Most routes to becoming a pro gambler are well known. Daily fantasy sports (DFS), card counting, poker, and sports betting are all common forms of professional gambling.

Slot machines, on the other hand, seem like the last type of gaming that would offer an opportunity to become a professional. Aren’t these the games that people mindlessly play for hours and lose lots of money? Yes, to a degree.

However, slot machines can offer a chance to win profits under the right circumstances. That said, I’ll discuss different ways to win with slots and if this career choice is ultimately worth the effort.

Slots are one of the most random games in the casino. You select your bet size, spin the reels, and hope that luck is on your side. Slot machines are great for trying to win huge payouts in an instant. But they’re not viewed as good ways to earn guarantee profits. Why you CAN’T make a living playing slots By Frank Legato. In the 29 years I’ve been writing about slots and casinos, I’ve met many professional gamblers. Some of them write in this very magazine, offering an array of tips on how to get the edge at their particular games. In all those years, though, I’ve never met a professional slot. Why you CAN’T make a living playing slots By Frank Legato. In the 29 years I’ve been writing about slots and casinos, I’ve met many professional gamblers. Some of them write in this very magazine, offering.

What Are the Different Ways to Beat Slots?

You might think the only way to beat a slot machine is by praying to the heavens. If so, you’ll be surprised to find there are actually three different ways to win with slots.

Banking Slot Machines

A banking (a.k.a. accumulator) slot machine features a bonus meter that gradually fills as one collects special symbols. A bonus feature will be triggered once the meter reaches the top.

The premise behind these games is that they entice gamblers to play longer in order to unlock bonuses. But some players don’t manage to trigger the bonus, because they either run out of time or money.

Assuming they leave, you can swoop in and take advantage. You can theoretically gain an edge with accumulator slot machines when the meter is nearly full.

What’s more is that many gamblers continue playing so that they can earn the bonus. In these cases, you may need to build up the nerve to persuade a gambler off their slot machine beforehand.

Those who engage in this practice are often referred to as slots “vultures.” They hang around games and do anything possible to get a seat when the bonus is set to come.

Therefore, you not only need the time to find nearly full meters, but also need the nerve to talk somebody off a slot.

Mystery Jackpots

A mystery slot machine offers a progressive jackpot that pays out at a specific point. For example, a game may deliver its top prize at exactly $250.

Much like with accumulator slots, some gamblers leave a mystery jackpot slot machine before it’s set to pay out. This creates another opportunity where you can gain an edge by stepping in at the right moment.

The biggest challenge in getting this advantage is knowing when to play a mystery jackpot slot. Here’s a formula via Michael “The Wizard of Odds” Shackleford for calculating a mystery game’s most-profitable point.

• Formula: t = m × (h + r) / (h + 2r)
• t = Target point
• m = Max jackpot
• r = Rise of meter (percentage of each bet that goes into the jackpot; e.g. 2%)
• h = House edge (including average value of progressive jackpot)

This formula isn’t perfect. After all, you may not know the house edge and/or jackpot contribution for the game you’re playing.

But you can at least guess these variables and come up with a reasonable target point. For example, most games see around 2% of every bet go towards funding the progressive jackpot.

Here’s an example for using these variables to determine when you’ll have an edge:

• Formula: $250 jackpot x (0.05 + 0.02 rise in meter) / (0.05 + 0.02×2) = $194.44
• You should begin playing when the jackpot reaches $194.44.

Progressive Jackpots

Progressive jackpots play a huge role in the popularity of slot machines. After all, some of these prizes can be worth seven or even eight figures.

For example, somebody won a jackpot of $21 million through Microgaming’s Mega Moolah in 2019. This prize is an exception to the norm, but it shows just how large slots jackpots can get.

You definitely can’t expect to win profits on a game with 88% payback. This RTP is as bad as it gets in the slots world.

However, Mega Moolah’s payback grows along with the jackpot. At a certain point, this slot, or any other progressive game, can feature such a large jackpot that the game itself offers over 100% payback.

