QUESTION: Can you explain how slot tournaments work? I’m entering a $50 tournament at our casino and I was wondering if you had any strategies? — Megan H.

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ANSWER: The format for your tournament is probably one that uses timed sessions with machines in free-play mode. That means your $50 entry fee is your total cash outlay. A typical format when playing free-play tournaments is to give each player 1,000 credits and 20 minutes to play them per round. Each time you tap the spin button, three credits are deducted from your starting credits, and credits that you win are shown on a separate meter. When time has expired, the machine will automatically lock up.

Any credits that you have not played will be lost. A tournament director records each player’s win meter at the conclusion of each round, and the player with the most points at the end of the tournament wins. Your objective is to use all your credits before time runs out.

You should try to get in as many spins as you can. Just keep your fingers on the spin button and get skilled at pushing it with split-second precision. The machine will not spin until the winning credits have been displayed on the screen, so timing is everything. You need to be prepared to push the button instantly after your credits have been tallied.

QUESTION: How does a casino turn a bank of low payout slots into high payout slots for a tournament and then back again to low-payout mode without changing a computer chip inside the machine? — Harvey S.

ANSWER: Before any slot tournament, a slot technician with a tournament-mode computer chip swaps each machine’s computer chip out. Because the chips are uniform in nature, each slot machine has as good a chance of winning as any other.

What’s important to note is that the long-term payback purposely programmed into the tournament chip is a great deal higher than that used in a normal slot machine chip.

Although the random number generator stays the same, the machines are loosened up by changing the layout of the symbols on the virtual reels. That’s why you’ll see those high payouts at tournaments, but not with conventional play.