Casino and Slot Review

How many slot games are there?

2007-01-31T16:22:00.000-08:00

The major slot manufactures have a library of 100 to 250 active titles (or even more in the case of IGT). Of those titles they obviously endeavor to sell the most popular ones to the casinos. Since there are a handful of companies and they all have about 100 to 250 titles, at any given time an operator wants to put games on the floor they have about 1000 to 2500 titles to chose from.

But the reality is that there are much fewer games that actually are favored by players. So in actuality there are only 250 to at max 1000 types at any given casino depending on the size of the casino.

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2007-01-25T08:22:00.000-08:00

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How much does a slot machine cost?

2007-01-20T13:04:00.000-08:00

How much does a slot machine cost?

These answers are a little varied. Recent numbers indicate that Bally sells their machines for $9,671.00 each. WMS sells their slot machines for $11,840.00.

IGT sells theirs for less than that in some cases becuase their business model allows for game changes which costs an additional amount.

A general assumption (which is a pretty broad assumption based on Las Vegas, Atlantic City and many other markets) is that each slot machine makes a profit of $100 a day. That means, before other expenses like paying for the employees or the buildings, it takes around 100 days for a casino to pay for its slot machines.

How does that affect me as a slot player?

Recommended: Go to casinos that have the games that you enjoy playing. The above numbers mean that a slot machine has paid for itself after less than one year. Using a general estimate of building costs after less than two years the building is paid off as well. Allocate 1/3 a year for ongoing employee costs and you get one heck of profitable business.

That means that 1/4 of the floor being new games would be really phenomenal! That is unreasonable as Casinos need to make a profit. In fact the replacement cycle in the slot machine business is 10% to 20% a year which means every 10 to 5 years (a wide variation) the whole floor would be brand new.

As a player you can walk the casino floor and look at how many new games they have. If about 1/5 of them are a couple of years old or newer then you know you are getting a good deal for your gambling dollar.

Progressive Slot Machines, Local vs Linked

2007-01-19T14:52:00.000-08:00

What is a local progressive vs a linked progressive?

LOCAL PROGRESSIVE - A local progressive is one that is just for a single casino. Typically these games have progressive amounts like $1000 or $5000 or even up to $40,000 or $50,000. The jackpot is made by everyone that makes a bet on those machines. This is called the contribution by most slot machine managers and companies. This contribution is typically 1-3% of the money that is played on the machine.

LINKED PROGRESSIVE - A linked progressive is one that has lots of casinos helping to fund a big jackpot. These jackpots are in the $100,000 or $1,000,000+ range (think MegaBucks or Wheel of Fortune, IGT trademarks by the way).

But then there are even more progressive options now!

MULTILEVEL PROGRESSIVE LOCAL - Now-a-days there is another kind of progressives that you see a lot. These are games that have three or four of five+ different progressive amounts. So you might have a small progressive that goes at $50+, one at $100+, one at $250+ and one at $1,000+ for example. You can think of these as games like the Cash Express series made by Aristocrat.

MULTILEVEL PROGRESSIVE LINKED - These are all the rage with the slot companies right now. They have 3 or 4 or more smaller progressives and then they have a large linked progressive in addition. The Powerball games put out by WMS are perfect examples of this.

What kind of progressive slot machine should I play?

That depends on what you want. If you want to be more likely to win a prize, but it be a lower one then it would make sense to play a local progressive. If however you want the chance to win enough money to change you life like 100,000 or 1 million dollars (the people in the business often call it a "life changing progressive") then you should play a linked progressive.

Number of slot machines sold, most recent numbers.

2007-01-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

In the previous article we listed the major slot manufactures. How many slot machines did each of them sell last year?

These numbers are the numbers most recently available for 2007 and represent numbers reported in 2006 for sales in 2005 and 2006 depending on reporting details. Leased slot machines are usually progressive with large jackpots and the numbers refer to how many they have in currently in casinos, not necessarily how many they place in a give time frame.

Slot Company	Sold	Leased
IGT (North America)	51,100	42,600
Aristocrat (North America)	17,613	6,159
Bally (North America and worldwide)	13,894	29,349
WMS (North America and worldwide)	21,512	7,085

IGT and Aristocrat are the biggest sellers, followed by WMS and Bally (I could have put WMS ahead of Bally but they are pretty even).

Konami, Atronic, AC Coin don't disclose numbers as far as I know.

Who are the major slot manufacturers?

2007-01-16T07:36:00.000-08:00

There are 700,000 to 1,000,000 slot machines in the US. That number is not precise because there are so many different gaming jurisdictions and not all of them publish (or collect) information that is accessible to compile.

The biggest slot manufacturers are listed in rough order from top to bottom.

IGT (by far the largest)
Aristocrat (#2 in the US now over the last five years, based in Australia)
Bally (The oldest slot company, struggled recently but still making games)
WMS (Chicago based, lots of new games)
AC Coin and Slot (puts games out with IGT)
Atronic (Privately held, has machines in most US casinos)
Konami (Part of the big video game company)
Ainsworth (another Australia company)
GTECH/Spielo (Canada company that was purchased by GTECH, smaller player)

There are lots of smaller manufacturers that have a lot of machines in certain areas of the country.

Welcome to the Casino and Slot Review!

2007-01-16T06:55:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Casino and Slot Review!

I have worked in the slot machine business for almost 7 years. I have worked with senior level executives and casino floor workers. I have worked all across the country in differing States and Tribal Casinos. I have studied professionally or sold products from all of the major slot manufacturers (IGT, Aristocrat, WMS, Bally, Sigma, Konami, etc.).

And last, but not least, I am a slot player myself.

What happens when you look online for a review of slot machine? You don’t find anything useful in my experience. I always want to learn more about the game that I like to play though!

What happens when you look for information on a casino that you would like to visit? You rarely find anything more than a website with the address, the restaurants and a couple of their promotions that they are running. I want to know what makes that Casino different!

The information out there readily is leaves me wanting more.

So, I aim to do a couple of things:

1) Create a resource for slot machine information for players, with insights from insiders in the business.

2) Create a resource for Casino information with detailed information that you can’t find other places.

Welcome to the Casino and Slot Review, and come along for the ride!

Feel free to drop me an email anytime to tell me about a particular game or a particular casino! I can be reached at casinoandslotreview at gmail.com. Drop me an email anytime.

(Just to be clear, this is an endeavor dedicated to “bricks and mortar” casinos in the real world. This is NOT for online gaming.)