One of the earliest pieces I wrote for this site was dispelling the myth that if you stop a slot machine’s reels, you can somehow control the outcome. I followed it up with an answer to whether you can win more by stopping the reels. But both of those didn’t cover another aspect of things: When should you be speed stopping slot machines?
There are legitimate reasons for doing so, as some of my readers pointed out when I reposted the stopping reels myth post again recently. Most of the reasons rely on needing to accomplish something, or having a chance at winning something.
Achieving “Diamond in a Day”
Caesars Rewards has a strong casino players card program, and a lot of the value is captured when you reach the Diamond level and above. Conveniently, the daily tier credit earning goals has two scenarios that can lead to reaching Diamond quickly:
- Earn 2,500 tier credits in a day, get a 5,000 tier credit bonus
- Earn 5,000 tier credits in a day, get a 10,000 tier credit bonus.
Both mathematically work out to the same bonus structure. But since 15,000 tier credits is what is needed to achieve Diamond, the latter gets you Diamond status in a single day of play, while the former gets you it in two.
Since it’s $5/tier credit on slots and $10/tier credit on video poker, you either have to bet high, bet fast, or a bit of both to achieve, since you’d have to do $25,000 in coin-in on slots or $50,000 in coin-in on video poker in a single day to achieve Diamond.
More smaller bets can smooth out volatility, so the way to counteract that would be to rapid-fire a slot to get well beyond the 400-600 spins an hour the average player achieves, while reducing having too much downside risk if trying to knock out the tier in a day.
I don’t advise people to play purely for comps, but many players save hundreds of dollars a year on waived resort fees alone, the $100 celebration dinner, etc., so for some players with enough budget it’s a calculated risk.
Completing Achievement Goals
Similar to the above, some casinos, such as Mohegan Sun, have achievement goals to get rewards. Some are daily goals, some are “earn points and get a reward” like food or free play, and so on. Depending on how much play is required, if you’re trying to get it done fast play will certainly accelerate your way to that bonus comp.
Generally speaking, more spins faster will bump your coin-in up, and earn you more tier credits, but it’ll also help you reach those various achievements faster.
Advantage Play / +EV Scenarios
The types of Advantage Play scenarios here are in the vein of Must Hit By progressives or other scenarios where accumulators are really high, like Buffalo Diamond‘s multipliers, or progressives way beyond the norm creating a positive expected value scenario, such as on video poker.
In the Must Hit By scenario, if the meter is close enough that you’re already in an advantage scenario, the sooner you sit down and play through it, the sooner that money will be cashed out of the machine and in your pocket. Advantage Players generally try to pick off these scenarios as quickly as possible so they can move on, so speed play absolutely makes sense – the incentive is there to just get it done.
In the latter, it’s an open-ended scenario and so the more spins you can work through, the better. It could be hours of play (or even 10s of hours of play depending on the scenario) on a machine to trigger the accumulated value that’s well above the norm. Letting things spin out or moving at a slower pace just prolongs the effort needed to accomplish it. So it also is valuable to just move things along.
Any Other Reasons?
Do you have a reason you fast play a slot machine? Are you looking to get to a bonus as quickly as possible, for instance? Share your reasons in the comments below!
