Low Variance Slots Recommendations

I'm a low-stakes table player but my wife enjoys slots. I mostly play Pai Gow Poker because I like to play a long time without losing too much money. My wife and I are both on fixed incomes so we try to avoid jackpots for the sake of our taxes. My question is, aside from video poker, can you guys recommend any slots that don't have huge swings and/or have a low chance of producing a jackpot over $1,200? Right now she mostly plays Stinkin' Rich and Bombay at 1 or 2 cents x 100 lines.

Thanks in advance.

Quote: Noncompete

I'm a low-stakes table player but my wife enjoys slots. I mostly play Pai Gow Poker because I like to play a long time without losing too much money. My wife and I are both on fixed incomes so we try to avoid jackpots for the sake of our taxes. My question is, aside from video poker, can you guys recommend any slots that don't have huge swings and/or have a low chance of producing a jackpot over $1,200? Right now she mostly plays Stinkin' Rich and Bombay at 1 or 2 cents x 100 lines.

Thanks in advance.

You want to look for slots with the lowest possible top pay. Stay away from anything progressive of course.
Look for slots with 5,000, 7,500, 10,000 coin max payments. Classics like Triple Stars, Triple Butterflies, Frog Prince. Also, play I higher denomination with less coins and compared to lower denomination at max bet.

So if you hit a $5,000 jackpot and you had to pay $1,300 in taxes, the remaining $3,700 that would be yours free and clear would be bad?


ZCore13

In theory the $5,000 jackpot sounds great however I live in a state that doesn't allow me to deduct gambling losses. Since jackpots inflate my adjusted gross income, I end up paying way more in taxes. This combined with the fact that I will likely give most if not all of that jackpot back in slots over time makes me want to avoid it if possible.

Quote: Noncompete

In theory the $5,000 jackpot sounds great however I live in a state that doesn't allow me to deduct gambling losses. Since jackpots inflate my adjusted gross income, I end up paying way more in taxes. This combined with the fact that I will likely give most if not all of that jackpot back in slots over time makes me want to avoid it if possible.

Sounds to me with your personal income and your inability to separate entertainment money from living money, you should not be going to the casino.


ZCore13

Quote: Noncompete

In theory the $5,000 jackpot sounds great however I live in a state that doesn't allow me to deduct gambling losses. Since jackpots inflate my adjusted gross income, I end up paying way more in taxes. This combined with the fact that I will likely give most if not all of that jackpot back in slots over time makes me want to avoid it if possible.

Ignore Zcore13 and welcome to our forum.

I agree with you and I think that the recent changes in tax laws have become a factor in what some players are now looking for in casino games. I too have a personal financial situation in which I cannot claim gambling losses against the first $10,000 of a large jackpot or table game payout. So I personally want to avoid playing games in which much of my game equity (EV) consists of low probability large payouts - so I can avoid the dreaded tax form that reports my large gambling wins. Thus Pai Gow Poker and Blackjack are much more attractive to me than Mississippi Stud. This is a relatively new development in tax law and is simply not understood by game designers and dough-for-brains casino executives.

I don't want payouts of 500-1 and 1000-1!!!!!! It becomes a tax nightmare in which all my wagers that lost at 1:1 are not permitted to offset my single large winning payout.

All of the WOO tables that talk about EV out to six significant figures miss this fact of the modern financial world.

Often overlooked if even if you itemize and can deduct your losses, that $5,000 is on your Adjusted Gross Income. Many states use that figure for your states taxes, AGI can eliminate Education credits. Medical costs are deductible only after they exceed 7.5 percent of your Adjusted Gross Income. AGI for high brackets can limit many other deductions.

Gordonm888, I'm glad you understand where I'm coming from. I'm by no means scraping to get by and my budgeted allowance for gambling/entertainment is irrelevant to this thread.

It fascinates me that the bean counters for the mega casino corporations have no clue how gamblers think and they only care about their bottom line. While I wouldn't mind being taxed on a life-changing jackpot in the six or seven figures, it really stings when I get tax forms for $1,250 and have nothing to show for it at the end of the year. I imagine there are many others out there who would benefit from and enjoy machines that had more frequent $1,000 payouts instead of larger, less frequent payouts.