Assuming you play progressive slot machines at this point, you’re theoretically earning profits. But this is a huge “theoretical,” because you’d have to actually win the jackpot at some point to eventually be profitable.

The odds of winning the biggest slots jackpots can be 1 in 10 million, or even greater. You certainly don’t have any guarantees with these games.

Playing Slots For A Living Well

Why You Should Chase Slots Profits

You can see from the above description that slots winnings aren’t easy to come by. However, you may still find this pursuit worth the effort for a few different reasons.

Make Money With Entertaining Games

Millions of people around the globe play slot machines on a daily basis for the entertainment value alone. Now, just imagine if you could also make a living while enjoying these games.

Professional slots play gives you this opportunity. You can hang out in casinos and play different slots for hours while earning a living.

Pick up Comps on the Side

The profits that you accumulate from slot machines aren’t the only benefits to this profession. You can also earn rewards on the side of your play.

You simply need to sign up for a slots club card at any casino where you gamble. From here, your bets will be comped based on each casino’s formula.

Generally speaking, you often receive 0.01% of your total bets as rewards. Remember, this money is on top of the profits that you’re already making.

Make Your Own Hours

Many people dream of working a job where they can make their own hours. Professional slots play offers this very chance.

You decide when to visit the casino and how long you want to play. You can also choose which holidays to work and which ones to enjoy.

Of course, you may have to play at the busiest hours to truly capitalize on these opportunities. But you always have the choice of when to gamble.

Visit Different Casinos

If you want to be a professional slots player, chances are that you’ll have to move to Las Vegas to do it. After all, Sin City offers the most accumulator slot machines, mystery jackpots, and progressive jackpots in the world.

Assuming you enjoy visiting different casinos anyway, then you’ll love this aspect of being a slots pro. Vegas, for example, offers well over 100 different casinos.

Not all these gaming establishments offer great opportunities to make profits. But you may include over a dozen different casinos in your rotation.

Why You Shouldn’t Try to Be a Slots Pro

Professional slots players aren’t very common. One reason why is because there are a number of downsides to this job, including the following.

Inconsistent Income

Even if you have an advantage with slot machines, you’re never guaranteed profits on a given day. You’ll have a very small edge in any game and must rely on the luck of the draw in some cases.

If you’re playing an accumulator slot with a nearly full meter, for example, you still need to collect the one to two required symbols to trigger the bonus. Sometimes, you’ll get the required symbols very quickly. Other times, you’ll have to wait and lose money in the process.

Assuming you keep playing slot machines with an advantage, then you’re going to make profits. But you never know how much you’ll earn during each day or even week.

Limited Opportunities

Accumulator slot machines used to be more common over a decade ago. However, many casinos found out that these slots caused major problems.

As covered before, vultures try to persuade gamblers off of machines with nearly full meters. Fistfights sometimes break out when vultures are too persistent or even downright rude.

Mystery jackpot games aren’t heavily prevalent in casinos either. They’re just not as popular as standard progressive jackpot slots.

Deal With Slots Vultures

Slot machine vultures are one of the ugliest parts of the trade. If you pursue accumulator bonuses, or even mystery jackpots, then you’ll be competing with these very same players.

They may harass you for infringing on their turf. Furthermore, they’ll try beating you to the punch when a favorable opportunity exists.

You may have no problem with this competition. But more competitors mean you’ll have a tougher time making profits.

You May Become a Vulture Yourself

In the end, you might discover that the only way to earn consistent profits is to become a vulture. Are you prepared to try and trick gamblers off of slot machines just so you can profit?

If the allure of being a professional slots player is that great, then you may answer “yes” to this question. On the other hand, you might hate the idea of bothering other players just to get their seat.

Conclusion

Slot machines aren’t my favorite route for trying to win gambling profits. Nevertheless, they can be beaten under the right conditions.

Banking slots, mystery jackpot machines, and progressive jackpot games can all offer an advantage. You just need to go about playing them in the correct manner.

Accumulator slot machines have meters that trigger a bonus when filled. If you continually play these games right before the meter fills, then you’ll have a long-term advantage.

