SLOTS! Hold percentage, win percentage. Heavy?

[grinder2017]

Hey Heavy, can you or anyone else out there explain the difference between hold percentage and win percentage? The reason I ask this question I looked at the reports from the Mississippi Gaming Commission. Last month the hold percentage on Craps was over 16% and 20% on Blackjack. How can games with such a low house edge have that much hold? Unless most players are idiot's (which may be the case from what I see)? Now on slots overall the casinos win percentage was less than 8% on all the denominations combined. Now as a 40 plus years as a BJ player and 30+ at craps I have always got the story from the Hosts that you don't get the comps from table games that you do slots and its true. I started running some play through the slots and my comps have gone from Sunday- Thursday free nights to any day including holidays plus $200 a day in food and $200 a day for the wife. By the way I already have 5 W2G's this year I may need to file Mississippi state taxes to get my money back that they held. So after 40 years thinking slots were for suckers maybe I have been the sucker?
Cheers Grinder

[realtime]

My understanding there is no way to get those taxes refunded. Google MS gambling taxes and take a look.

[grinder2017]

Realtime you are correct it is a 3% non refundable tax to the state. Dang!
Cheers
Grinder

[heavy]

The HOLD on a game is the percentage of the DROP that the house wins. We'll look at craps, for example. So they count the bank on the table at the beginning of the shift. They count all of the money dropped in the box over the the course of the shift. Then they count the money in the bank on the table at the end of the shift. A little quick math tells them how much was paid out of the bank and how much was taken in. The difference is the HOLD. That's the hold on that table for the entire shift. So this is done on every shift - 24/7/365. Every month these numbers are reported to the Gaming Commission because they like to know you're running a fair game and all that craps. They have some sort of guidelines that say the HOLD should run between . . say 16% and 23%. I used to track this on Mississippi casino all the time and the hold was CONSISTENTLY LOWER in Northern Mississippi (Mississippi tracks everything by three regions - Gulf, Middle River, and Northern as I recall - something like that) and I tracked it because a LOWER hold told me there were BETTER GAMES in that region. How could their be better games? Well, If one region had a higher hold they probably limited you on odds. They might be running 3-4-5X odds in their casinos. Maybe the hold was 5 points lower in the Northern Region. Why? With a little research I find out that all of the casinos are running 20X odds. So it was useful info for me.

The CASINOS like to look at the hold per shift per table because if the hold suddenly DROPS on one shift on one table and it continues to be lower on that shift on that table it generally means they have some sort of a loss issue on that table. It might be a poorly trained dealer who is over paying bets. Or it might be a crooked dealer who is collaborating with a player and deliberately over-paying bets, with the ill-gotten wins to be split later after the dealer gets off his shift. Or it might be a crooked boxman who's been practicing slight-of-hand magic and has learned the art of palming hundred dollar bills when he pushes them into the drop box. At any magic store you can purchase a little rubber cup attached to an elastic band that you pin to the inside of your sleeve. You palm the cup in your hand and when you have the $100 bill concealed, you stuff it into the cup and release it. It magically slips up your sleeve and out of site. Later, when you go on break you pull that hundo out and stick it in our wallet while you're in a restroom stall, then you're reset and ready to do it again. Over an eight hour shift you get six to eight breaks. Pick up an easy $600 - $800 a shift.

Now, on to slots. There was a time that if you were not a Mississippi resident, you could file to get those taxes taken out refunded to you. The great State of Mississippi got tired of that and passed a State Law plugging that loophole back about 15 years ago. Once they get their hands on the money now - you are not getting it back. Just consider it a sin tax and don't sweat it.

I did pay taxes on a $6K jackpot I hit up in - I think it was Iowa a few years back. My CPA looked at the W2G and said, "I can get you a refund on that if you want it." I said, "Hell yeah." So he filed for a refund. I think it was $175 in taxes they took out. And he got the refund. But he charged me $150 for filing for it. I netted $25. I won't tell you what I called my CPA but it started with C and ended with ucker.

Since slots are machines and everything is controlled by a computer with an RNG (and in the new machines with multiple betting levels - as many as 5 or 6 RNG's) with set hold levels - all the house has to do is spin out a report on every machine to get the numbers, compile them and send them to the State. I have no doubt they have software in place that keeps a running total on that every day.

Now, let me go back that machine with multiple RNG's in it. We'll talk about one of the most popular machines around - Dragon Link. Regardless of the "theme" you pick, you 'll find six betting levels. They might start out with a .50 cent level, a $1 level, a $1.50 level, a $2.50 level, $5 level, and a $10 level. In each one of those levels you have a choice of betting an increasing number of coins. Anywhere from 1 coin up to 10 coins per spin. So a 10 coins .50 cent spin is $5. A 2 coin $2.50 spin is also $5. and a 1 coin $5 coin is ALSO $5. But here's the secret most of you don't know. When you walk up to machine carousel you should look at all available machines and look for the machine with the highest MAJOR jackpot available. Why? Because you have as good of a chance as anyone of hitting that jackpot, and the larger that jackpot is the better the chance that you will hit it. In many casinos they set these machines so that the jackpot has to max out at a certain level - say $1000. When it hits that level it stops growing. It just sits there like a ticking timebomb until the RNG says "Jackpot." Then it drops that fireball and you win it. And yes, I have hit a major jackpot on one of these machines on a cruise ship, and another at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi.

So you've picked the machines and now you know you can play a $5 bet on three different bet levels by varying the number of coins. Here's the next secret. Each of those betting levels runs off a different RNG. The payout percentage on these machines is essentially based on the average of the six different RNG's in the machine. Each one is set to pay out at a different percentage and GENERALLY, the higher denomination you bet - the greater the possibility that you'll win. So IF you plan to play $5 a spin anyway - you might as well play 1 coin on the $5 denomination button.

Secret number 3 - and this is a BIG ONE. The Mini and Minor Jackpots CHANGE as you increase the size of the denomination you are betting. At the lowest level bet the mini may be $25. At the next denomination it may increase to $50. Then the next one may be $100, then $250, then $500, then $1000, etc. Now, I don't think it increases between the first two bet steps, but after that it goes up quickly, and the Minor increases even faster. I've hit MANY $500 and $1000 Majors playing these machines. The $1000 Major is SWEET because it's under the $1200 jackpot W2G limit. Pay me those all day.

Note that these are HIGH VOLATILITY machines. They will take all of your money in a heartbeat. When I play them it's typically with "surplus" money from a craps win. I'm looking for a lighting strike to "sweeten" my win for the day. Usually I'll stick $200 in one and give it a shot starting out at the .25 cent bet level playing $1.25 to $2.50 a pull until I hit a bonus. If I get a bonus I'll immediately step up to the next level - say the .50 cent bet level - and play $2.50 to $5.00 a spin until I hit another bonus. If I hit another bonus then I move up to the $1 level and play there until I hit a bonus, etc. I keep progressing until I hit a number I feel like it a good quitting point. As with craps, I have a win goal when I sit down. But the surplus cash I put in is a "sacrificial offering" to the slot gods. If I lose it all - no problem. I've made so much money from slots through the years that they'll never catch up with me.

[Bankerdude80]

Hey Heavy, can you or anyone else out there explain the difference between hold percentage and win percentage? The reason I ask this question I looked at the reports from the Mississippi Gaming Commission. Last month the hold percentage on Craps was over 16% and 20% on Blackjack.
Cheers Grinder

FYI. The hold percentage on craps you quote for MS holds up to the historical hold on craps in Las Vegas as well. The hold (casino take) on craps averages about 15-17% per Nevada Gaming Concussion data,