Play Book of Dead. We've already mentioned this penny slot, but we'll do it again, this. Aria Resort & Casino is one of the most luxurious properties on the Las Vegas Strip, and it also has one of the biggest slot machine areas anywhere in the city. On top of that, they have the biggest and best high roller slot machine parlor in the entire state. It even has its own name, Spin. Finding the best slots to play is a combination of luck, patience, and a good knowledge of all the most effective casino slot machine secrets. In this part of my guide on how to pick a winning slot machine, we go through the five most essential slots tips every player should use.

You have a lot to look forward to in Las Vegas—bright lights, constant partying, and endless opportunities. You also face an ocean of slot machines in every casino on the Strip and anywhere else in the city.

In fact, you’ll find over 200,000 slot machines in Las Vegas alone. And not all of these slot games are the same. Some casinos offer better rewards through their players’ programs, for example. Others have looser slots (games with a higher RTP).

Here’s my list of the seven best casinos for slots in Las Vegas.

1 – Aria

Aria Resort & Casino is one of the most luxurious properties on the Las Vegas Strip, and it also has one of the biggest slot machine areas anywhere in the city.

On top of that, they have the biggest and best high roller slot machine parlor in the entire state. It even has its own name, Spin.

It’s an architectural marvel, too. Famed New York architect Peter Marino designed Spin, which has more amenities than some casinos. This includes a staff of butlers to cater to your needs while you play. The cashier’s cage is separate from the gaming, and the bathrooms are all private.

Have you ever seen a full-service dining room inside the slot machine area? And Aria doesn’t just cater to high rollers. The casino has over 2,000 slot machine games available, including popular titles like Wheel of Fortune and The Walking Dead. They also frequently host slot machine tournaments.

2 – Bellagio

A lot of people think of the Bellagio as the best place on the Las Vegas Strip to play poker, and they are right about this, of course.

But Bellagio is also one of the best spots on the Vegas Strip to find slot machine tournaments and a wide variety of slots games to choose from. Including video poker games and slot machines, Bellagio has over 2,300 different gambling machines to choose from.

And they’re available in multiple denominations, catering to both low rollers and high rollers alike.

Many of Bellagio’s slot machines feature progressive jackpots where you can win $1 million or more on a single spin of the reels. No one offers better live entertainment or dining either.

Also, since Aria and the Bellagio are both owned by MGM, membership at the slots club there means that you automatically have a membership in M life Rewards loyalty program, which is the players club at the following casinos:

• Aria
• Bellagio
• Delano Las Vegas
• Excalibur
• Luxor
• Mandalay Bay
• MGM Grand
• The Mirage
• Park MGM
• New York-New York
• Vdara

3 – The Venetian

The Venetian is famous for a lot of things, and one of those things is the varied selection of gambling machines available there. The casino has two floors worth of machines to choose from, and they have a great loyalty program.

The Venetian also makes it a point of keeping the latest games on the floor, and they’ve done an excellent job of making sure they have newer games than some of their competitors. If you’re looking for games like the new Ghost Busters slots or the Game of Thrones slots, this is the place.

Like Aria, the Venetian caters to high rollers.

If you’re a customer here, you can even request your own brands of machine, and the casino will do its best to accommodate.

They offer butler service and a lounge where you can relax when you’re taking a break from the slots games.

If you’re a Gold or Platinum member of the Grazie loyalty program here, you get free transportation to and from McCarran Airport.

4 – The Golden Nugget

So far, this list has focused on slot machine games that cater to high rollers on the Strip. But not all the best slot machines are found on the famed Las Vegas Boulevard.

In fact, the payback percentages for machines in other parts of the city are usually superior to the glitzier properties on the Strip. And what better “other part of the city” is there than downtown?

The gaming floor at the Golden Nugget is huge, with over 1,000 gambling machines to choose from. They have some of the most varied games in the city, too. They carry the famous games like Wheel of Fortune, but they also have a bigger variety of “Buffalo” slots than almost any other casino.

They feature multiple progressive jackpot slots casinos, too. I’m one of those slot machine players who loves a good steak, so the presence of Vic and Anthony’s is a great reason to play here, too. It’s one of the 10 best steakhouses in the entire country.

5 – Sam’s Town

One thing you should be aware of about Las Vegas slots is that the payback percentage is lower on the Strip than elsewhere. The best places to play are older casinos that are a little off the beaten path.

Sam’s Town fits the bill nicely. What it lacks in luxury, Sam’s Town makes up for with high payout slot machine games.