I didn't mean for this thread to turn into a boring tax discussion or people telling me how I should spend my money. I was just wondering if anybody could recommend any slots that aren't prone to jackpots over $1,200.

Quote: Noncompete

Gordonm888, I'm glad you understand where I'm coming from. I'm by no means scraping to get by and my budgeted allowance for gambling/entertainment is irrelevant to this thread.

It fascinates me that the bean counters for the mega casino corporations have no clue how gamblers think and they only care about their bottom line. While I wouldn't mind being taxed on a life-changing jackpot in the six or seven figures, it really stings when I get tax forms for $1,250 and have nothing to show for it at the end of the year. I imagine there are many others out there who would benefit from and enjoy machines that had more frequent $1,000 payouts instead of larger, less frequent payouts.

Ignore Gordon and take my advice. Anyone who is concerned about the tax ramifications from small casino jackpots shouldn't be visiting the casino so much.

Find something else to do that entertains you and isn't a 99% chance of a loss of money. I see it every day. Way too many people gambling that should be doing some other form of entertainment. Find another subject you enjoy and delve into it. You'll be happier in the long run.


ZCore13

Zcore, thanks for the advice. When I'm in the market for a life coach I'll be sure to give you a ring.

From the sounds of it I think you'd be the one who would be much happier if you didn't work around all of us low-lifes who come in everyday and gamble all our money away while providing you with a job.

Quote: Noncompete

Zcore, thanks for the advice. When I'm in the market for a life coach I'll be sure to give you a ring.

From the sounds of it I think you'd be the one who would be much happier if you didn't work around all of us low-lifes who come in everyday and gamble all our money away while providing you with a job.

Sounds like a good plan. Unfortunately, there's no shortage of people who shouldn't be gambling, still doing it. Wish it wasn't so.


ZCore13

Play $1 Blazing 7's reels. Generally low hold, low jackpots, and lower variance,

Quote: Zcore13

Ignore Gordon and take my advice. Anyone who is concerned about the tax ramifications from small casino jackpots shouldn't be visiting the casino so much.

Find something else to do that entertains you and isn't a 99% chance of a loss of money. I see it every day. Way too many people gambling that should be doing some other form of entertainment. Find another subject you enjoy and delve into it. You'll be happier in the long run.


ZCore13

What an ambassador you are. If you are as inept at your job as you are in interpreting what the guy was trying to get at with his question I feel sorry for your employer.

Like everyone has said (or is thinking), simply ignore ZCore.

For your tax "problem", IMO, just save whatever % it is you'll need come tax season. Throw it in a shoe box until the end of the year and DO NOT touch it. Easier said than done, sure.

As far as games, DRich offered a good one which is $1 blazing 7's. The top payout is $1,000 and there's no way to get a higher payout on it, unless it's a progressive, or you're playing the variant of blazing 7's which I think pays $2k for top payout. It's a decently fun game for a slot and the top payout hits are fairly frequent, at least much more so than other games.

As far as video slots, stinkin' rich (if that's the game I'm thinking of) can have some pretty high variance since the bonus round pays a lot.

One problem with switching to lower volatility games is they aren't as fun since you can't win as much, thus you may want to bet more, and now you're basically back in the same boat you started with (except you're losing more down because you're betting more overall). Coyote Moon and Wolf Run are other slots you may want to try.

I know you said other than VP -- but in reality, VP is your best option. House edge is really low and at 25c denom you won't hit a taxable, and on a game like DDB or BPD, there'll be enough variance to make it fun. Something to reconsider, perhaps.

Making higher wagers with a low variance is NOT the same as playing a high variance game with large jackpots and suffering the tax bite.

If you are taxed 30% on every large payout, >$1200, and not allowed to deduct your gambling losses then it changes your EV or return rate like this:

If you are playing a video poker game with 99% return, but 10% of that return comes from payouts that are $1200 or more (on which you will be taxed 30%) then your effective VP return rate is 96% - NOT 99%. The government has a 30% rake on all payouts above $1200.