Mystery jackpot games pay their top prizes at a specific point. When you play these slot machines near the payout point, then you can boost your chances of winning.

That said, accumulator slot machines and mystery progressive jackpots are the most feasible paths to winning. But they also have their downsides.

Both types of games are available in limited supply. With banking slots, you also have to worry about vultures swooping in to steal profitable opportunities.

In summary, becoming a slots pro is far from easy. But you may still consider this path if you really love slot machines and want to profit from them full time.

You can find stories about people gambling for a living. Many people play poker for a living, and it’s easy to see why. Poker doesn’t have a built in house edge; it has what amounts to a seat charge in the form of rake. Poker players aren’t trying to win the house money, they compete for other player’s money. This is different than most other forms of gambling.

You can also read about blackjack players that have learned how to count cards or find sloppy dealers that flash the value of down cards. Some of these players are able to play blackjack for a living. A small percentage of sports bettors, horse track bettors, and dog track bettors are also able to make enough money to gamble for a living.

But it’s rare to find people who can gamble for a living who play other casino games. Bob Dancer claims that he was able to play video poker for a living several years back, but even if his claim is true, many things have changed since then. It’s harder to find full pay video poker machines and casinos pay lower comp rates for video poker play.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that and I’m not trying to say that he didn’t make money playing. But I don’t know if anyone is making a living playing video poker today. It’s possible, but if there are players doing it, there aren’t very many.

A few authors claim to make money playing craps using dice control. This has always struck me as a way to sell books and training courses, but just like Dancer’s claim in video poker, I suppose a few people can use dice control. Also just like video poker, if people are successful at dice control, there aren’t very many of them.

Games like slots, roulette, baccarat, and other table games don’t have stories about gamblers playing them for a living. Does the lack of stories mean that these games are impossible to beat?

Slots are the most popular form of gambling in casinos. People love to play slots. This brings me to the reason for this article.

The Hard Truth

Before you continue, consider exactly what making a living means. Some people live on $25,000 a year, while others seem to need $50,000 or $100,000 a year. Many factors come into play when determining how much someone needs to live.

Some of the factors include:

• Where you live
• How many people you have to support, like a spouse and children
• How frugal your lifestyle is
• How much debt you have

For the purposes of this article I’m going to use $52,000 a year as the threshold for making a living. This works out to $1,000 a week. You can use any number that you want, but unless you live in an expensive area, most people can survive on this amount.

Another issue that must be considered when you think about playing slots for a living is the lack of health insurance and other benefits. Professional gamblers have to find health care and they don’t get paid time off. Health care is a serious expense for many people and it can be dangerous not to have some type of coverage.

Many young people don’t worry about the lack of health care coverage, but as you get older it often becomes a real concern. If you have to pay for health insurance it can take a big chunk out of your income. Keep this in mind when you determine how much you need to make to play slots for a living.

The hard truth is playing slots for a living is almost impossible unless you’re already wealthy and have enough money that you can afford to lose in the long run. It’s much more likely that you’re going to lose $1,000 a week than win $1,000 week playing slots.

While most slots players lose in the long run, it’s not 100% impossible to play slots for a living. But such a small percentage of players make money that the truth is that you should probably forget the idea.

Each machine is programmed to pay back a certain percentage of every dollar wagers and keep the rest for the casino. These numbers are called different names, but I call them pay back percentage and the house edge.

A slot machine’s pay back percentage is the amount of all bets returned to the player through wins on the machine. If a slot machine has a 95% pay back percentage that means that on average it gives back $95 out of every $100 wagered to the player.

If you consider this from the other angle you get the house edge. When the slot machine pays back $95 out of $100, it keeps the other $5 for profit. In other words, a machine that pays back $95 out of every $100 wagered has a 5% house edge.

When you add the house edge percentage and the pay back percentage together, they always equal 100%. This means that if you know one number you can subtract it from 100 to get the other number.

You can use these numbers to predict how much money you should win or lose over a set period of time, based on how much you bet per hour. Because the house edge is in the casino’s favor, it means that if you can’t figure out how to overcome the edge or get lucky, you’re going to lose in the long run.