One thing that Sam’s Town offers that isn’t available at other Las Vegas casinos is an online listing of the slot machine games they have available. You can search their database by denomination, type of game, or keyword in the game title.

Be warned, though, Sam’s Town is not your traditional Vegas experience. It’s older and a bit cheesier. It’s probably a more appropriate casino to stay at if you’re older or maybe if you have young children.

As far as the better payback percentages go, that’s worth a visit.

The payback percentage for a casino is the AVERAGE of the slots on the floor. You might play a game with a 75% payback percentage, while your mom might be playing on an identical machine next to it with a 95% payback percentage.

And since the house has the edge, if you play either game long enough, you’ll eventually lose all your money.

6 – Excalibur

If you’re more interested in payback percentage than glitz and glamour, you should look at some of the older properties on the Strip. Circus Circus and Excalibur both count, but Excalibur’s more recent renovations make it somewhat more palatable to the modern gambler.

Excalibur is old enough and low rent enough that they can afford to offer some of the best payback percentages on the Strip. And if you’re not a high roller, you should consider trying the slots here.

They have plenty of penny slots, and even their most expensive game tops out at $100 per spin—a far cry from the $5000 max at some of the other casinos in this group on the Strip.

That’s right. Excalibur is also owned by MGM, so you get to participate in the same huge slot club as most of the other casinos on this list.

7 – Downtown Vegas in General

Rather than close out this list with another casino recommendation, I want to recommend the Downtown Vegas area over the Strip for its selection of unusual slot machine games in various areas.

For example, the biggest slot machine in the world is the SlotZilla zip line. And when I say “big,” I’m being literal. It’s 128 feet tall. You zip down Fremont Street Experience on one of two lines, and the game has a huge video screen with reels and an animated arm to pull.

You can also view antique slot machines at the Main Street. They’re beautiful and well worth seeing. You’ll find them near the registration desk.

Many of the Downtown Las Vegas casinos offer huge, oversized slot machines. One place to find them is on the second level of The D. You’ll have to take the escalator to see this one. Also, you get to play for real coins here, which is a nice change of pace for old-timers who remember being able to cash out with a huge bucket full of coins.

You’ll also find a huge slot machine in The Golden Nugget.

Conclusion

Those are my picks for the seven best casinos for slots in Las Vegas. Do you disagree with my choices?

Introduction to Foxwoods Casino Connecticut

Best Slot Machine To Win

I recently met fellow slots enthusiasts and gambling podcasters at Foxwoods Casino, a tribal casino located in southern Connecticut, in part to create this Easily Win a Little at Slots at Foxwoods Casino Connecticut article. Other goals included promoting my Professor Slots brand and, last but not least, figure out how to win at slots there.

Vito from Cousin Vito’s Casino Podcast organized this “Gamblepalooza” meetup. He did a great job with what we all hope will become a regular annual event. Also, a special thanks to the staff at Foxwoods casino, especially to our Casino Sales Executive, John, for his professionalism, dedication, and attention to details. Thanks, Vito and John!

In this Easily Win a Little at Slots at Foxwoods Casino article, I’ll primarily go over what I learned about how to win at slots there. As I’ve come to understand, and hope you have too, my winning strategies for slot machines isn’t about how to be luckier.

Instead, it’s about understanding, or at least using, how casinos have deliberately set up their slot machines for slots enthusiasts to take advantage of as an opportunity to win.

What I found at Foxwoods Casino was such a winning opportunity. As I’ll explain, a few slot machines have been set up in such a way as to be taken advantage of quickly. That’s good news. The bad news (spoiler alert!) is that all such winnings are rather small.

However, easily winning a little at slots is probably very useful to far more people, when most slots enthusiasts are low rollers.

This article has the following sections:

• Introduction
• My Online Assessment of Foxwoods Casino Connecticut
• My On-Site Physical Assessment of Foxwoods Casino Connecticut
• Assessing Foxwoods Casino by Talking with Slots Players
• Assessing Foxwoods Casino by Questioning Casino Staff
• How to Win at Slots at Foxwoods Casino Connecticut
• Optimizing How to Win at Foxwoods Casino Connecticut
• Summary

Keep Reading … or Listen Instead!

Find my podcast wherever you listen to audio!

My Online Assessment of Foxwoods Casino Connecticut

My first evaluation of Foxwoods Casino Connecticut was done online when preparing to publish my article Connecticut Slot Machine Casino Gambling back in July of last year.

