Just in case you are new to playing slots Max Bet or Maximum Bet is the highest amount of coins or credits you can play in a single spin. For example most classic slots let you play up to three coins per spin - a max bet of three coins. This gets a bit more complicated with video slots - see below for details. For slot machines, the maximum bet can sometimes reach over 100 coins. The main reason why wagering the maximum amount is smart is that most slot games and video poker games tend to offer bonus payouts or jackpots to those who do so. If you can’t afford the max bet on a slot then drop down in denominations or move to a machine where the max bet is smaller and works within your bankroll. Class 2 slots aren’t really slots at all. Sometimes you’ll come across slot machines that are classified as class 2 slots. On Aristocrat's Game of Thrones machine, for example, the minimum 50-cent bet activates the two lower reel sets, while a $1 bet also activates the upper reel set. When an increased bet enables additional ways to win, the hit frequency will be higher on the increased bet. On these machines your father-in-law is right. To hit the highest payout on $0.25 or $1.00 slot machines you have to put in maximum coins. Someone told me recently that penny slots pay off better if you don't bet the maximum amount.
One of the oldest slots tips is that you need to make the maximum bet to qualify for a jackpot. I emphasize the word “old” here, because this tip doesn’t apply to the modern slots world.
Max bet slot machines have largely been replaced by different types of slot games today. Therefore, you no longer have to risk several dollars on every spin just to play for a jackpot.
But what exactly happened to the dated max bet games? I’ll answer this question by first discussing more on slot machines, why they were so popular, and how they were replaced by multi-line games.
What Are Max Bet Slots Jackpots?
Casinos used to be filled with three-reel slot machines that operated on mechanical reels. These games were quite limited in terms of their betting options and paylines.
A typical classic slot machine had the following characteristics:
- Single payline
- One coin denomination (e.g. $1)
- Option to bet between one and three coins
The good news is that these games at least offered a choice on how many coins to bet. But most of them required that all three coins be wagered in order to qualify for the jackpot.
If you were playing a dollar slot, for example, you’d have to wager $3 to have a chance at the top prize. Assuming you only use one or two coins, then your top prize would be worth much less than the jackpot.
Video slot machines entered casinos in the 1970s. These games, which are the standard today, run on computerized software.
Nevertheless, the earlier video slots still operated like the mechanical games by requiring a max bet for jackpots. This trend even continued as video slot machines grew more complex and began featuring betting options.
Why Were These Jackpots so Popular?
As I’ll discuss later, modern slot machines don’t typically force you to bet the max to win a jackpot. These games are much more popular among gamblers than max bet slots.
So, why then did max bet jackpots exist in such a large degree years ago?
One reason is the limitations of the earlier mechanical games. Developers couldn’t simply program a slot to feature more paylines.
The latter is key in today’s slot machines, because more paylines increase the average bet size. For example, a penny slot machine with 100 lines requires a gambler to spend at least $1 per spin.
Mechanical slot machines only have a single payline. Casinos would be losing money based on their overhead costs if players could wager as little as one cent per line.
Therefore, older slot machines have a single coin denomination and require players to use every coin to qualify for a jackpot.
Casinos and developers needed some way to drive up the spin cost and make money from games. They used max bet jackpots as incentive to force gamblers to bet more.
Decades ago, players didn’t really have any other options in terms of games. So, they were essentially forced to take what was given if they wanted to play slot machines.
This trend had been set in stone by the time video slot machines came along. That said, many early video slots also required max bets to win the jackpot.
The Rise of Multi-Payline Slot Machines
Eventually, the gambling industry became bolder with their innovations. Developers started using video-slot technology to create advanced games that offered more paylines.
Casinos have found it much easier to sell players on the idea that they can play 20-50 lines per spin, rather a single line with one to three coins.
Slots have since given players even more options in terms of bonuses and animations. Today’s slot machines bring a touch of video games and movies to the gambling world.
It’s easy to see why multi-line games have largely replaced classic slot machines. They offer more opportunities to win along with exciting animations and features.
Is the Move to Multi-Line Games for the Best?
On the surface, multi-line slot machines are superior than the max bet jackpot games of yesteryear. They’re more entertaining and offer dozens of chances to win.
It seems like a no-brainer that modern slots are better. Gamblers have spoken with their dollars, too.
Max bet jackpots have all but disappeared for a reason. Once players had more options, they realized that being forced to make larger bets on a single payline wasn’t ideal.
However, this isn’t to say that multi-line slots are perfect. In fact, they’re programmed in a way that can cause players to spend more money than they normally would.
Multiple lines allow for very small prizes that can be worth much less than the total spin cost. For example, one might bet $1 and win a $0.05 prize.
