8/1/22 UPDATE incorporates fiscal year ending June 30, 2022 data.
When I wanted to look up slot paybacks for my home state or others, my first stop would be the American Casino Guide book website, as I could count on the data to be updated annually in lockstep with their annual books.
However, with their recent decision to not publish the book in print any longer, it was inevitable that some changes would be coming. During my meet-up with Steve Bourie, the author of the book, he informed me that they do not plan on updating the statistics on their site any longer, but will be instead helping curious players know how to find the information going forward.
While in many cases the websites of the various states house that data, one thing I noticed is in Connecticut, my home state, the state website doesn’t break things down by denomination, but Steve’s website did. Steve was very kind to provide me with a contact in Connecticut who could provide the report, and so going forward I will be able to share that same information here.
I requested and received the last four years of data for both Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, which I share with you in turn below, and we can talk about what some of this data reveals. This is an update to my previous Connecticut casino payback post.
The fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30; the data covers the years ending June 30 of 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Let’s start with Foxwoods:
| Denomination | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
| 1 Cent | 10.25% | 10.29% | 9.91% | 9.91% |
| 2 cent | 8.60% | 9.14% | 8.62% | 8.62% |
| 5 Cent | 8.35% | 6.08% | 7.53% | 9.27% |
| 25 Cent | 8.60% | 8.73% | 8.52% | 8.66% |
| 50 Cent | 7.29% | 10.04% | 10.34% | 9.23% |
| 1 Dollar | 7.47% | 7.55% | 7.19% | 7.01% |
| 2 Dollars | 5.79% | 6.51% | 5.14% | 5.51% |
| 5 Dollars | 6.49% | 6.62% | 6.69% | 6.33% |
| 10 Dollars | 4.65% | 3.77% | 5.53% | 3.74% |
| 25 Dollars | 5.21% | 5.95% | 4.08% | 3.49% |
| 100 Dollars | 4.83% | 4.07% | 1.15% | 5.86% |
| Multi-Denom | 7.28% | 7.23% | 6.44% | 5.86% |
| Overall Hold | 8.27% | 8.49% | 8.12% | 8.05% |
And here’s Mohegan Sun:
| Denomination | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
| 1/4 Cent | N/A | 11.62% | 13.31% | 13.67% |
| 1/2 Cent | 13.81% | 13.86% | 14.79% | 13.91% |
| 1 Cent | 11.04% | 11.36% | 11.42% | 11.14% |
| 2 Cent | N/A | N/A | N/A | 13.35% |
| 5 Cent | 6.27% | 5.37% | 6.45% | 7.92% |
| 25 Cent | 8.71% | 8.55% | 8.77% | 8.99% |
| 50 Cent | 9.80% | 7.20% | 7.73% | 8.27% |
| 1 Dollar | 7.41% | 7.48% | 7.51% | 7.06% |
| 2 Dollars | 4.39% | 4.76% | 4.51% | 4.43% |
| 5 Dollars | 5.23% | 5.27% | 5.31% | 5.59% |
| 10 Dollars | 2.82% | 2.79% | 2.26% | 2.59% |
| 25 Dollars | 4.55% | 4.67% | 4.14% | 4.50% |
| 100 Dollars | 5.48% | 4.66% | 6.95% | 5.45% |
| Multi-Denom | 7.65% | 7.26% | 6.77% | 5.85% |
| Overall Hold | 8.34% | 8.38% | 8.31% | 8.10% |
Now let’s compare their 2022 fiscal year data side by side on denominations where they overlap:
| Denomination | Foxwoods | Mohegan Sun |
| 1 Cent | 10.25% | 11.04% |
| 5 Cent | 8.35% | 6.27% |
| 25 Cent | 8.60% | 8.71% |
| 50 Cent | 7.29% | 9.80% |
| 1 Dollar | 7.47% | 7.41% |
| 2 Dollars | 5.79% | 4.39% |
| 5 Dollars | 6.49% | 5.23% |
| 10 Dollars | 4.65% | 2.82% |
| 25 Dollars | 5.21% | 4.55% |
| 100 Dollars | 4.83% | 5.48% |
| Multi-Denom | 7.28% | 7.65% |
| Overall Hold | 8.27% | 8.34% |
My overall takeaways:
- They’re still not that far off from each other as a general rule – they seem to trade between denoms over time, and often times that appears to be the variance on higher denoms from year to year.
- The numbers don’t change all that much between pre-pandemic and post-pandemic, a trend I’ve been seeing elsewhere despite players claiming otherwise on forums and such.
- When it comes to penny denomination, Foxwoods has had a better overall statistic here for years. Foxwoods has hovered closer to 10% house holds while Mohegan Sun’s been around 11% – that’s 10 percent more more and can be significant for heavier penny slot players. If you’re a penny player, Foxwoods may be the better option.
- Foxwoods regained the edge in fiscal year 2022, albeit a small one, on nickel and quarter denomination machines. They also have the edge on the growing multi-denomination category, which many times incorporates lower denominations. With those shifts they also regained the lead on overall hold
- I don’t know what’s up with the $10 denomination but Mohegan Sun’s been under a 3 percent house hold on that statistic for the last fives years – way too long to be a statistical anomaly, and especially given that the two years before that it was below 4 percent. The absolute best bet in Connecticut casinos, it would seem, is Mohegan Sun’s $10 denomination machines. There’s only about 20 of them, but they seem to pay.
In my fiscal year 2021 write-up, my eye caught a massive drop in slot counts at both properties. With fiscal year 2022, it seems like they’ve rebounded, and so perhaps the machines being off for a lengthy period of time impacted those averages more than I realized:
| Fiscal Year Ending | Foxwoods Slots | Mohegan Slots |
| 2019 | 4,000 | 4,400 |
| 2021 | 2,200 | 2,600 |
| 2022 | 3,000 | 3,850 |
Even with the rebounds, they’re both well under their pre-pandemic slot counts, which themselves are vastly below where they used to be. Both have walled off or converted entire casino spaces from their previous peaks (Festival Slots and Casino of the Wind, respectively), but Foxwoods in particular has continues to more heavily edit their machine counts down.
Both casinos have seemed to be moving away from longer rows of casinos and replacing them with circular pods, a trend that had started before the pandemic but was accelerated by social distancing and players’ preference to have more space.
Joshua…. Have you ever had articles about slot machines onboard a cruise ship? If so could you please send me the link?
Hi Jorge – I have, and if you search “cruise” on this site you’ll find a number of articles about them. A good starting point would be here:
https://www.knowyourslots.com/cruise-ship-gambling-things-to-know-research/