Donna Kamal | Last updated on: September 9th, 2024
Pokies are very popular in Australia, so, naturally, some pokie myths regarding guaranteeing wins have formed over the years. At worst, believing in myths can be detrimental to your game session and may lead you to make bad decisions.
For example, you may spend your life savings on a game you believe is “due” to payout – and then it doesn’t.
In the interest of helping Australian players avoid making stupid decisions, we have decided to go through some of the most popular pokie myths and explain why you shouldn’t believe them. So, scroll down and find out if some of your tried and trusted techniques are utter rubbish.
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1. You Can Trigger Payouts By Confusing the Machine
Some players think it is possible to trick a machine into awarding you payouts. With a physical machine, some players try to do this by putting tons of coins into the machine at once or by stopping and starting the machine rapidly.
With online pokies, players use a similar theory to try and trick machine. They hammer on the spin button to break the game.
In short, you cannot trigger payouts by breaking the machine. Generally, you are more likely to lose money trying any of these techniques. Machines are programmed to switch off if they get confused. So, you’ll lose all the cash you put in it.
2. Stopping the Reels Affects a Spin’s Outcome
We have come across this myth a lot. Most pokie games work in a way where you have to press the spin button to get the reels moving. Then, if you want to get the reels to stop suddenly, you have to press the button again.
Stopping the reels randomly with the spin button does not affect the outcome of the spin. This is just a visual action meant to make the game seem cinematic. The outcome of the spin is decided as soon as you hit the spin button.
In fact, with most games, you can program the game to skip the cinematics entirely. Lots of players do this if they expect to play a specific game for a while.
3. Strategy Affects Your Odds of Winning
Pokies are entirely based on luck. There is no way you can impact your odds of winning. This is not a game like blackjack or poker where your skill can have a measurable impact on how many games you lose or win.
It doesn’t matter which pokie you play; you are simply spinning the reels and hoping for the best. How you spin the reels does not affect the outcome of the game. Anybody trying to sell you a strategy guide is selling you dreams.
As far as strategy goes, the only thing you can do to impact your odds of winning is pick a game with a high return to player (RTP) percentage and low volatility. This ensures a SLIGHTLY higher chance of winning a cash prize, but nothing is guaranteed.
4. Online Pokies are Rigged
Many salty players who do not win while playing online like to say that games are rigged because they didn’t win. However, the reality is you are very unlikely to be a big winner regardless of whether you are playing online or a land-based casino.
If you play online pokies at an online casino that is licensed and regulated, you aren’t playing rigged games. Independent authorities have tested the provider’s games for fairness, which means you get a fair chance of winning with every spin.
Each spin is also independent of the last. This means you cannot be penalized for winning too much, and you won’t suddenly win because you have lost so many times before.
5. A Pokie is Due if it Hasn’t Paid Out in a Long Time
Some players believe that the time between big wins is a factor in determining when the next big win will be. But this is not true. As stated before in one of the other myths, all spins are random and unrelated to other spins.
So, the time between wins does not affect whether a game pays out because it isn’t keeping track of when it last paid out. Essentially, a game could payout twice in a week and then only payout again in six months. Quite simply, there is no way to tell when a game is going to payout.
6. Your Odds of Winning Improve When You Bet Max
Your odds are in no way related to how much you bet. The only thing that changes when you bet max is that you get paid out more, and this is because you are staking more. For example, a person who bets $1 will not be rewarded in the same way as a person who bets $50. However, they will both always face the same odds on a spin.
Generally, we recommend betting max. However, we only do to ensure that you win the game’s full jackpot should it be your lucky day. If you cannot afford to bet max, then don’t do it. You are only going to ensure you have a short gaming session if you do.
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