Anybody can obviously see that this payout is worth much less than the original spin. However, one might have trouble fully comprehending this when a machine’s lights go off and celebratory sounds ring out.
This effect is what’s known as losses disguised as wins (LDWs). An LDW refers to an occurrence where a player is subconsciously fooled into thinking they’re a winner when they really lost money.
Another problem with multi-line slot machines is that they feature deceptive jackpot odds. Just because a game has 50 to 100 lines doesn’t mean that it provides a better chance to win big.
The main reason why multi-line games offer much bigger jackpots than max bet slot machines is because they’re more popular. Again, though, more lines don’t necessarily equate to superior jackpot odds.
Do Max Bet Jackpots Still Exist?
Max jackpot games haven’t completely vanished from gambling floors. However, they hold a very minimal place in the gaming world.
Even mechanical slot machines can still be found in some gambling establishments. They attract players who want to relive Vegas trips from years ago.
Realistically, though, those who want to play max bet slot machines will have to put some effort into the matter. After all, these games aren’t found in most brick-and-mortar or online slot casinos.
Players may ultimately find that the effort isn’t worth the reward. Most of these games are extremely limited in terms of their options. Moreover, they require larger bets just to qualify for the jackpot.
Conclusion
Max bet slots once ruled the gaming scene. They filled casinos in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and other popular gambling destinations.
These games also found a prominent place in online casinos during the formation of the internet gaming industry. However, they’ve been surpassed by modern slot machines that feature multiple paylines, bonuses, and animations.
The problem with max bet slot machines is two-fold.
- They require a bigger bet on average to win a jackpot.
- Most of these games are limited in terms of their features.
Cheapest Max Bet Slot Machines
I’m not saying these games should be avoided at all costs. Some players like a simpler gaming experience and don’t mind having to bet big.
Furthermore, these games don’t fool players with LDWs and deceptive jackpot odds. The majority of them have single lines, leaving no illusion about wins and losses.
But when the typical gambler is given a choice between max bet and modern multi-line games, they’re going to choose the latter almost every time.
The truth is that the slots industry has advanced greatly within the last few decades. Technology now rules the day.
Some casinos still offer max bet slot machines either for nostalgic purposes or because they’re just classic games. But by and large, max bet slots ran their course and will never return to prominence in gambling.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Forget the old rule of always betting max coins
By John Grochowski
There is no magic formula for winning on the slots. No betting pattern, no duration of play before moving to a new machine, no pauses between spins, no using or withholding your players club card can sway the random number generator from making its appointed rounds.
However, there is one rule that’s been drilled into slot players’ heads for generations: To get the highest payback percentage, you have to bet maximum coins.
That’s a message I received the first time I spoke with a slot attendant in the 1980s, and it was in every book I read when I first got serious about casino games at the beginning of the 1990s. The Trump casinos long have used a character named “Max Coins” to deliver that very message: If you want the most a game has to offer, you have to bet the max.
But the slot world has undergone a complete transformation since I started play. And one of the things that has changed is this: Betting the max doesn’t always increase your payback percentage. On many machines, betting one coin per line yields the same percentage as betting the max.
There are exceptions in the cases of mystery bonuses and some progressives. But before getting into all that, let’s recap some of the ways slots have changed.
Before the video age, slots all had three mechanical reels, most had a single payline and maximum bets were either two or three coins. Nearly all progressive jackpots were one tier, with only the top-paying combination having a progressive payoff. Bonus events? Nobody had even heard of such a thing. They were still a few years in the future.
You can still find such games today, but the large majority of slots are on video today, usually with five reels instead of three. Bonus events are a given, often with several possibilities in the same game, including free spins, wheel spins, pick’em bonuses and more. Progressives usually are multiple tiers, and sometimes require a side bet.
And we’re not dealing with single paylines. We’re dealing with 20, 30, 40 and more lines, along with Reel Power-style no-payline games with 243 ways to win – and more with reels that are four symbols deep instead of the usual three.
To top that off, we’re presented with options of betting not one, two or three coins, but sometimes five, 10 or even 20 coins per line. A three-reel quarter game might take wagers of 25, 50 or 75 cents. A penny slot with 30 paylines and a max bet of 10 coins per line tops out at a $3 wager – that penny machine has a max bet four times the max bet on an old-style quarter game.
Many newer video slots are “forced bet” machines in which playing fewer lines is not an option. On a 40-line penny game, you might find buttons for bets of 40 cents, 80 cents, $1.20, $1.60 and $2, with no way to play just one line, a penny at a time.
With the potential for wagers that large, players naturally wonder if the old “bet the max” adage still applies. Check out a couple of recent emails to land in my inbox:
MARIE: “I don’t make max bets anymore. I can’t afford it! So I cover all the paylines and bet one or two coins per line. Still, it nags at me because we always were told to bet the max on slots. How badly am I missing out by not betting max?”
