Live Slot Tournaments: How to maximize your odds of winning.
Live slot machine tournaments are a perfect opportunity to gain maximum entertain, and maximum value, from these traditionally thieving casino games. In land-based casinos, slots are not known for their high yield to players; quite the opposite. But tournament style play can be very rewarding.
The key to winning live slots events is to be ready, be quick, and avoid distractions like the plague. We’ll explain this more in a moment. First, let’s take a look at your typical slot tournament structure.
Live Slot Tournaments in a Nutshell
Casinos love to host tournaments on slot machines. It brings in a large crowd, ensures a lot of entertainment to be had, and gives them an opportunity to showcase new games. Many casinos will use tournaments to promote loyalty, inviting their regulars to partake in free events. If not free, most slot tournaments will have a low price tag to enter, with the cost of entries making up the prize pool.
Although the structure can vary from one venue to the next, here’s how it usually goes. The casino will have a separate room, or roped off section, containing all the slots in the tournament. Participants will be assigned to a machine and given 1,000 credits to play. Each spin of the reels will cost 5 credits (give or take). A time limit is set, usually 20 minutes.
All players begin at the same time. Credits are removed from the starting amount with each spin. All credits that are won are recorded in a different area on the machine. Once the 20 minutes is up, all machines instantly lock. At this point, the player with the most credits in their win column wins the tournament.
Maximum Odds of Winning Slot Tournaments
Tournaments are nothing like singular play on slot machines. Don’t bother reading the pay table. Don’t try switching up your bet size. Most importantly, don’t waste time looking at the symbols or combinations to understand the results of a spin. Max bet—go, go, go!
Any player with experience in singular and tournament style slot play has probably noticed that the payouts are more generous during a tourney, too. This is because casinos have separate microchips for standard play and tournament play. The machines need to be able to display credits and winnings separately; not pay out a redeemable ticket voucher. And since there’s a different chip for this, they can easily increase the payout percentages during tournaments.
Why would they do such a thing? There are a few reasons. To make it more fun for the players, and no doubt to convince players that slot machines pay better than they really do in standard play mode.
Because of the higher RTP, the dominant factor in winning a live slot machine tournament is speed. Luck will play a role, of course, but getting in the most spins possible in the time allotted—that is the ultimate key to success. It’s all about timing out your press of the Max Bet button. Hitting it the moment the next spin becomes available will maximize the number of spins you’re able to get in before time is up.
At the same time, be especially careful not to let anything distract you from your rapid pressing of that button. Don’t let curiosity get the better of you, allowing your eyes to wonder to the next machine. Only your score matters, and only when the time is up.
