Loosest Slots 2012

Editorial Staff | Posted on April 11, 2012 |

Our annual nod to the most generous slots in the nation

by Frank Legato

For nearly as long as this magazine has been published, players have known it as the best source on where to get the best odds and the best returns on all casino games.

For slot machine players, this has been a particularly valuable mission. When Casino Player began publishing monthly payback percentage charts for the slots back in the late 1980s, many of our casino customers were appalled, and threatened to pull their ads. However, it soon became obvious that having the “loosest slots”—a term that grew directly from our publishing of the percentages—offered a distinct marketing advantage when seeking to draw players from competing casinos.

The payback percentages, by the way, are the portion of all slot wagers that are returned to the players in the form of winnings. Commercial casinos are required to report their “hold” percentages to regulators—that’s the portion of wagers left for the casino after all winnings are paid. Our charts flip-flopped those numbers to show payback percentages.

Initially, players had a lot of questions concerning the payback percentage charts: Why aren’t all denominations included? Why do the lists include regions in some places, and individual casinos in others? How on earth can a casino have a payback percentage above 100 percent on some slots?

That final question led directly to the feature you are reading right now. Percentage numbers for a single month don’t tell the entire story. If high-denomination slots get slammed with a few big jackpots, the number for the month will skew above 100 percent, meaning the casino lost money on that particular denomination for the month. Moreover, payback percentage is a long-term number; anything can happen in the short term.

It became obvious that statistics for several months provide a more accurate picture. Statistics for an entire year give you a crystal clear view of the casinos and regions that are the most generous on the slots. That is why, for 19 years, we have gathered all the statistics from regulatory agencies for each entire year as soon as the numbers have been available, and published our “Loosest Slots” issue in the spring.

On those other questions: We include the statistics as they are publicly reported. That’s why some places are reported as casino regions and other places are reported as individual casinos. The reports from regulatory agencies are the only place these numbers are available, including the divisions each agency requires concerning denominations. For example, the penny denomination—currently the most popular—was only added to the statistics by most jurisdictions recently. As of this report, Mississippi is the only major jurisdiction still without a separate penny category (some combine pennies and 2-cent slots).

Denominations like 10-cent and 50-cent slots are often wrapped into a special category for multi-denominational slots. Other jurisdictions include an “Other” category for all these stray denominations.

The fact that we can only report statistics as they are publicly revealed is also the reason you won’t find a separate payback category for video poker. Video poker and slots are combined in all reports. (However, in reality, the casinos with the highest overall payback percentages almost always have the best video poker pay schedules as well.)

Finally, you may not find your own jurisdiction in the reports. Some jurisdictions—notably, most Native American markets—do not require casinos to report hold percentages. Where it is not required, casinos consider this proprietary information.

Still, our Loosest Slots awards are the best gauge anywhere of which casinos and regions offer the best percentages on the slots. The following information is historical data—it’s not “theoretical” payback; it is the actual portion of slot wagers during calendar year 2011 that was returned to players.

And the Loosest Award Goes To…

Year after year, the same casinos and regions push themselves to the top of our Loosest Slots survey, but there are always a few surprises here and there.

One relative constant has been the very top of the national survey. For the fifth year in a row, the Loosest Slots in the Nation can be found in Reno, Nevada. The combined payback of Reno’s gaming halls—led by the Atlantis, the Peppermill, the Eldorado, the Silver Legacy, the original Harrah’s, the Grand Sierra and others—was 95.07 percent last year, basically the same as the year before and beating nearly all the other national slot markets by a healthy margin.

The reason we say “nearly” all others is that the No. 2 and No. 3 loosest slots in the nation were only behind Reno by a small fraction of a percentage point. And both were in Nevada. The casinos of the Boulder Strip—Sam’s Town, Boulder Station, Cannery East, Arizona Charlie’s—registered a combine 94.76 percent payback on their slots, followed closely by the casinos in the “Balance of Clark County”—off-Strip casinos like the Orleans, Hard Rock, The Palms, Gold Coast, Palace Station, Silverton, South Point, M, and the Primm casinos—at 94.7 percent.

The other thing that hasn’t changed is the casino registering the highest payback among casinos in jurisdictions that list the numbers of individual properties. For a decade, the winner there has remained the Casino Queen in East St. Louis, Illinois, which returned 93.57 percent of slot wagers to players last year.

There were comparatively few surprises this year. In Atlantic City, the Borgata (91.72 percent) regains the Loosest Slots crown it has worn most years since it opened in 2003. All three of the top casinos for loose slots in Atlantic City have changed from last year’s winners, Trump Taj Mahal, Borgata and Trump Plaza. This year, the Borgata is trailed only slightly by ACH (91.44 percent)—the former Atlantic City Hilton, as of this month known as the Atlantic Club—and Resorts (91.36 percent).

In Iowa, the Isle of Capri casinos normally swap the top spot. This year, Isle Waterloo (91.73 percent) takes the crown Loosest Slots crown from last year’s winner, Isle Marquette, edging out Isle Bettendorf (91.71 percent) and Prairie Meadows (91.69 percent).

In every other jurisdiction included in our survey, we have repeat winners, from Cripple Creek in Colorado to Mohegan Sun in Connecticut to Hoosier Park in Indiana to The Meadows in Pennsylvania.

Welcome to our 19^th annual Loosest Slots report, your best source for knowing who gives the most back to players on the slots. Congratulations to all of our winners—you are the best at knowing how to treat your slot players. •