The $100
Play Slots Challenge
You have $100 to play slots. Your challenge is to double your money. How would you tackle this challenge? When you play slots, is there a strategy for doubling a $100 bankroll? If you assumed that slots are purely a game of luck, I’ve got news for you. Instead of going to play slots haphazardly and hoping for the best, you can use methods that give you about as good a chance as if you were to plunk down $100 for even-money betting at your favorite table game.
First I would pick the right machine. Some slots give you a good shot at meeting this challenge while others are more likely to steal all your money. The most important feature when choosing a machine is the pay table. Too many players are attracted to a slot machine dangling the carrot of a huge jackpot. Others go to play slots and pick any machine that is big and shiny and looks enticing.

Large jackpots mean fewer smaller payouts. Big winners’ fortunes are financed not by the casino but by many losers. It is better to play slots on machines with small to moderate jackpots. For the same wager, you have a much better chance of winning 800 coins than you would have chasing 20,000 coins.

Also avoid slots where half of all possible payouts are in the 2, 5, 10 and 20 coin range. Although you might get frequent wins, the amounts aren’t big enough to prevent your bankroll from slowly but surely grinding down to zero. The best strategy for meeting this double-your-money challenge is to look for a single pay line, two-coin machine with a modest jackpot and a pay table featuring a good range of medium sized prizes.

You are looking for a pay table where the payouts for one-coin play are something like this: (from highest to lowest)

800 - 80 - 60 - 40 - 30 - 20 - 10 - 5 - 2

On slot machines with this kind of pay board, wins of small to medium proportions occur more frequently, because most of the money does not have to go towards a giant jackpot. To play slots successfully you have to catch enough mid-range payouts to stretch your time at the machine. Instead of coming up with additional money you simply recyce your winnings. The longer you can make your bankroll last, the better your chances of eventually lining up the jackpot combination. To succeed at slots you need staying power.

So, to play slots with the aim of doubling a $100 stake, this is my strategy:

I would choose a two-coin 25-cent machine with a single-pay line and a jackpot of 800 and 1,600 coins for one-coin and two-coin play respectively. And the slot will have to provide decent mid-range payouts. Double Diamond or Wild Cherry machines are good candidates if you play slots in brick-and-mortar casinos.

Choose your machines carefully, not all Double Diamond or Wild Cherry slots have identical pay tables. The brand of a machine is not really important it’s the pay table that counts.

I would play single coins until I had exhausted my $100 or had hit that 800-quarter ($200) jackpot. Towards that end, I would have to make the $100 starting bankroll last as long as possible by recycling all those small payouts. The more spins, the more chances I would have of lining up the winning combination. Playing one quarter per spin and reinvesting the smaller winnings has two objectives. Either the $200 (800 coin) jackpot is hit, or there will be sufficient smaller payouts to tally up 800 coins or $200 on the credit meter. Either way, you meet the challenge of turning $100 into $200. You can’t expect to reach this goal every time, but I believe the success rate will be about the same as in even-money table game betting.

So there you have it. If you’re ever asked to play slots and double your bankroll, those are the methods I am suggesting.

Online casinos will have slot games that meet the above requirements, but don’t look for the same slot game names as you see in live casinos.