How To Make Money On Gambling Machines
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.
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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.
The money may support cities' bottom lines, but Bedell said it is not worth the social cost and the way gambling has “changed the character” of those cities that allowed it. Use a Simple Bucket Budget to Manage Your Money Effective money management is critical to good gambling habits and while many people do commit themselves to risking no more than a certain amount of money on any gambling excursion, you can create a better budget than that.
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.
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.
Every gambler wants to win profits. But this is very difficult to do when considering that the casino holds an edge in most games. Of course, you can use a combination of luck and skill to win more money. But banking on luck is a terrible way to earn long-term profits through gambling.
Therefore, you need to find games and advantage play techniques that give you an opportunity to win in the long run. I’m going to discuss the best games and advantage gambling methods that’ll help you accomplish this goal.
Poker has long been one of the top ways to make money with gambling. This reputation has only increased in recent times with the availability of online poker. The reason why poker offers such a great opportunity to earn money is because you’re competing against other players – not the house.
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But I believe that any poker player can win with the right approach. The only question is what route you should take towards becoming a winner. Read the stories of any successful poker player – past or present – and you’ll see that there’s no single road to get there. But there are some universal steps you can take to becoming a stronger player.
Here are different methods you can use to improve your skills:
- Watching pros on Twitch streams.
- Watching training videos on YouTube.
- Joining a training site (usually $30 per month).
- Reading poker strategy books.
- Reading poker strategy articles.
- Hiring a poker coach.
- Reviewing your sessions afterward.
You also have to decide what poker variation and type you want to attack. After all, this game offers over a dozen variations along with different game types. Some of the poker variants include Texas holdem, Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, Seven Card Stud, Razz, Badugi, H.O.R.S.E., and Crazy Pineapple. The different types of poker include cash games, multi-table tournaments (MTTs) sit and go’s (SNGs), and lottery style games. You should throw out lottery style poker games right away if you’re a serious player. These games rely on too much luck in order to win anything significant.
This leaves you choosing between cash games, MTTs, and SNGs. Here are the pros and cons to each of these choices:
- Cash games – Pros: great for steady hourly profits, especially when multi-tabling online. Cons: your losses can accelerate greatly if you’re not skilled.
- MTTs – Pros: give you a chance at winning a huge payout for a small buy-in. Cons: bigger MTTs have lots of variance, meaning you won’t cash often.
- SNGs – Pros: you can make a steady profit from SNGs without assuming too much risk. Cons: you need to multi-table SNGs or play higher stakes in order to make serious profits.
The biggest thing to keep in mind about poker is that it’s not an easy way to win profits. This is especially the case in today’s poker climate, which features better players than ever before. But as long as you’re willing to take a long-term approach to the matter – rather than expecting quick winnings – then you can slowly grind up the stakes and make some money. Moreover, poker offers more opportunities to become a profitable gambler than anything else on this list. Despite modern poker’s increasing overall skill level, you’ll find lots of juicy cash games, MTTs, and SNGs.
Chances are that you’ve seen a daily fantasy sports (DFS) commercial or two. These commercials are often aimed at making sports fans think that they can easily win money. This couldn’t be further from the truth, though, because DFS is a skill-based form of gambling. The biggest winners are those who dedicate the most time to creating lineups, analyzing statistics, and learning other strategies. Much like poker, you’re competing against other DFS players to craft the best player lineups. This skill aspect gives you an opportunity to win on a consistent basis.
Of course, not everything regarding DFS is about analyzing stats. You also need to develop simple strategies that’ll help you craft winning lineups. One of my favorite simple approaches involves looking for low-salary value players before filling out the rest my lineup. Focusing on the best value picks first helps me fill multiple positions on a roster before going for the high-salary players. Additionally, this allows me to see how much remaining money I have to go for the All-Stars at the end. DFS isn’t as lucrative as poker or sports betting for the average gambler. But you can certainly win some major money through this form of gambling.
Case in point: former poker pro Aaron Jones won $5 million through a DraftKings NFL contest in 2016. Plenty of other players have won large payouts since then. First things first though; in that you need to become a successful player before dreaming about a big win. I suggest starting with general strategy in low-stakes contests, before diving into advanced stats and programs that can truly make your winner.