Most slot machines have a payback percentage between 90 and 98%. This means the house edge is between 2 and 10%. With a house edge, it means that you lose between 2 and 10% of every dollar you run through the machine.

Here’s an example:

• You play on a slot machine that has a 98% pay back percentage, which means it has a 2% house edge. Your bet size is $2 per spin and you make 400 spins per hour. You can figure out your average loss rate, or what you can expect to lose on average per hour, by using this formula.
• Amount bet per spin times spins per hour times the house edge.
• $2 X 400 X 2% = $16

This means that if you play for 10 hours your expected loss is $160. You simply multiply the expected hourly loss times the number of hours you plan to play and you get the average expected loss.

Slots are run by computers, which use a program based on math. These programs, unless the programmers made a mistake, make sure that the underlying math principles always come true. It might take millions of spins, but the programs guarantees that the machine produces the programmed profit percentage for the casino.

The house edge and pay back percentage are long term things. This means that these percentages are realized over a long period of time. In the short term the house edge and pay back percentages vary, sometimes a great deal. But eventually the short term variance evens out and produces the correct results.

Most players can’t, and this is why it’s almost impossible to play slots for a living.

If you still want to try to play slots for a living, the following sections have additional information you need to know. Just keep in mind that even if you use every trick and strategy in your power, you still might lose money in the long run.

Finding the Pay Back Percentage of Slots

You just learned about pay back percentage and the house edge and how these things guarantee the casino a profit. So the next question is how do you find out the house edge and pay back for slot machines?

Most casino games are designed in a way that it’s fairly easy to determine the house edge and pay back percentage, or you can easily find the numbers with a quick internet search. But slots are different. The programs that run the machines have so many variables that unless you have access to the program it’s impossible to determine the house edge and pay back percentage.

Another problem is that some machines offer different pay back percentages from the manufacturer, so each casino can order their machines with the percentage they want. You can find out more about finding slot machine pay back percentages here, but the news isn’t good.

The following sections include everything I know that can help you improve your chances to win. Four of them are strategies that you can put into action yourself, and the other one is based on hope. Sadly, hope isn’t much of a strategy, but it fits in perfectly with how most people gamble. They put their money out and hope to win.

Online Bonuses

Online casinos often offer bonuses for slots players when they make a deposit. You can get 100% or more of your deposit matched with bonus money you can use to play slots. This sounds like a great way to overcome the house edge, and if the money was free it would be.

While bonus money looks like it’s free, when you read the conditions and terms associated with the bonus you find out that it’s not a simple as the casino giving you free money.

Every online slots bonus comes with rules and regulations about how you can use it, what you have to do before you can cash out your money, and if you get to keep any bonus amount when you meet the terms of the offer.

The terms vary from online casino to online casino, so it’s important to read them before you make your deposit. Some bonuses are deducted from your balance when you make a cash out request, while others can be cashed out eventually.

When you accept an online slots bonus you have to meet certain requirements. These are usually called play through requirements. A play through requirement means that you have to play the bonus amount, and sometimes the deposit amount as well, a certain number of times to clear the bonus. The requirement is usually shown as a multiple, like 25X or 50X. This means you have to make wagers totaling 25 times or 50 times the bonus, and sometimes the deposit amount.

Here’s an example:

• You sign up at an online casino that offers a 100% sign up bonus on deposits up to $250. You make a $250 deposit and get a $250 bonus. This gives you a total bankroll of $500. The terms and conditions state that you have to play the deposit and bonus amount 50 times before you can cash out.
• The total of the bonus and your deposit is $500, so you multiply this by 50 to find the total amount you have to bet. 50 X $500 = $25,000, so you have to make $25,000 worth of bets before cashing out. The best can be any size as long as the total amount reaches the limit.

Playing Slots For A Living Trust

You can use a trick at this point to get an idea of the possibility of clearing the bonus and having money left over. You can multiply the total amount you have to wager times the house edge to find the expected loss.

