Books have been stated on this item, and the controversy and discord about where the "hot" slots are installed in the casino are still there – more than sixty yrs after slot games were 1st added to the gaming floor in gambling houses.
The traditional rule is that the best one armed bandits were positioned just inside the main doorway of the casino; so that potential gamblers walking by would be able to see jackpot winners … be stirred to come inside … play. Our feeling is that this is definitely no longer so.
Almost all of the big name casinos today are jumbo complexes … it is not possible to see inside from the sidewalk, so there’s no longer a reason to position the ‘loose’ one armed bandits near any doorways.
Another standard rule is that loose slots are installed on the major aisles inside the casinos, again so that more persons could see winning jackpots and be encouraged to play. Notably though, we find that this also isn’t 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 slot machine games 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!
Nowadays, casinos are constantly changing their perspective about where to place the loose one armed bandits.