Sports betting is similar to poker and DFS in that you can win long-term profits. But it also works differently from these two games in some ways. Poker and DFS involve competing against other players, with the house collecting a small amount of rake from the contest. Sports betting, on the other hand, revolves around trying to figure out which side of the line has more value. Therefore, you’re not competing directly against other bettors for winnings.
For example, you’d need to win 52.4% of point spread bets with 10% juice (comes from losing side) to be profitable. Winning over 52.4% of your wagers doesn’t sound extremely difficult. But keep in mind that even the best sports gamblers only win 53% to 55% of their point spread wagers. The rate at which you need to win moneyline bets depends upon the odds you’re taking. For example, you only need to win over 43.5% of the time on +130 moneyline bets to earn profits. But it’s not any easier to beat moneyline wagers than point spreads or any other type of bet.
The reason why sports wagering is difficult to profit from is because bookmakers are really good at setting lines. Their goal is to create equal action on each outcome in a wager, thus guaranteeing them a profit when the juice is taken into account. I mentioned earlier how you’re directly competing against other bettors. But you need to find favorable opportunities before most other gamblers, because lines shift when there’s too much action on one side.
Jumping on lines early is one of the best things to do as a sports bettor. This allows you to find value before any potential shift occurs to balance out the action. Handicapping is the main strategy for finding value in lines. This technique involves examining a variety of factors to see if the bookmaker’s odds lineup with your take.
Here’s an example:
- Atlanta Falcons +140
- Carolina Panthers -165
- You handicap this game.
- You think that the Falcons are undervalued at +140.
- You bet on the Falcons to win.
The factors that you look at when handicapping differ based on the sport. But basic elements that you should consider include injuries, player matchups, travel schedules, motivational factors, and statistics.
Stats are very important in sports gambling, because you can use them to spot trends that’ll give you an advantage over time. You can also use sports betting software to help you analyze advanced stats and make better bets. Of course, sports betting is like DFS in that you want to first learn the basics while concentrating on low stakes wagers. As you become more competent, you can graduate towards making bigger bets and using programs to help you out.
The esports industry has been rapidly increasing in popularity over the past few years. Esports betting, which has spawned from this growth, allows you to bet on the action. If you’re already a sports gambler, then you’ll appreciate the easy transition into esports betting. This form of gambling uses the same odds and types of bets that are featured in traditional sports gambling. You can also use many of the same handicapping skills to win esports wagers. The only difference is that you need to learn about the different games, leagues, and players involved.
Esports betting allows you to wager on over a dozen computer and console video games. Here are just some of the available games:
- Battlefield
- Call of Duty
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Dota 2
- Halo
- Hearthstone: Heroes of the Warcraft
- Heroes of the Storm
- League of Legends
- Overwatch
- Rocket League
- Smite
- Starcraft II
- Street Fighter
These games all have different leagues too, which gives you even more chances to specialize. But I strongly suggest that you only focus on one game and 1-2 leagues in the beginning until you master them. There’s no sense in wagering on a bunch of options and spreading yourself thin. Instead, truly get to know a single game before moving on.
5 – Card Counting
Card counting is an advantage play technique that you can use in blackjack to make profits. The goal is to keep track of aces and 10-value cards so that you know when you have a better chance to get natural blackjack (21 on first two cards). Casinos pay you either 3:2 or 6:5 on your original bet when you have a winning natural blackjack. Therefore, you can gain a temporary advantage by making larger bets when your chances of getting a natural increase.
The biggest benefit to card counting is that you don’t have to compete with other players to win. Instead, this is a matter of you learning how to count cards and avoid being caught by the casino. The latter is one of the biggest disadvantages to card counting. It doesn’t matter how good you are if the pit boss detects that you’re counting cards and has security escort you out the door.
This makes it important that you don’t spread your bets too much when you have an advantage. Here are examples of an acceptable spread versus what’s not:
- Acceptable – Going from table minimum of $10 to $50 (1-5 spread).
