payouts remotely.

The change cannot be done instantaneously, but only after the selected machine has been idle for at least four minutes. After the change is made, the machine must be locked to new players for four minutes and display an on-screen message informing potential players that a change is being made.

Some varieties of slot machines can be linked together in a setup sometimes known as a "community" game. The most basic form of this setup involves progressive jackpots that are shared between the bank of machines, but may include multiplayer bonuses and other features.

In some cases multiple machines are linked across multiple casinos. In these cases, the machines may be owned by the manufacturer, who is responsible for paying the jackpot. The casinos lease the machines rather than owning them outright.

Casinos in New Jersey, Nevada, Louisiana, Arkansas, and South Dakota now offer multi-state progressive jackpots, which now offer bigger jackpot pools. Mechanical slot machines and their coin acceptors were sometimes susceptible to cheating devices and other scams.

One historical example involved spinning a coin with a short length of plastic wire. The weight and size of the coin would be accepted by the machine and credits would be granted.

However, the spin created by the plastic wire would cause the coin to exit through the reject chute into the payout tray.

This particular scam has become obsolete due to improvements in newer slot machines. Another obsolete method of defeating slot machines was to use a light source to confuse the optical sensor used to count coins during payout. Modern slot machines are controlled by EPROM computer chips and, in large casinos, coin acceptors have become obsolete in favor of bill acceptors.

These machines and their bill acceptors are designed with advanced anti-cheating and anti-counterfeiting measures and are difficult to defraud. Early computerized slot machines were sometimes defrauded through the use of cheating devices, such as the "slider", "monkey paw", "lightwand" and "the tongue".

Skill stop buttons predated the Bally electromechanical slot machines of the s and s. They appeared on mechanical slot machines manufactured by Mills Novelty Co. as early as the mid s. These machines had modified reel-stop arms, which allowed them to be released from the timing bar, earlier than in a normal play, simply by pressing the buttons on the front of the machine, located between each reel.

These enabled the player to stop each reel, allowing a degree of "skill" so as to satisfy the New Jersey gaming laws of the day which required that players were able to control the game in some way. The original conversion was applied to approximately 50 late-model Bally slot machines.

Because the typical machine stopped the reels automatically in less than 10 seconds, weights were added to the mechanical timers to prolong the automatic stopping of the reels. By the time the New Jersey Alcoholic Beverages Commission ABC had approved the conversion for use in New Jersey arcades, the word was out and every other distributor began adding skill stops.

The machines were a huge hit on the Jersey Shore and the remaining unconverted Bally machines were destroyed as they had become instantly obsolete. In the United States, the public and private availability of slot machines is highly regulated by state governments. Many states have established gaming control boards to regulate the possession and use of slot machines and other form of gaming.

Nevada is the only state that has no significant restrictions against slot machines both for public and private use. In New Jersey , slot machines are only allowed in hotel casinos operated in Atlantic City. Several states Indiana , Louisiana and Missouri allow slot machines as well as any casino-style gambling only on licensed riverboats or permanently anchored barges.

Since Hurricane Katrina , Mississippi has removed the requirement that casinos on the Gulf Coast operate on barges and now allows them on land along the shoreline. Delaware allows slot machines at three horse tracks; they are regulated by the state lottery commission.

In Wisconsin, bars and taverns are allowed to have up to five machines. These machines usually allow a player to either take a payout, or gamble it on a double-or-nothing "side game". The territory of Puerto Rico places significant restrictions on slot machine ownership, but the law is widely flouted and slot machines are common in bars and coffeeshops.

In regards to tribal casinos located on Native American reservations , slot machines played against the house and operating independently from a centralized computer system are classified as "Class III" gaming by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act IGRA , and sometimes promoted as "Vegas-style" slot machines.

As a workaround, some casinos may operate slot machines as "Class II" games—a category that includes games where players play exclusively against at least one other opponent and not the house, such as bingo or any related games such as pull-tabs.

In these cases, the reels are an entertainment display with a pre-determined outcome based on a centralized game played against other players. Under the IGRA, Class II games are regulated by individual tribes and the National Indian Gaming Commission , and do not require any additional approval if the state already permits tribal gaming.

Some historical race wagering terminals operate in a similar manner, with the machines using slots as an entertainment display for outcomes paid using the parimutuel betting system, based on results of randomly-selected, previously-held horse races with the player able to view selected details about the race and adjust their picks before playing the credit, or otherwise use an auto-bet system.

Alaska , Arizona , Arkansas , Kentucky , Maine , Minnesota , Nevada , Ohio , Rhode Island , Texas , Utah , Virginia , and West Virginia place no restrictions on private ownership of slot machines.

Conversely, in Connecticut , Hawaii , Nebraska , South Carolina , and Tennessee , private ownership of any slot machine is completely prohibited. The remaining states allow slot machines of a certain age typically 25—30 years or slot machines manufactured before a specific date.

The Government of Canada has minimal involvement in gambling beyond the Canadian Criminal Code. In essence, the term "lottery scheme" used in the code means slot machines, bingo and table games normally associated with a casino.

These fall under the jurisdiction of the province or territory without reference to the federal government; in practice, all Canadian provinces operate gaming boards that oversee lotteries, casinos and video lottery terminals under their jurisdiction.

