Casino Facts

Debunked: Top 10 Casino and Online Slot Myths

We’ve all heard stories about casinos being rigged, or players finding a magic formula that guarantees success. As soon as you become an active member of the online gaming community you’re bound to come across these types of tales and many more as well - but what’s really behind some of the more popular myths about online casinos? Here, you can find the Top 10 Casino and Online Slot Myths.

Author: Manyspins Published: July 9, 2021 Last update: July 15, 2022

Table of content

1. Casino Players Sometimes Have Winning and Losing Streaks

It’s true that if you play for long enough, you’ll sometimes experience a set of wins or losses in a row, almost as if fate has made a decision that you’re going to do well or badly in a particular session – or that casino games are configured to occasionally work that way. In reality, however, these kinds of online slot machine myths sometimes occur through sheer chance. If you toss a coin a few thousand times, then sooner or later you’ll land it heads up quite a few times in a row. It’s a statistical inevitability, and online games are regulated to prevent any outcome having any relation to the outcome that came before it.

2. Only Progressive Jackpot Games Have Really Big Prizes

Online slot machine myths like this came about because the record prizes won on slots are progressive jackpots, however there are plenty of six and seven figure wins that can be made from matching symbol wins on the right non-progressive games.

3. Casinos Will Avoid Paying You Your Winnings at Any Cost

This is one of the online slot myths that never completely goes away, because there are – inevitably – some rogue casinos that want your money but don’t want to pay you when you win. However, by using what’s known as a whitelisted casino you can avoid having to worry about this. Whitelisted casinos are all based in tax havens – as are nearly all almost all online casinos – but they are subject to local regulation from a reputable body, such as the Gambling Commission.

4. Casinos Don’t Want You to Win

This is simply not true. If nobody ever won, nobody would come back to play, and the casino wouldn’t be in business. Online slot myths like this just don’t stand up to scrutiny, and don’t make any commercial sense.

5. You Can’t Win Using a Bonus

This is one of the most misunderstood casino myths of all. Bonuses have been used to encourage new players ever since online gaming began, but if you win using a bonus, you’ll need to gamble your winnings over a set number of times before you can cash in. This requirement wasn’t brought in to stop you winning though: It was necessary because some mean-spirited customers were cashing bonuses in without ever playing a single game. The likelihood of you winning a game using a bonus is, in fact, exactly the same as winning using deposited cash of your own.

6. You Can Develop a System to Consistently Win at Table Games

If this were possible, casinos wouldn’t let you play! Table games are designed to be entertaining, and if you make the occasional win then that’s even better. You can’t expect to earn a living from them, though, as the casino has to have a house edge, or it wouldn’t be able to cover its expenses and let you play.

7. Random Number Generators (RNGs) Aren’t Really Random

It’s actually impossible to make something truly random, as everything that happens in life is somehow dependent on what came before it – which is why this particular online slot myth exists. Casino games, however, use specially devised and regulated RNGs that are so close to random as makes no difference. Basically, they use a complex formula to produce a number up to several million digits long, several hundreds of times each second, and each of these numbers has another number – known as a set value – divided into it. Set values range from 2 up to 512, and the remainder of the resulting long division sum determines the number of notches that a reel will spin on a slot, or how far a roulette wheel will rotate. No human can predict that sort of an outcome.

8. Table Games Are Only for High Rollers

This is one of those casino myths that mostly stems from movies like the James Bond films, where glitzy millionaires sit around roulette and baccarat tables. It’s true that some live casino games have a higher minimum stake than others, but you can always find somewhere that’ll let you join in for peanuts. Why would a casino turn down business? That would be crazy!

9. You Can Always Win at Roulette Using a Double or Quits Strategy

This simple method requires you to double up every time you make a loss, so sooner or later you’ll always recoup anything you’ve lost. This works up to a point, but if you suffer a losing streak, you could easily discover that you don’t have a large enough bankroll to continue playing.

10. Online Casinos Are Based Offshore Because They Are Disreputable

Most casinos are headquartered in places with a favourable tax regime because betting taxes in other countries are so restrictive that anyone paying them would be operating a highly uncompetitive business. Basing casinos offshore is therefore simply a commercial necessity.