Online Slots Are Rigged
Rigged online casinos usually offer games that are identical to the ones in fair and licensed casinos — the only difference is that you don’t really have an opportunity to win any money. In other words, you’ll pay and not get anything in return. The first version of rigged you probably think of is a game it is impossible to win. That’s the way shady carnival games might be rigged, or the scam version of Three-card Monte where there isn’t actually a Queen. The good news is slot machines, including online gambling slot games, are not rigged like that.
Many people will tell you that rigged online slots are rare because online casinos have no reason to cheat; they make so much money from slot machines already simply by offering fair games. That's far from a convicing argument - as if there were no greedy people in the world. But there's some logic behind the argument as well. Are Online Slots Rigged? Most slots players some point ask the question “Are online slots rigged?” at some point in their lives. The answer to the question is not a matter of fact. This is because the answer can change based on the casino that you choose to play at.
Looking to play slots online but are worried that they might be rigged? In this article we’ll cover the differences between land-based casino slot machines and online slots, and will answer the buring question – are online slots legit?
How casinos rig slots
At first glance, it may seem that online slots are less controlled than casino slot machines, but actually the opposite is true. Land-based slot machines can definitely be rigged by the casino, and are rigged more often than we’d like to believe. Since these slots are off the grid, they are stand-alone machines with no outside control whatsoever. The only control is coming from the owner itself – the casino – and you simply have to trust the casino if you’re playing one of their slot machines.
Without third-party verifications it’s almost impossible to know if a slot machine has been rigged. You may play a bit, several hundred spins, and you’ll have your own assumption, based on the fact that you just won or lost. But you’d need millions of spins to actually know if a slot machine has been rigged.
So, the short answer is – you can’t know if a casino slot machine has been rigged, and if it was you wouldn’t be aware of it. It does happen quite often.
Are online slots really random?
Online slots are actually safer to play, for one reason. They depend on a random number generator (RNG) and the RNG that some online slot is using is going through third-party tests. That’s why you often see someone mentioning a slot game or some other game is “provably fair”. That means it was audited by an independent third-party that verified that the RNG isn’t rigged in casino’s favor. Once you see that, you’re safe. You never see it in land-based casinos, they just don’t bother.
Realtime Gaming slots
Realtime Gaming (RTG) slots are a special case, as each slot game is indeed provably fair, but can be set up by the casino. The casino may choose for the game they’re hosting to have theoretical payout of 91%, 94% or 97.50%, and you won’t know which one it is unless the casino itself decides to tell you. For all practical purposes, unless you know specifically what the theoretical payout of your RTG slot is, you basically don’t know. You might as well be playing the 91% version, and that’s an awfully low payout, the equivalent of playing a rigged slot.
Betsoft slots
Betsoft slots are what you’re looking for. Reputable company that releases provably fair slots of high production quality, and then to top it all off they tell you exactly what the theoretical return to player (RTP) is. Try getting that in your local casino!
Some of the best Betsoft slots are Good Girl Bad Girl (97.80% payout) and Greedy Goblins (97.20%), and there are many more titles that deserve a few spins. As far as we at GamblersFever are concerned, Betsoft is the best US-facing slot game developer, though Realtime Gaming remains the most popular but we have our doubts here precisely because of the configurable and hidden RTP.
Rival Gaming slots
Rival is the third major developer of slots on the US market, and just like Betsoft, they also release the theoretical RTP of each of their slots. Some of them are the best slots regarding payout – or loosest slots if you will – that you can play on US soil. Rock On! is probably their best-paying slot game, and it has RTP of 98.00%. There’s no way you’ll be able to find a slot machine with that kind of a payout in your land-based casino.
Are online casino slots rigged?
No, they are not.
There are some exceptions, of course. If you dig deep enough and start playing at some casinos that you’ve never heard of, there’s a chance you might be playing at a rigged casino. This is rare but still you must pay attention. An easy way around this is to simply visit only those casinos that we recommend on GamblersFever.
Note the Realtime Gaming issue with configurable RTP and don’t take it lightly. Whenever you’re playing a Realtime Gaming slot, you don’t really know what the theoretical payout is. It’s probable that most casinos go for the medium-payout value of 94% or 95% (depending on the slot game), and what you want is the high value of 97.50%. If you can find that, and if the casino explicitly states the RTP is 97.50%, do play the game. Otherwise, you’d be better off playing one of Betsoft or Rival slots.
In any case, you’re getting a much fairer game online than you would at any land-based casino in the US. These are in business of conning people and have been for decades. We love the whole scene, but they’re sleazy conmen, and if you want fair treatment then the only way to go is to play online instead.
