Slot machines don’t become due for a win when they haven’t paid out in a long while, and they also don’t become hot and start paying out more. Every spin is like a single coin toss or a single roll of the dice—the outcome is independent of all the outcomes prior to it. The location of the slot machine in the casino matters. I hit a few times and I believe payout credits were over the $20 limit, I hit cash out, but I think the hopper didn't have enough in it to complete the pay out, cause I was just putting bills in it. If I recall correctly, the machine locked up and had call attendant lit, tried turning th ekey and hitting the test button, couldn't figure out how.
Players dream of hitting a big jackpot when they play the slots. When that day comes for you, you'll have questions about the taxes you must pay on the winnings.
Hand Pay Jackpots
When you hit the winning combination of symbols for a large jackpot, your slot machine locks up. Depending on the machine, the lights on top of the machine may come on and start flashing, music may play or bells ring. A slot attendant arrives promptly to see what you have won.
On jackpots smaller than $5,000, an attendant verifies that you hit the jackpot and then assists you in claiming your money at the cashier's cage. In the case of a large or progressive jackpot, the casino may have technicians come and check the machine to certify that it was functioning properly when the jackpot hit. If you hit one of the wide-area progressive machines such as MegaBucks, the slot company that operates the game comes out and verifies that machine before giving you a check.
When you hit a jackpot, you have the option of taking your winnings in cash or check. Usually, large amounts are paid by check. In the case of the MegaBucks or similar multi-million dollar jackpots, you receive a check for the partial amount, and then you have 90 days to decide if you want to be paid a lump sum or an annual annuity on the balance. If you select the lump sum option, you receive only a percentage of your actual winnings. For example, the full winnings of one multi-million slot jackpot is paid in 25 annual installments, or you can take a lump sum of 60 percent of the winnings.
IRS Withholding
All casino winnings are subject to federal taxes. However, the IRS only requires the casinos to report wins over $1,200 on slots and video poker machines or other games such as keno, lottery or horse racing. When you have a win equal to or greater than $1200, you are issued a W-2G form. This form lists your name, address and Social Security number. The casinos are not required to take out withholding tax on jackpots under $5,000 as long you supply your Social Security number. If you don’t provide your Social Security number, the casinos withhold 28 percent on small jackpots.
You can request a specific amount of withholding tax to be taken out of any jackpot you win. Some players like to do this to avoid a big tax payment in April when they file their income tax returns. The additional withholding may not be necessary if you keep a log book. The law allows you to deduct gambling losses up to the amount of your winnings. You can only do this if you have documentation of your losses. Keeping a diary or log book is the way to do this.
Slot Machine Cash Out Tickets
Proper Identification
Casinos can refuse to pay you until you produce proper identification—a photo ID such as a driver’s license, military ID or passport.
If you don’t produce an ID, you are photographed and the casino holds your winnings until you come back with proper ID. For this reason, you should always carry a valid form of identification with you when you visit the casino.
When the casino checks your identification, it also checks your age to make sure you are legally old enough to play. The minimum age for gambling varies from state to state, but under-age gamblers are not be paid if they hit a jackpot. This is the law in all jurisdictions, and it has been upheld in court.
Plan Ahead
Before you start playing your favorite slot machine you should have a plan for the day you hit a jackpot. Players become excited when they hit the big one, and this may affect the decisions you make about your winnings. It is helpful if you know ahead of time how much withholding you want taken out or whether you want a check for all or some of the amount.
Cash Machine Slot Wins
As part of our Casino Game Cheats and Fraudsters series of articles in this one we take a look at slot machine cheats and will take a look at just how they have been able to defraud huge amount of cash from slot machines all over the world.
Slots machines being both mechanical and electronic devices are always going to be vulnerable to some form of attack and this is a fact that has not gone unnoticed by land based casinos who have many security procedures in place which can help them spot when a slot game is being cheated.
Not only do casinos have security cameras watching over all gaming floors and a security team who also walk around the gaming floors undercover, but many casinos now have all of their slot machines linked up to one central computer and that computer monitors each slot for any unusual activity such as a door on the slot being opened or a lot of credits suddenly being added to a slot game.
However, no matter how advanced a casino security measures are it is always going to be possible for a determined slot machine cheat to outsmart those security measures and defraud a slot machine by one way or another, and below we take a look at some of the many different ways of cheating a slot machine.
Strimming
One of the oldest ways of cheating a slot machine into giving you as many credits as you want is by doing something known as strimming. This is where a slot cheat will simply attach a high valued coin onto a piece of strimming wire and will then insert it into the coin mechanism and pull it in and out obtaining credits as that coin passes through the mechanism and back out again.
Strimming wire is the plastic wire that is found on garden strimmers and this is a quite flexible piece of wire and being non metallic the sensors in the coin mechanism which detect the width, diameter and the metallic make up of the coins inserted does not detect it.
Even the most technically advanced coin mechanisms are prone to this very basic of scams and over the years you may have notice coin slots on slot machines changing in their design and each new design has come about as a way to hopefully deter this type of crime.
Due to the sheer speed at which it is possible to add credits to a slot machines using this method many casinos are alert to is and will have staff monitoring the live data sent via the linked computer system for any slot machine which is having a lot of credits credited to it in a short period of time, and when detected will then watch those slots via CCTV very closely.
Light Wand
Another method in which slot machine cheats could empty a slot machine of its cash float in a very short period of time was by using something known as a light wand. In all modern slot which which still payout coins as opposed to the printed tickets some slot machine now payout instead of coins, you will find a large hopper type device which is where all of the float for that machine is stored inside the slot game.
As soon as a player has won when playing a slot and presses the cash out button the hopper will start to spin and the coins will fall down a chute one at a time and will pass through a light sensor which counts the coins out and as soon as enough of them have been dispensed the hopper will stop spinning.
However, by inserting a small bit of wire with a small light attached to the end of it and a small battery at the other end of it (known as a Light Wand) into the payout shoot it was possible to position that light in front of the light sensor on a slot machine, and as such when a player tapped on the cash out button the hopper would start to spin and the coins would then work their way down the count shoot.
But as the light sensor on the payout shoot was being blinded by the Light Wand then it would not be able to count any of the coins being dispensed and as such that player would get paid out all of the coins in the hopper.
This slot machine scam cost the industry a huge amount of money over the years it was being carried out, and that was one of the main reasons why many land based casinos moved over to slot machines that instead of paying out coins paid out tickets instead as that instantly made those machines no longer vulnerable to the Light Wand scam.
Cash Out Ticket Scam
As soon as the ticket dispensing slot machines started to make their way onto gaming floors there have been many cheats looking at ways in which they can beat this new system for paying out slot machine winners.
There have been quite a few successful ways of doing that over the years however as soon as a new way of cheating comes to light casinos are very quick to react and will put measures in way to stop those scams ever happening again.
One way a team of casino cheats did manage to defraud a casino for only a short period of time was that those cheats noticed that at very busy times in the casino there would be a few members of staff patrolling the casino floors who would exchange a players winning cash out tickets for cash without that player having to join the queue at the cash desk or cashiers window.
However, as that member of staff didn’t validate the tickets as will happen when you hand the ticket to the cashier in the cash deck, those cheats then went about photocopying high value cash out tickets and would get the casino staff to give them cash for those photocopied tickets! It was only when the staff then went to reconcile their cash flot and get each ticket they had redeemed for cash validated did they realise they had been cheated, and by that time the cheats had long left the building.
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