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SLOT RETURNS AND PAYBACKS
When a casino slot manager orders a new machine, he or she has to make three decisions - the theme (I’ve seen everything from Wheel of Fortune to Elvis to Star Trek), the denomination (pennies, nickels, quarters, etc.), and the payback. He or she puts in an order, and the machine arrives preprogrammed to these specifications.
Depending on the jurisdiction, slot machines can pay back anywhere from 85 to 100 percent (and in very, very rare cases, more) of every dollar wagered. So if a slot machine is set to pay back 93 percent, that means that for every $100 fed into it, it will return $93 . . . over the next 10 million slots pulls. Naturally you can’t expect to put in $100 and have it give you exactly $93. Sometimes you’ll wager several hundred dollars before you get any money back, and sometimes customers put in $20 and hit a big jackpot right away. But over the course of a year, when the numbers are analyzed, it will even out to be about $93 for every $100 put through the machine.
