Commonly Used Terms in Playing Slot Machines

Playing the slot machines is easy. Right now, it has become one of the more popular casino games that it accounts for around 70 percent of casino revenues. Some casinos would even say that it may account for up to 80 percent of its revenue. It is especially popular for first time casino players.

For neophytes, knowing a few terms when playing slot machines is helpful in understanding how it works,

The Arm is the lever that is traditionally found on the right side of the machine. This is the basis for the slot machine to be called the one armed bandit. The arm is pulled to activate the reel which moves the symbols that you seen in front. The lining up of the symbols would indicate whether a player wins or not. Nowadays, there are slot machines that have a button in place of the lever to start playing but some still retain a functional lever.

A row of slot machines is referred to as a Bank. In cases where the slot machines are arranged in a circle or oval pattern, then they are referred to as a Carousel instead of a bank.

A Coin Hopper is where the coins that are available for payouts are kept while a player continues paying on the slot machine. A player may retrieve his payout by pressing the cash out button and collecting his winnings in the coin tray. However, the coin hopper only has a limited amount that it can hold. Once this amount is reached, the extra coins that come in are dropped into the Drop Bucket, for lower denomination slot machines, or Drop Box, for higher denomination ones.

The Call Attendant is the person who takes care of the operation of the slot machines. Whenever there is a need for a hand payout, then the call attendant is the person to see. Sometimes a call attendant is also called a Change Person since they also change a player's cash into tokens or coins for playing on the slot machine.

A Hand Payout occurs when the amount won by a player exceeds the maximum value that was pre-set into the slot machine or when it is a short pay. A Short Pay occurs when a particular slot machine does not have enough coins to cover the payout amount of the player. This could happen when the machine has been making payouts earlier to other players as well and his stash has been tapped out.

Found on the slot's screen, the Credit Meter tells the player regarding the amount of coin or credits available for play.

Tilt may be one of the more popular terms related to playing the slot machine. This term generally refers to any mechanical problem that the machine may experience. Luckily, the electronic slot machines already have memory cards that allow it to remember if a player is owed a payout when the mechanical problem occurred.

The RNG or the Random Number Generator makes it possible for each player to have the same odds of winning as the next person playing the slot machine. It is a computer chip whose function is to select random numbers or symbols to come out during play. The RNG allows the possible combinations to cycle even when no one is playing the machine.

These basic slot machine terminologies may help you have a better insight about playing the slots. However, the best teacher is still experience - try out playing the one-armed bandit.