KARLA: “My mom is a slot player from way back. She’s in her 80s, and I’ll bet she’s been playing slots for at least 40 years. She told me to always bet the max on the slots, but even she doesn’t do it now. When I look around, nobody is betting the max. Should you?”
In most cases, no, there’s no advantage to it. To see the reason, let’s look at why max bets were recommended in the first place.
Larger bets do not make winning combinations occur more often. The random number generator works with the same number set no matter how many coins you bet, and the proportion of reel combinations you see will remain the same regardless of your bet size.
Max Bet Slot Wins Today
However, most slots with three mechanical reels have incentives to bet the max in the form of disproportionate top jackpots. On a hypothetical three-reel game with a three-coin maximum wager, you might find a top jackpot of 1,000 coins for a one-coin wager and have that doubled to 2,000 coins if you bet two coins instead.
If you bet the three-coin max, the jackpot on our hypothetical game doesn’t jump just another 1,000-coin increment to 3,000. It leaps to 5,000.
Instead of a jackpot being worth 1,000 credits per coin wagered, the max-coins bettor gets 1,666.7 credits per coin wagered. That higher per-coin payoff means the payback percentage is higher when you bet max coins.
Most video slots aren’t like that. Touch the screen to call up the pay table, and you’ll see the payoffs are proportionate throughout. If the top jackpot is 1,000 credits for a one-coin wager, it’ll be 2,000 for two, 3,000 for three and so on.
With no disproportionate jump, your average return per coin is the same at any bet size. The payback percentage remains the same, and betting the max will not increase the payback percentage. But that does not mean video slots have no incentives to make larger bets.
Here are a few reasons to play more than the minimum:
PROGRESSIVE JACKPOTS WITH SEPARATE BET
If you play progressive machines, it’s important to make sure you’re eligible for the jackpots.
On three-reel games with a single jackpot, progressives give a ramped up version of the usual incentive to bet the max. The hypothetical game that has a top jackpot of 1,000 coins with a one-coin wager, 2,000 for two coins and a leap to 5,000 with three instead pays 1,000, 2000 and then jumps to the progressive pot if you bet the max. If you don’t bet the max, you can’t win the progressive.
That was tried in the early days of video slots. It didn’t work very well. The difference between the minimum bet and maximum is so large most players didn’t see a progressive jackpot as reason enough to bet out of their comfort zone. Nickel slots drew most of the play early in the rise of video slots, and players who had no qualms about betting 75 cents on a 25-cent progressive weren’t about to bet $3.75 on a 15-line video slot with a max bet of five coins per line.
Today, you’re much more likely to see a penny game with multitiered progressive jackpots that require separate bets to be eligible. Players who bet the minimum per line are eligible for the same jackpots as those who bet the max, as long as they make the side bet. The side bet could be 10 coins, 15 coins or more depending on game and manufacturer.
If you’re going to play these games, you’re going to want to be eligible for the progressives. Make the side bet. If you don’t want to bet that much, choose a different game.
PROGRESSIVE JACKPOTS WITH MYSTERY TRIGGERS
When all players at a bank of machines can play for the same jackpots, regardless of bet size, you’re looking at mystery jackpots. Jackpots and bonus events leading to jackpots aren’t won by lining up matching symbols; they just come as a surprise.
Max Bet Slot Machine Videos
Usually, mystery jackpots are triggered when a player makes a bet that pushes the jackpot total to one that matches a target set by a random number generator. As on all progressives, a percentage of all wagers are added to the jackpot. If the RNG sets the target at $124.37, then the player whose wager pushes the pot to $124.37 wins it.
Players who bet more contribute more per play to the jackpot growth, and therefore have more chances per play for their bet to push the pot to the target. If you play mystery progressives, then betting more per spin does give you a better chance at winning a jackpot.
MYSTERY BONUSES
Even some non-progressive games incorporate mystery elements, where a bonus launches without landing trigger symbols on the reels. One way to set that up is to have an RNG set a target amount of play since the last mystery bonus. The more you bet, the less time it takes to push that wagering total to the target amount and launch a bonus.
On some games, that requires a separate bet. The base game carries the same payback percentage regardless of how many coins you wager, but you’re not eligible for the main attraction if you don’t make the extra bet.
Lowest Max Bet Slot Machines
But progressives and mystery payouts aside, the reason to bet more than the minimum on most games starts and stops with a desire for bigger payoffs, with a recognition that betting more also means risk of bigger losses. For the majority, payback percentages do not increase with bigger bets and there’s no reason for even a small twinge at betting less than the max.