Online slots appeal to people who live far from land-based casinos. But how likely are you to win playing slot games online for real money? Author: Shaun Stack | Last Updated: March 2020

Online slot games are popular. But if you don’t follow every possible news feed about gambling you won’t often hear about people making money from the slots.

Is the system rigged or do the online casinos not promote their winners very well?

It’s a little bit of both and something else. In other words, the picture is complicated and you should not be surprised you’re not seeing huge lists of winners every month.

Online gambling is a multibillion-dollar industry – with estimates for 2017 revenues above $45 billion. Revenues grow every year. By some estimates there are more than 2,000 licensed online casinos and possibly as many more unlicensed casinos.

People can and do win money from online slot gaming. And yet despite the size of the online gaming industry there are very few reliable statistics about the industry. Here is what you need to know about people playing online slot games.

1 – Online Gambling May Be Illegal Where You Live

The gambling sites are hosted in many countries and most of them restrict who can play in them. Technically, the legality of online gambling in the United States is complicated. Fortunately, players are not held accountable under current laws for their gaming.

You’re more likely to see a news story about a local convenience store being cited for running an illegal gaming parlor than you are to see people you know being arrested for gambling. And the same is true for online gambling.

Where the authorities are convinced illegal gambling is happening they go after the people running the games. So it’s natural they don’t draw attention to themselves.

2 – Most Americans Do Not Gamble Online

Finding good data is not easy. In June 2016 Gallup published the results of a poll about American attitudes toward gambling. 3% of respondents said they had gambled online, a rise of 1% from a poll conducted a decade earlier.

And yet the same poll found that about half of Americans play state lotteries. It’s probable that more people log into state lottery websites than play at online casinos.

Given such a small percentage of players admit to Internet gambling, there won’t be that many people coming out ahead on slot machine games.

The online casinos most likely to report American players as winners are probably the state-sanctioned casinos. But they only allow their own state residents to play on their websites and apps so their pools of winners will be very small.

3 – Slot Gaming Isn’t Profitable for Players Anyway

Every gambling expert in the world tells you that slot machine games are among the least profitable for players. The house won’t run a game that doesn’t give it an edge.

Opinions vary on how much online slot games hold back for the house edge. To complicate estimates, some online casinos are illegal copies of others, using stolen software. The games can’t be trusted.

A few US-friendly online casinos may offer very fair games but they are still slot games. You should expect your balance to run down gradually, interspersed with occasional big wins.

4 – The Kind of Game You Play Matters

Some slot machine games are more volatile than others. They may pay larger jackpots but it takes longer to get to those jackpots.

All slot machine prizes are paid out of player wagers. Whether you play an isolated slot game or a progressive game connected to other players, the house expects the prizes it pays to come out of the theoretical Return to Player.

If the house edge is 10% then the theoretical RTP is 90%. While that seems like a high number it means that the average gaming balance declines by about 10% over time. That is despite any jackpots that are paid because they expected to be part of the 90% RTP.

In any gambling game, the bigger the prize the more the wealth distribution disparity becomes apparent. Put another way, the more big winners you have the fewer winners overall you have.

The games are designed to balance out the wagers and prizes. If everyone playing roulette only bet on single numbers the realized house edge would be slightly higher than it currently is because the expected house edge on single number bets is higher than on even money bets.

In this hypothetical gaming world where only single-number bets are made, fewer players will win but they’ll win larger prizes on average.

According to the math, slot machine gaming works the same way. The mechanics of distributing big wins works differently than in roulette but the goal is still to make a profit from the wagers.

5 – Incidental Gambling Is Less Likely to Win Big Prizes

According to that Gallup survey, the American middle class (people earning $36,000 to $90,000 per year) is more likely to gamble online than the poorest or wealthiest families. The same survey also says people with some college or technical school education and people with only a 4-year degree are more likely to gamble than less educated and highly educated people.

That means you and I bear the burden of gambling. Since we’re not wealthy people we don’t have the money to gamble every day. Professional gamblers gravitate toward games of skill like blackjack and poker. Hence, most people playing the slots are playing for fun.

The dichotomy of slot gaming mechanics is that the longer you play the more money you lose; but you need to play longer to improve your chances of winning a jackpot.

If most slot game players don’t have the budget to “buy a jackpot” you’re going to hear about fewer people coming out ahead on slot machine games.

6 – It’s Not Easy to Stop Playing

Slot machine gaming is addictive for all the classic reasons. But even people who are not addicted to gambling and slot games in particular have a hard time leaving a game.

Once you fall into that semi-numbed state of mind where you keep pressing “Spin” your play resembles most other people’s playing habits.

Online slot games are designed to look and sound as much like land-based casino slot games as possible, but the online casinos have one disadvantage. When you play online in your home you’re not in a cozy, relaxing casino with hundreds of slot games ringing and dinging all around you.

While it may be easier to stop playing an online slot game because you’re bored, the game is still designed to keep you playing as long as possible.

7 – Online Casinos Don’t Make It Easy to Get Your Money

This may be the biggest factor in the equation. Experienced online players know they’ll have to be patient with the online casino payments system.

Not only are the casinos concerned about avoiding player fraud, they need to keep as much cash on hand in order to handle the throughput. Technically the online slot games are paying you money every time you win a prize. The casino is liable for that money.

Because of the difficulty American players face in depositing funds with online casinos, players shouldn’t be surprised it takes even longer to complete transactions in the opposite direction.

How often have you paid for something with a debit card and asked for a return, where the money was returned to your account as quickly as it was taken out?The banking system is already rigged to delay crediting money to people’s accounts. In an age of electronic transfers every organization charges fees and insists you wait up to 3-5 business days before receiving your money.

This environment discourages people from leaving their money where they cannot get to it. The extra measures required to deposit and retrieve funds from online casino accounts are annoyances.

Some people admit in online gambling forums that they leave their money there until it’s all gone. They just play for entertainment value and not to make money.

Conclusion

The question is simple: can you make real money on online slots?

While it’s easy to walk through the math and ramble on about probabilities and predictions, the question deserves a more thorough, a more thoughtful response. Yes, surely some people are winning more than they lose. That’s the nature of the game.

Most people lose their money in slot games but it’s not always because the games are taking it. The players’ intentions and feelings are a big part of the picture. If you’re “just playing for entertainment” even though you put real money on the line, you’re less likely to care if you lose your money.

It’s all the same whether you pay $100 for a steak dinner, a concert ticket, or an evening of playing online slot games. If most players feel that way then they feel like winners even though they’re not bringing home more money than they spend.

But in all seriousness, if you’re really gambling online as a way of making money, playing the slots should be one of the last choices on your list.

About the Author Shaun Stack Editor Shaun Stack, a native of the state of Kansas, has been a lifelong fan of all sports. Shaun has a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh Bradford. He has been writing for GamblingSites.org for several years, covering a wide range of topics.

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