Volumes have been said on this subject, and the debates and face-offs about where the "hot" video slots are placed in a casino are still intense – sixty yrs after slot games were first added to the gaming floor in gambling houses.
The standard rule is that the better one armed bandits were positioned just inside the main doorway of the casino; so that folks passing by would see actual jackpot winners and be intrigued enough to come unto the gambling floor … play. Our speculation is that this is definitely no longer the case.
Nearly all of the mega casinos today are enormous complexes and now you can’t see inside from the sidewalk, so there is no longer a reason to put the ‘loose’ slot games in close proximity to any of the doors.
Another standard rule is that loose slot games are positioned on the major aisles inside the casinos, again so that more persons could see winning jackpots and be energized to play. Importantly however, we find that this also is not a universal rule any more.
What casinos found over the years is that people walking down the busy aisles were frequently on the way to somewhere else. If they played one armed bandits at all, they would simply put in their loose change because they happened to be walking by. Win or lose, they would very often not stop to keep playing. And the last thing a casino wants is for someone to win a jackpot by playing only a few coins and then not stay to put it all back in!
In recent times, casinos are constantly changing their perspective about where to place the loose slot machine games.