Using this example, if you play on a slot machine with a 5% house edge, your expected loss is $1,250. This means that usually you’re going to run out of money before you clear the bonus. The only ways to change this are to play on a machine with a lower house edge, or find bonuses that have lower play through requirements.

You also need to make sure you understand the difference between cashable bonuses and the ones that are deducted from your balance. A bonus that can’t be cashed out when you meet the playing requirements makes it unlikely you can beat the house edge.

Here’s an example if you play a slot machine with a 2% house edge, using the same bonus numbers in the last example.

$25,000 X 2% = $500. This means that your expected loss is the same as your total bankroll of $500. Even if you get lucky and don’t lose all $500, the odds of you having more than your deposit of $250 left after clearing the bonus is slim.

You should defiantly use online slots bonuses if you want to play slots. Even a bonus that’s not cashable gives you extra money to gamble with. It also gives you extra chances to hit a big jackpot, which is the only way most slots players have of getting ahead.

Slots Tournaments

Slots tournaments aren’t run at all casinos, but some casino run them from time to time, and a few run them on a regular basis. A slots tournament offers a minimum amount of play for a set entry fee and awards prizes for the top finishers.

Some casinos offer slots tournaments as a reward for a set amount of play and/or connected to their slots club program. If you can earn a free entry into a slots tournament, anything you win helps overcome the house edge on your normal slots play.

When you’re looking for a slots tournament that has an entry fee, you should look for ones that have a guaranteed prize pool. If you can find tournaments that don’t get enough entrants to cover the prize pool you can play with an edge. It won’t greatly improve your chances of finishing in the money, but when the entry fees don’t cover the prize pool it’s profitable to play.

Here’s an example:

• The casino offers a slots tournament with a guaranteed prize pool of $1,000. The entry fee is $10 and they only get 80 people to sign up. If you divide the prize pool by the number of entrants you get the average value of playing.
• In this case, the average is $12.50. Any time the average return for playing is higher than the entry fee you’re playing with an edge.

You still have to finish in the money to win some money, but if you play in enough of these types of situations you come out ahead eventually.

Playing Slots for Comps and Promotions

Every time you play slots you should be earning comps. Sign up for the slots club at your local casino and look for online casinos that have a rewards program. The casinos don’t give back enough in comps to overcome the normal house edge, but every penny you get back in comps helps lower your cost to play.

Casinos also run promotions from time to time. You might be able to find free slots play vouchers and match play coupons in the local paper or on the web site of the casino where you’re planning to ply. Promotions and coupons are a great way offset the built in house edge of the slot machines.

Getting Lucky

I hate to say it, but the only way most people can play slots for a living is to get lucky. If you’re lucky enough to hit a big jackpot sometime in your life, and are smart with the money, you can afford to play slots full time.

The only slot machines I play are the ones that offer either a progressive jackpot or ones that have a set top jackpot prize of $100,000 or higher. I know I can’t overcome the long term house edge without a big win, so I don’t waste my time on machines that can’t make a big deposit into my bank.

Getting lucky isn’t a strategy, but if you don’t put yourself in position where you have the chance to be lucky you don’t even have reason to hope. If you want to play slots for a living focus on slots with big jackpot possibilities.

Progressive Jackpots

The only way to truly play slots with an edge over the house is to play a progressive jackpot slot machine where the top prize has grown so high that it overcomes the edge. The problem with this is the same as I discussed earlier. If you don’t know the house edge you can’t determine how high the progressive jackpot has to climb before it makes the play profitable.

If you don’t know the house edge, simply play the slots that have the highest jackpots. Most casinos, both online and off, have at least one slots game with a jackpot over $1,000,000.

If you can’t find one with a jackpot over $1 million, look for the highest one you can find. A $500,000 jackpot win might not set you up financially for life, but it’s enough to help out quite a bit.

Conclusion

Playing slots for a living is a dream of many gamblers. But the truth is that it’s almost impossible to succeed. The house edge locks in a long term profit for the casinos, so very few people win.

You can use the tips and strategies on this page to give yourself the best chance to overcome the house edge, but if you want to gamble for a living your best bet is to stop playing slots and pick a different game.