I learned that Foxwoods Casino Connecticut had grown, partly due to competition with nearby Mohegan Sun Casino, to become one of the largest casinos anywhere. Depending on how casino “largeness” is measured, it is currently reported to be the third or fourth largest casino in the world, although it has ranked as high as second largest in the past.

Other items of interest I learned then was that Foxwoods Casino Connecticut is an American Indian tribal casino owned and operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe. Since Foxwoods is a tribal casino, it is not subject to state gaming regulations but rather regulated through a negotiated state-tribal gaming compact approved by the U.S. Department of Interior.

For those interested, this state-tribal compact is available at Connecticut State’s Department of Consumer Protection on their Tribal-State Compacts and Agreements webpage along with the state-tribal compact for the Mohegan Tribe for Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun casino.

The final item of interest to slots enthusiasts regarding gaming regulations is monthly actual payout return statistics available on the State of Connecticut’s Gaming Revenue and Statistics webpage.

For the most recent month, March 2018, the actual payout return percentage was reported to be 91.56%, the lowest payout return since Foxwoods fiscal year begins on July 1.

As it happens, these statistics show that consistently highest payout returns were at the beginning of Foxwoods fiscal year. From July through October of 2017, the average payout return was 92.05%, with the highest monthly payout return being 92.16% in October 2017.

At the time of this writing, Fiscal Year 2017/2018 is incomplete. Now, however, the average annual payout returns for the last five years going back Fiscal Year 2011/2012 has shown a remarkably steady increase. For Fiscal Year 2011/2012, the yearly payout return was 91.59%, followed by a steady rise to 92.19% for the most recently completed Fiscal Year of 2016/2017.

Finally, it is well worth noting there has been a steady and significant drop, currently nearly halved, in the total number of slot machines available at Foxwoods Casino Connecticut from Fiscal Year 2008/2009 to present.

In Fiscal Year 2008/2009, coinciding with the last year of the relatively recent 17-month-long Great Recession, Foxwoods Casino Connecticut had 8,108 slot machines. This number of slots has dropped each year steadily since, with the total number of slot machines currently being 4,106.

So, what does all this mean in terms of winning at slots at Foxwoods Casino Connecticut? Well, it’s hard to say. Initial assessments are fact-finding missions, with little in the way of conclusions as much as it might be helpful to do so. Nevertheless, it sure is interesting seeing such data-supported trends.

In all seriousness, it is indeed hard to say what is going on at Foxwoods. However, something dramatic and dynamic is happening. Staying focused on winning at slots and setting aside all other considerations, I wonder how we might use this rather interesting information to win more at slots at Foxwoods.

But, before drawing any more conclusions just yet, let’s continue this article with whatever information can gleaned from visiting Foxwoods Casino Connecticut.

Best Casino Machine To Play

My On-Site Physical Assessment of Foxwoods Casino Connecticut

Frankly, Foxwoods Casino is huge. Upon checking in at 2 p.m. on a Thursday, I went for a walk for a few hours. I didn’t have or want a map. Download app for android. While walking, I counted six separate sub-casinos within the overall casino. I could talk about my feet getting sore for walking for the next 5 hours, despite wearing comfortable shoes. Instead, let’s talk about what I saw.

By far, the most important thing I noticed was what I didn’t see. I wandered everywhere without doing any gambling. I was looking around, letting my feet go wherever they wanted while I soaked in whatever there was to do so.

I went to every sub-casino and visited every high limit area in every sub-casino. And do you know what I didn’t see, not once during that 5-hour walk? I didn’t see a single hand pay being given out by a slot attendant.

Everywhere I went, there were no hand pays. No one was winning jackpots. Now, again, I tried not to draw any discernible conclusions just yet. Why? Because it was only late afternoon on a Thursday. I didn’t want to bias my observations by drawing the conclusion begging to be made without looking for hand pays when the casino was a little busier.

So, to avoid jumping to a conclusion too soon, I decided to look for slot machine hand pays deliberately until Friday evening. But, tentatively, I held in my mind this possible conclusion: Foxwoods Casino Connecticut gives out a relatively low number of hand-pays to slots players. If confirmed, only small non-taxable jackpots would be potentially possible.

While my personal slots play is high limits, this was personally quite upsetting. However, for the sake of my lower roller readers and listeners, I realized this might be just what they most would like. They might most like to spend a little bit of money to win a slightly larger bit of money.