What about in-game gambling and smartphone apps?
If we’re talking about things like the casino in Grand Theft Auto (shown on our featured image above), these don’t (yet) go through the auditing process by a third-party, so you can expect that these are heavily rigged in casino’s favor. You’ll find the same thing at any place that isn’t under close scrutiny – like online casinos are. So, if you want to play a fair game, play it at an online casino. Casinos in Grand Theft Auto and similar games is just not the real thing and you are probably up against a huge house edge. Same goes for apps, same goes for any kind of gambling that isn’t taking place under the umbrella of a reputable online casino.
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read more +The first thing a losing customer will say is that the slot machine is rigged, whether it is at a land-based casino or at an online gambling center. We tend to make ourselves victims of injustice more often than never, especially if we don’t understand how some things work and don’t have either the time or the will to investigate.
This happens to be the situation with online slots and some people thinking they are, in fact, rigged. Skepticism is not always bad, it is like a form of a precaution, and fully understandable when it comes to gambling with real money. But let’s see why the theory about rigged online slot machines doesn’t have any substantial arguments to support it.
Mechanics made way for electronics
Slot machines are still experienced as machines, even though computer software was taken over and altered slot technology. Sure, slot machines were simpler in the past, you pull the lever and hear the cogwheels tuning inside, but past is the past. Nowadays, software stands behind both land-based machines and online slots, so they pretty much work the same way.
If you think online slots can be computer programmed to make players loose, well then the same logic can be applied to brick and mortar slots, as you are playing all the same games but channeling them through a different device. However, slot game software can’t be manipulated in that way, due to various reasons – such as constant supervisions and testing.
RNG and regulation
In order to understand how hard it would be to rig online slots, one should know that slot software is operated by an algorithmic computer whose task is to create random combinations through series of random numbers. It is known as Random Number Generator, or simply RNG.
RNG carries out operations following an algorithm of mathematical operations starting from one random number and ending up at a completely different number containing a huge number of digits, them repeating it times on end, making it impossible to predict any future or past actions.
Are Online Slots Rigged
The computer has no input of past spins and every reel combination is random.
You can lose if you’ve lost ten times before, or you could win again if you’ve won big on your last spin – there’s no way to tell.
RNG is in charge of producing randomness, and third party testing companies are there to control fairness of casino games, including online slots.
Are Online Slots Rigged Reddit
These companies are independent third parties and their job is to make sure games show random results and meet payout percentage requirements, as in some jurisdiction these are determined by lawful regulations. An example would be Technical Systems Testing (TST).
Apart from this, government bodies like the UK Gambling Commission, Jurisdiction of Gibraltar, the Malta Lotteries and Gaming Authority and others, function like supervisors and impose rules and regulations both software developers and casinos have to meet in order to acquire a respected casino license to operate.
Regulatory agencies provide casinos with proper certification so the players can keep their piece of mind.
Software isn’t bug-free at times
What every customer indulging in services of any type of computer software has to know is the fact that sometimes these things have bugs, and malfunction or crash.
Computers aren’t made by computers, but by humans, and some of these products fail to satisfy users at one point or another.
Such cases are known to happen, for example last month a woman thought she had won almost $43million in a New York casino on a slot machine that had a max payout of $6,500 before the management informed her that the slot was broken and had to be pulled from the casino floor to be fixed.
Similarly, a woman in Oregon thought she had won $8 million, but the casino didn’t pay since it was evident the machine was broken, having a max payout of just $20,000.
These things make customers bitter, but they are by no means signs or rigging. All machines have a stamp on them that says: ‘malfunctions void all pays and plays.’
Something to think about
There is a very good advantage attached to online slots that grounded slot machines lack. We’re talking about the theoretical payout rate, the payout percentage, or simply RTP. This is an official piece of information about a specific slot, being published by the developer or the casino.
RTP is a legitimate indication of the odds of winning when playing a slot. It is expressed in percentages, telling you precisely how much a slot is estimated to pay back to players.
This means you don’t have to be clairvoyant to know what to expect from a slot, just stick to reputable, licensed casinos and slots with higher RTP.
As you saw in our casino software section, most of the companies publish their official RTP rates, as this is a standard for most European oriented casinos.
For USA players the situation is a bit more difficult since many software companies do not post official data, such as RTG for example. In those cases where official RTP rates are not published, we recommend to search for a third party testing company monitoring that particular online casino. Otherwise, you can check the review section mentioned above, where we recommend the best RTG casinos with instant payouts. And if you are not particularly into RTG slots, then you can go with Rival or BetSoft casinos which publish the payouts of most of their games.