- Unacceptable – Going from table minimum of $5 to $500 (1-100 spread).
- Acceptable – Going from table minimum of $5 to $75 (1-15 spread).
- Unacceptable – Going from table minimum of $10 to $5,000 (1-500 spread).
One other critical aspect involves researching casinos and finding out which ones are more tolerant of bet spreads. Some gambling establishments will become suspicious immediately when you use a 1-15 spread, while others won’t as long as you’re not obvious about your counting efforts.
Of course, you also have to thoroughly learn and master a card counting system. The actual process of learning a system isn’t overly difficult, especially if you use one like the OPP or Hi-Lo. The Hi-Lo is my favorite for beginners, because it’s simple and will still produce good results. You should be able to learn how to use the Hi-Lo within a matter of minutes.
Also note that you’ll need a large bankroll so that you don’t risk busting out in your card counting endeavors. The average successful counter only has between a 0.5% and 1.5% edge, which makes for a lot of variance. You also have to account for how you’ll be placing big bets when you have a positive count. This increases the risk, which is why you want at least a few thousand dollars in your bankroll when starting out.
Hole carding is another advantage play technique that you can employ in blackjack. This strategy revolves around trying to see the dealer’s face-down card (a.k.a. hole card) when they peek for a natural blackjack. As you may know, the dealer peeks for a blackjack when their upcard is either an ace or a 10-value card. The round ends if they have a natural, and anybody without a natural automatically loses.
Under optimal conditions with a dealer that consistently shows their hole card, you’ll have anywhere between an 11% and 13% advantage. The biggest obstacle to hole carding is that there aren’t many dealers who’ll actually reveal their value when checking for blackjack. Chances are that you’ll have to sit at 100 or more blackjack tables before you find a really bad dealer.
You also need to sit in the correct seat to spot the dealer’s hole card. First base (seat to croupier’s immediate left) is best when there’s a right-handed dealer, and third base (seat to croupier’s immediate right) is best when there’s a left-handed dealer.
Video poker is the only house-banked casino game that offers you a long-term advantage. Unlike hole carding and card counting, you can sit at a video poker game for as long as you want and take advantage of profits. The first step to being a video poker winner involves knowing which variations actually provide an advantage. Here are the three most-common variants that will deliver long-term profits:
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Note that you have to play the “full-pay” versions of these games in order to have an advantage. Full pay means the top pay table for any given video poker variation. The easiest way to find these games is by visiting a site called vpFREE2.com. This database allows you to look up various casino destinations and see what video poker variants they offer.
You may be disappointed to find out that there are no casinos outside of Nevada offering any video poker games with positive expected value (+EV). Moreover, the largest selection of beatable machines are found in Las Vegas. Assuming you have access to Nevada casinos – either through living in the area or visiting – then you want to practice for the games you’ll be playing. After all, you need to use correct strategy to take advantage of +EV situations.
Also note that being an advantage video poker player is a volatile pursuit. You’ll only get a royal flush on 1 out of 40,000 hands on average, meaning that you’ll need to play numerous hands before realizing +EV. But as I mentioned before, the great thing about video poker is that you can play games with over 100% RTP and not fear being kicked out of the casino.
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None of the games and advantage play methods I’ve discussed is perfect. They all have their pros and cons with regard to the strategy and difficulty level. But the good news is that everything covered here are at least gives you the opportunity to make money through gambling. If you’ve ever dreamed of being a profitable gambler, then the opportunity is there for the taking.I prefer player-vs-player games, because they have the lowest barrier to entry. You won’t get booted from the casino, and you can readily find poker and DFS games online. Advantage play techniques are nice from the perspective that they offer you guaranteed profits when used correctly. You don’t have to worry about beating highly skilled players.
But one major drawback is that you can also get kicked out of the casino. Additionally, it’s hard to find perfect conditions for card counting or hole carding. Video poker is great from the perspective that you can win money without worrying about the casino staff breathing down your neck. The downsides, though, include that you only find +EV games in Nevada and you won’t win large profits with these games. In summary, winning in gambling is far from easy. But there are multiple ways for you to accomplish this if you’re motivated to do so.