Of course, this would depend on finding a way to win jackpots less than the taxable limit of $1,200 to generate the hand pays I wasn’t seeing. I decided that, if a few hand pays were confirmed, then I needed to focus on looking for ways to make small wins with small bankrolls. So, I did. And I did.

Assessing Foxwoods Casino Connecticut by Talking with Slots Players

After my wandering around on Thursday, I met up with Vito and other early arrivals to Vito’s “Gamblepalooza” event. I also had an opportunity to talk and question John, the Foxwoods’ Casino Sales Executive effectively acting as our event host.

And, what was the first thing Vito said to me? That his wife Amanda was over on a Buffalo slot machine after having won a bunch of free spins. I asked where, and he pointed to where she was. Maybe 20 minutes later, Amanda joined our group – at which point I asked her specifically which machine she was playing.

She told me where there was a row of identical-looking slot machines near the walkway between the casino lobby and the hotel elevators. I asked which slot machine in this row had she played, and she said the slot machine on the far left.

When everyone split up to go gamble, I headed over to those Buffalo slot machines. They were penny machines. They were also all were being used, which can sometimes be a good sign. So, I sat and watched for a little while. Again, there were no hand pays. But, there were small wins.

There were not a lot of small wins, but some. I had to consider if there would be enough to make any level of profit, somehow, with the right playing technique. When a machine opened up, I sat down and played to try and get a feel for its odds of winning.

My conclusion was that each slot machine was providing a taste in the first few bets placed, and then no wins other than usual entirely luck-based wins. This result was based on a slight but noticeable pattern I seemed to be detecting with my pattern recognition abilities.

My conclusion, and again it was based on a slight but noticeable pattern I seemed to be getting from my pattern recognition abilities, was that each slot machine was providing a taste in the first few bets placed, and then no wins other than usual entirely luck-based wins.

It was slight, but there. Combined with the location of these slot machines near a busy walkway, I had a working theory to try out. The next step was to create experiments or make further observations which would either prove or disprove the hypothesis. So, I did just that.

Assessing Foxwoods Casino Connecticut by Questioning Casino Staff

Assessing a casino isn’t entirely a linear process. I look for clues everywhere, mostly focused on looking for winning patterns I’ve seen elsewhere while also keeping an eye out for any new trends. Because, once I find an economic model put in place by the casino, then all I need to do is figure out how to take advantage of it.

So, between wandering around and then playing those Buffalo machines, I talked with our Casino Sales Executive. And, I asked him questions which would help me continue to look for a clue to winning patterns that I’d seen elsewhere. And, he gave me such a hint.

Upon questioned about Foxwoods Casino Connecticut having six sub-casinos, John told me which of these sub-casinos was newest and how new it was. He told me that the Great Cedar Casino was six months old.

That was important to know because it would have the latest and greatest in server-based operating software. And, I knew several ways to test those operating systems for winning patterns.

Being years newer than the other sub-casinos, the Great Cedar Casino would have the latest casinos operating software choices for casinos to “tinker” with the winning odds of their slot machines.

This bit of information resolved my most significant concern about visiting one of the largest casinos in the world. Some of the sub-casinos would be old, with few winning strategies due to likely having a central computer.

Other sub-casinos would be a bit more modern, and a few sub-casinos would be the newest. But, this was my first time at Foxwoods. How would I know which sub-casino was oldest, old, modern, and cutting-edge modern to apply the appropriate winning strategy?

Well, John told me which one was the newest casino. This was my next good hint for figuring out how to win at slots at Foxwoods Casino Connecticut. Now, let’s bring together everything learned, so far.

How to Win at Slots at Foxwoods Casino Connecticut

For those keeping track, here’s what we have learned so far:

1. Slot machine hand pays are relatively few, possibly even non-existent
2. Slot machines near a busy walkway provided an initial win, a taste
3. The newest sub-casino was the Great Cedar Casino

These three things are what I learned about winning at slots in Foxwoods Casino Connecticut after being there for about 6 hours. I’d have preferred it would only have taken half that time but, well, it was one of the largest casinos in the world.

The next morning, on my way back from breakfast, I kept an eye on slot machines facing the main walkway, the most extensive walkway I’d yet seen, for the Great Cedar Casino. And do you know what I saw? I saw a winning slot machine at 8 a.m.

It was a penny machine automatically playing off free spins. Coin master game online. The current jackpot was about $500, and continuing to close with only 20 or so free spins out of 85 completed.

Francis, the slots player on that machine, was happy to tell those gathered that he’d only put a $20 bill into the penny slot machine. On his first bet, the first push of the button, he won those 85 free spins.

