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Are Slot Machines Cursed? Or is it just your Bad Luck?

As most players know, slot machines feature designated payout percentages on what they're supposed to give back. For instance, if a slots game is programmed to offer 94% payback, the average player will get back $94 for every $100 wagered.

However, the problem with all of this is that players have no way of verifying payout percentages. Well, players could verify them if they went to great lengths by calling/emailing gaming regulators and having a big discussion with the casino. But for all practical purposes, they can't see a payout percentage in action.

This often creates mistrust in slots machines when players continue losing. These people then start to cry foul and wonder if the games have been rigged or if the machines are just cursed. And it's hard to blame somebody for thinking this way when they put $100 into a game and lose it all without winning anything beyond a couple of small payouts.

But is a drought enough to bring up conspiracy theories or curses? Let's take a look at this matter and further discuss what often happens when players keep losing in slots.

Low Win Frequency

When you play a game like baccarat, you can expect to win a good deal of the time. Sure the casino still has a long-term edge; but if you're betting on the banker hand to win, you can at least expect to correctly guess 40-50% of your wagers.

A big reason why baccarat gives players good odds of winning wagers is because you're only doubling up what you bet - save for the baccarat tie bet, which most people avoid due to the high house edge. And this is completely different from slots, where there are varying payouts.

For example, if you bet 1 coin, the available prizes that could be won include 3, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 and 5,000 coins. Obviously a slot machine can't let players win at a 40-50% clip when the prizes are this much larger than the original bet. Otherwise, they would lose massive amounts of money.

So players can lose dozens of spins in a row without even the smallest of wins. This is where the frustration of slots comes in because players keep blowing through money without getting anything in return.

Debunking Conspiracies

As we talked about before, slots players can start to wonder about being cursed when they don't win. However, the truth is that everything lies in the numbers.

You might only have a one in a million chance of winning the jackpot, so you can't count on a windfall coming any time soon. Your chances of earning the smaller payouts aren't even that good. So the key lesson in all of this is that you need to be extremely patient.

Winning in slots, or at least coming close to breaking even, takes time. Sure some players will hit a big jackpot within a day or two of playing. However, the vast majority of people won't win much money in the beginning.

So the overall point is that slots losing streaks aren't about curses or casinos cheating. Instead, they are about what odds are programmed into games and how, due to the big payouts available, slots won't frequently offer prizes.

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