32Red Casino made an announcement last week that one of their players- a certain Kelly Merlo from Canada- had won 2 big jackpots (each of amounts in the 5 figure realm) on the same slot game within the space of 6 months.

We were wondering here in the office- as we are prone to do- what are the odds on that?

Well- either 32 Red is telling porkies (they weren’t- we checked with our independent source at Microgaming- the company that networks all the jackpots and develops the online software that runs the games) or Kelly is a lucky, lucky punter indeed. She was playing at 32 Red’s sister casino: Dash Casino” when she first scooped a big one on Lots of Loot- which is a progressive slot with an accumulating jackpot. Then in November, she logged in to play the same game and won again.

So does it actually make any difference which machine you play? How do the odds on slots work? You might think that you need to avoid a certain machine if you have just won a big jackpot (or even a small win), but is that actually the case? Well…..let’s go under the slot machine bonnet, as it were.

An online slot machine, or electronic slot at a casino, uses a Randon Number Generator or RNG to determine who wins and who loses. Basically, this is a program that generates random numbers. Say the machine uses the number 32 to generate RNG sequences: the odds on scooping the jackpot on a 3 reel machine would be 1 in 32 x 32 x 32 or 1 in 32,768. Slot machines that are progressives, such as the one that Kelly won on, will have bigger numbers to play with, such as 64, 256 an 512. The odds of scooping the big one are longer.

The RNG should be audited by gambling regulators to make sure that the payout on the game falls within industry standards. The payout is normally around 95%, but they can go up to 97% and be as low as 91% (choose your slot wisely!)

But does it matter which machine you play- ie do you need to play a different machine if you have just won? On electronic slots or online slots it really shouldn’t afect your odds. The results are driven by a computer chip which has no memory- there is no way of “tightening” or “loosening” the slot machine. You may want to switch games on a progressive, of course, because by definition- if you have won the jackpot, then the pot is reduced to its starting amount. Progressive jackpots get fatter and fatter as time goes on- if no-one wins. On the other hand, you might want to stick with your “lucky” slot- like Kelly. It seemed to work for her, in any case.