And, he hadn’t played maximum credits. Maximum credits was 600, and his bet was for 150 credits. So, for a single $1.50 bet, he was already up to $500 and continuing to climb.

About 10 minutes later, we all congratulated him when the rising jackpot went over the taxable limit of $1,200. Another 5 minutes later, the last free spin was over, and his taxable jackpot on this penny machine stood at $1,474.27.

This slot machine matched all the winning criteria I had observed, plus one more that I’d already known was possible from a casino Ohio. This fourth criterion was simply this: Most likely, with it being a weekday morning, that slot machine hadn’t been played for a while before this jackpot.

Again, all of this is simply a working theory of a specific casino slot machine setup built step-by-step with careful observation and unbiased deductive reasoning and critical thinking. The point is, I had a working hypothesis to test. So, I did.

Over the next few mornings, I won small jackpots on the slot machines facing that walkway, trying only to play slot machines not played for a while.

Within a few bets, I won $315.45 on Saturday at 4:30 a.m. and, at more normal times, $89.25, $87.60, $135.60, and $105.60. On several other attempts, I won about as much as I had bet. Three times, I didn’t win anything.

Since each bet was between $1.50 and $6.00 on these penny machines. According to my gambling records, I spent about $40 in bets and won a total of $745.50. My profit was just over $700 when using this winning strategy only, not including what I spent learning to win.

Optimizing How to Win at Foxwoods Casino Connecticut

Optimizing this strategy centers around the fourth winning criterion, Specifically, it centered around the hypothesis that slot machines not played for a while tended to give our higher jackpots.

With the weekend approaching at one of the largest casinos in the world, the slot machines I wanted to play were getting a lot of use, probably played at least once every hour for 24 a day.

But, optimizing this strategy during a busy weekend at the casino is entirely possible. I suggest picking your candidate slot machine as soon as whoever is using it finishes playing, then proceed to read a book for a while.

How long should you read the book? I have no idea. I’d suggest waiting between 20 minutes and two hours before playing the slot machine. Wouldn’t this be boring, you ask? Well, that would entirely depend on the book, now wouldn’t it.

I do have to wonder what the casino’s reaction would be to someone reading a book at an idle slot machine? Would a random casino employee know that it has been set up to provide a taste? As taste that would cause observers to run and play on another slot machine, thereby recouping the cost to the casino?

Or, other slots players may complain that, if you don’t want to play it, they will. So, as usual, there is always more to learn. If you try reading at a slot machine, and you get a reaction from the casino, I’d be very interested in knowing. Thanks.

I did share this winning strategy with other gamblers attending the Gamblepalooza event, with a bit more details offered to a few in thanks. They all came back later saying how much I had helped them win at slots.

One even showed me a voucher for a little over $1,100, shown below, which I reasonably assumed was from winning several non-taxable jackpots via the winning strategy I have also described here.

They seemed quite happy with it, which made me happy. But, again, for me as a high roller…. Well, let’s just say it was missing a few zeros. But, that’s how it is for me.

Summary of Easily Win a Little at Slots at Foxwoods Casino Connecticut

From Thursday, April 19, through Sunday, April 22, in 2018, I visited Foxwoods Casino in southern New England to generate this blog article for you.

My goals for this casino trip were to provide another casino trip report, and also to meet members of my audience as well as other visiting gambling podcasters.

My third goal was to figure out if there was any way to systematically win at slots at this tribal casino, one of the largest casinos in the world and indeed the most significant tribal casino. I successfully accomplished all three goals.

Through using my pattern recognition abilities, deductive reasoning, and critical thinking, I developed the following working theory of how to win at slots at Foxwoods from making the following observations:

1. Slot machine hand pays are relatively few, possibly even non-existent.
2. Slot machines near a busy walkway provided an initial win, a taste.
3. The newest sub-casino was the Great Cedar Casino.
4. Initial wins, or tastes, were larger on idle slot machines.

Winaday casino $33 no deposit bonus. I then used this working theory myself, as well as shared it with several of my fans and fellow gambling podcasters, to win small jackpots on slot machines at Foxwoods Casino Connecticut.

Related Articles from Professor Slots

Other Articles from Professor Slots

• Previous: Slots Winning Strategy 3: Earning Complimentary Gifts
• Next: Foxwoods Casino Trip Report 2018 in Southern New England

Have fun, be safe, and make good choices!
By Jon H. Friedl, Jr. Ph.D., President
Jon Friedl, LLC