It's no closely-guarded secret that both land-based and online casinos hold an edge over players when it comes to slots games. In online casinos, the slots house edge is normally around 4-7%, while land-based establishments hold anywhere from a 7-18% edge on slots players.

However, it always seems like there's some way to beat the house at their own game - even if it's extremely hard to do so. In blackjack there's card counting...in roulette there's wheel bias.....in craps there's controlled shooting.

But what about slots? Outside of a bunch of slots myths, is doesn't seem like there's a good method to beat casinos. However, the truth is that there is a way to gain an advantage when playing slots games - it's just not an easy task!

Progressive Prowess

While slots of all types are popular, it is the big progressive games that drive the industry. After all, progressive slots are where the biggest jackpots are found, so people love to play these. And they sometimes like to play progressives even more when they find out that these machines can provide an edge to players.

This anomaly occurs when the jackpot reaches such a high point that it theoretically provides a positive return to the player. Now we want to emphasize THEORETICALLY because only the jackpot winner and a handful of big second and third-tier prize recipients are getting the positive return. But in theory, you can gain an advantage when a huge jackpot is present.

When does the Edge come?

Just looking at jackpots and guessing when they're high enough to provide a positive expected return isn't usually enough; instead, the great slots players do mathematical analysis to find out when they've got an advantage. In fact, there are teams of progressive slots players who work together to win jackpots when they're reached a certain point.

Assuming you're not totally adept at slots math, you can do some simple calculations on your own to try and find an edge. For example, if a slots game requires $1 bets to win a $50,000 starting jackpot, you might have an edge once it reaches $350k. Of course, if you're really serious about slots, you might want to do more thorough research on the subject.