OLG piloted a classification system for slot machines at the Grand River Raceway developed by University of Waterloo professor Kevin Harrigan, as part of its PlaySmart initiative for responsible gambling. Inspired by nutrition labels on foods, they displayed metrics such as volatility and frequency of payouts.

In Ontario, 4 April saw the re-introduction of the online gambling market. This became possible when the Canadian Criminal Code was amended to allow single-event wagering August In Australia "Poker Machines" or "pokies" [39] are officially termed "gaming machines".

In Australia, gaming machines are a matter for state governments, so laws vary between states. Gaming machines are found in casinos approximately one in each major city , pubs and clubs in some states usually sports, social, or RSL clubs.

The first Australian state to legalize this style of gambling was New South Wales , when in they were made legal in all registered clubs in the state. There are suggestions that the proliferation of poker machines has led to increased levels of problem gambling ; however, the precise nature of this link is still open to research.

In the Australian Productivity Commission reported that nearly half Australia's gaming machines were in New South Wales. Australia ranks 8th in total number of gaming machines after Japan, U. This primarily is because gaming machines have been legal in the state of New South Wales since ; over time, the number of machines has grown to 97, at December , including the Australian Capital Territory.

By way of comparison, the U. State of Nevada, which legalised gaming including slots several decades before N. This new law also banned machines with an automatic play option. All gaming machines in Victoria have an information screen accessible to the user by pressing the "i key" button, showing the game rules, paytable, return to player percentage, and the top and bottom five combinations with their odds.

These combinations are stated to be played on a minimum bet usually 1 credit per line, with 1 line or reel played, although some newer machines do not have an option to play 1 line; some machines may only allow maximum lines to be played , excluding feature wins. Western Australia has the most restrictive regulations on electronic gaming machines in general, with the Crown Perth casino resort being the only venue allowed to operate them, [43] and banning slot machines with spinning reels entirely.

This policy had an extensive political history, reaffirmed by the Royal Commission into Gambling: [44]. Poker machine playing is a mindless, repetitive and insidious form of gambling which has many undesirable features. It requires no thought, no skill or social contact. The odds are never about winning.

Watching people playing the machines over long periods of time, the impressionistic evidence at least is that they are addictive to many people.

Historically poker machines have been banned from Western Australia and we consider that, in the public interest, they should stay banned. While Western Australian gaming machines are similar to the other states', they do not have spinning reels. Therefore, different animations are used in place of the spinning reels in order to display each game result.

Nick Xenophon was elected on an independent No Pokies ticket in the South Australian Legislative Council at the South Australian state election on 2. Independent candidate Andrew Wilkie , an anti-pokies campaigner, was elected to the Australian House of Representatives seat of Denison at the federal election.

Wilkie was one of four crossbenchers who supported the Gillard Labor government following the hung parliament result. Wilkie immediately began forging ties with Xenophon as soon as it was apparent that he was elected. During the COVID pandemic of , every establishment in the country that facilitated poker machines was shut down, in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus, bringing Australia's usage of poker machines effectively to zero.

In Russia, "slot clubs" appeared quite late, only in Before , slot machines were only in casinos and small shops, but later slot clubs began appearing all over the country. The most popular and numerous were "Vulcan " and "Taj Mahal".

Since , when gambling establishments were banned, almost all slot clubs disappeared and are found only in a specially authorized gambling zones. Slot machines are covered by the Gambling Act , which superseded the Gaming Act Slot machines in the U. are categorised by definitions produced by the Gambling Commission as part of the Gambling Act of Casinos built under the provisions of the Act are allowed to house either up to twenty machines of categories B—D or any number of C—D machines.

As defined by the Act, large casinos can have a maximum of one hundred and fifty machines in any combination of categories B—D subject to a machine-to-table ratio of ; small casinos can have a maximum of eighty machines in any combination of categories B—D subject to a machine-to-table ratio of Counter Counter Update Counter.

Search Jackpots Show Map. Where would you like to play? What would you like to play? All games Megabucks Money Madness Money Mania Poker Powerbucks Quartermania TV Hits Wheel of Fortune. TOP JACKPOTS NEAR YOU Distance based on. Megabucks in Native American. TV Hits in Michigan. TV Hits in Colorado.

Wheel of Fortune Deluxe in Interstate WAP. Money Madness in Arizona. Powerbucks in Canada. Wheel of Fortune - 25¢ in Interstate WAP.

Money Madness in Native American. TV Hits in Mississippi. Wheel of Fortune - 25¢ in Mississippi. No popups, no download, no registration, no B.

One click and you're in. Megabucks jackpots are the biggest because it's a progressive slot, meaning that the jackpot grows as people play it, and because it's networked across the whole state of Nevada, so play on any Megabucks in the whole state drives the jackpot higher.

It's kind of like a slot machine version of a state lottery. I have all the Megabucks jackpot history below. advertisement If you play for real money, be sure to follow the rules for gambling smart. In Nov. May I mention that Easy Vegas is the only site on the whole damn Internet that has this complete list?

I won't be adding any new jackpots, since this page was never very popular and tracking down all the jackpots took a lot of time. However, if you know of any I missed from the period I covered , please let me know and be sure to include a link to the article about it; I can't report a jackpot without evidence.

LVOL has a list of Wheel of Fortune jackpots going back to