Even when you can deduct your gambling losses against the large payouts reported on W-2G forms there are still tax effects. The reporting of large payouts on the W-2G forms increase your adjusted gross income (AGI), and if you can claim gambling losses then that increases your total itemized deductions. For those of us who have substantial incomes that means:

- your AGI can go over the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) threshold, exposing you to higher tax rates. Or will increase the tax rate on your total income if your AGI is already over the AMT threshold.
- The AMT rules start reducing your deductions, as an example: allowing you credit for only 80% of the deductions that you claimed. But that 20% bite really hurts now, because your deductible expenses have now been inflated by the legitimate gambling losses that you have claimed to offset your large gambling payout.
- A taxpayer will progressively lose the ability to claim other tax credits (for college expenses, for dependent children expenses) as their AGI increases.
- Also, itemizing your legitimate gambling losses as deductions will increase your deductions, thereby raising flags on the IRS computers and increasing your chance of an audit. That is a really unpleasant experience.

The net effect is that the reporting of payouts >$1200 to the IRS discourages people from gambling.
- Currently if I pay $400 to enter a poker tournament and do so 31 times a year and in one tournament I win $10,400, then the $10,400 win is reported to the IRS (as a $10,000 win). And because I have no house mortgage and claim a standard deduction (with no itemization of deductions) I cannot deduct any of the $12,000 I paid to enter all those other tournaments as gambling losses. So, even though I had a net loss of $2,000 at poker tournaments during the year, I owe about $3,000 in taxes on my gambling wins!

The result is that the player says "Screw this." and stops playing tournament poker. Or stops gambling. This is bad for gamblers and bad for the gambling industry.

Most slot machines bamboozle my mind with unforeseen jackpots, even on the penny slots with dozens of lines to bet on. I might find a Double Diamond machine from 20 years ago hidden in the mess and stick to 1 or 2 quarters if I need to use a machine for a free play. There's also Keno machines but I'd only bet 2 or 3 numbers while everybody else is going for a maximum jackpot. Cheap video poker machines might qualify if you bet less than max bet, but don't stay there long. Most of the slots I knew back in the day are either gone or have been hijacked by insane game play and it's impossible to know how to keep it under $1200 unless you learn how for each machine. Wind up getting 50 free spins on a game with a 20X multiplier on wins and you've got over 10,000 coins and what denomination were they (hopefully $5 coins, lol)?

Back in the day a $5 slot player would have to auto-ring the buzzer to get an attendant and fill out a tax form on every 250+ coin win, which is the utmost PITA. With the lack of handpays or machine pays but ticket pays, I guess the cashier's cage will have you filling out tax forms when you cash in your tickets, idk.

Quote: ChumpChange

Most slot machines bamboozle my mind with unforeseen jackpots, even on the penny slots with dozens of lines to bet on. I might find a Double Diamond machine from 20 years ago hidden in the mess and stick to 1 or 2 quarters if I need to use a machine for a free play. There's also Keno machines but I'd only bet 2 or 3 numbers while everybody else is going for a maximum jackpot. Cheap video poker machines might qualify if you bet less than max bet, but don't stay there long. Most of the slots I knew back in the day are either gone or have been hijacked by insane game play and it's impossible to know how to keep it under $1200 unless you learn how for each machine. Wind up getting 50 free spins on a game with a 20X multiplier on wins and you've got over 10,000 coins and what denomination were they (hopefully $5 coins, lol)?

Back in the day a $5 slot player would have to auto-ring the buzzer to get an attendant and fill out a tax form on every 250+ coin win, which is the utmost PITA. With the lack of handpays or machine pays but ticket pays, I guess the cashier's cage will have you filling out tax forms when you cash in your tickets, idk.

No, you still get a handpay if you win $1,200 or more. The attendant brings you the tax forms, you fill them out, they walk the forms back to the cashier cage and then come back with the money, hand it to you, open the machine, and subtract the amount you won from the current balance.

One time I won $5,000 on a $5 spin. I had them withhold 25%, and then when I filled out my tax forms, I had to add another $1,050 in Obamacare taxes. :mad:

When I see two progressive VP machines, one with a jackpot of $1,253 and one with a jackpot of $1,178, guess which one I play! The taxes on top of taxes was bad enough for the $5,000 win, there is no way I am going to win just over $1,200 and basically hand it all to the IRS.