In the beginning of slots, players dropped coins into machines to activate them. Then came the bill validators and credit meters that allowed players to think of their wagers as credits instead of physical cash. It also made it easier to blur the line between playing for real money and gambling for fun. As a result, forces of morality and the clergy often opposed slot machine operations.
Unlike traditional mechanical slots, which have a fixed number of symbols and stop locations on each reel, modern electronic machines can assign different odds to each symbol on multiple reels. That’s because microprocessors in modern slots can weight the odds of a particular symbol by determining how many stops it has on each digital reel. Typically, lower paying symbols will have more stops than higher paying ones, and that makes it less likely to line them up.
As a result, modern electronic slot machines can return more of the money put into them to players than mechanical slots. However, they can still vary widely in their payout rates. Physical casinos, for example, generally pay out more jackpots during the evening because they have a higher footfall and more money being played.
As with all casino games, advantage plays do exist, but they require careful consideration of the amount of energy and cost required to figure them out versus the potential profit. That’s why some enterprising online individuals claim to have figured out various game theme loopholes and share them openly.