Slot players don’t interact with dealers on every play, as table games players do. There are far fewer situations in which tipping casino personnel is common behavior. On slots, the main tipping situation comes with hand-paid jackpots. Most slot machine payoffs just add credits to the meter. If the bill acceptor will not accept the bill, open the machine and check the bill drop box on the inside right hand side. Empty the bill drop box and try it again. Have a technician replace the bill acceptor if needed. Listen for alarms and look for the 'Service Light' to flicker on the front of the machine.

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Let's just say the odds still favor the house. In a big way.

1. 'The house always wins, and it's now winning more.'
Maybe you've had a good night or two at the casino sometime in the past decade, but it's the house that has hit the jackpot. Visitors gambled and lost more than $27 billion at U.S. casinos in 2003, up from about $11 billion in 1993 — not that the casinos are passing much of that growth on to consumers. While the odds always favor the house, some casinos are changing the odds and payouts on table games to be even more in their favor.

Take blackjack. Instead of the traditional 3-to-2 payout — which means a player betting $20 would get $30 — some casinos are now paying 6-to-5, effectively reducing the payout by 20%. And almost every casino now uses multiple decks, stacking as many as eight in a single sleeve, which makes it harder for gamblers to keep track of which cards have been played.

In perhaps the most significant shift, an increasing number of casinos don't allow the dealer to hold on 'soft 17,' the term for a 17-point hand that includes an ace. Continuing the hand improves the house's odds by about 0.2%. It doesn't sound like much, but on a table that sees $100,000 in wagers on a given day, that adds $200 to the house's take.

2. 'There's nothing complimentary about our comp cards.'
'Comp' cards have become increasingly popular at casinos in Las Vegas and elsewhere. They work like frequent-flier miles, offering customers a chance to earn free lodging, food and other extras each time they spend money at the casino. For casinos, the cards are a valuable tool in building brand loyalty, says Gary Loveman, chairman and CEO of Harrah's Entertainment.

But the spending bar is usually high for most of the 'rewards,' and since the games favor the house, odds are a gambler will lose money while racking up points. Catherine Cozzolino signed up for the Tropicana casino's Diamond Club card in October 2003. She earned enough reward points for a free room on her next trip, but it took spending (and losing) $500 to do it. On a recent visit to Vegas, SmartMoney signed up for an MGM Mirage Players Club card. After 90 minutes on a Treasure Island casino 5-cent slot, we had enough points for a free T-shirt, but we spent $85 in the process.

Bottom line: Don't rack up points solely with the goal of getting freebies. There is, though, one way to get something for nothing. Many of the loyalty cards offer discounts on lodging and food just for signing up.

3. 'Our ATM machines are the real one-armed bandits.'
While ATM fees are creeping up everywhere these days, perhaps nowhere are they higher than at casinos, where access to cash is king. Patrice Traina found that out the hard way three years ago when she was short on cash at the Paris Las Vegas casino. One of the casino's ATMs charged her $7.50 in fees to withdraw less than $500. 'It killed me (to pay the fees),' says the Chicago auditor.

At Atlantic City, N.J., casinos, many cash machines charge a $3 flat fee on money withdrawn from a checking or savings account, more than double what an average ATM charges non-account holders. It's roughly the same at Vegas casinos. If you want to use a credit card for a cash advance, the fees are even higher. Some machines charge a $2.95 fee and 3.5% of the amount withdrawn. Others charge a flat fee — $29 on any withdrawal between $401 and $500, for example. That's anywhere from a 5.8 to 7.2% tax on your withdrawal — on top of any interest your credit card might charge.

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How to avoid the fees? Obviously, try to fuel up before entering the casino. Or do what Traina now does and bring your checkbook: Many casinos cash personal checks for free. 4. 'We're subliminally relaxing you.'
Taking a cue from retailers, casinos often circulate oils and scents into their ventilation systems to try to put gamblers in a good mood. In 1991, the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas started circulating the smell of coconut butter on its property to match the casino's tropical resort theme. At 500,000 square feet, the gaming/hotel section of the Mohegan Sun complex in Uncasville, Conn., is the largest scented building in the world. It has more than a dozen different smells circulating within its walls, says Mark Peltier, cofounder of AromaSys, the firm that installed the system. The Venetian casino in Las Vegas, also an AromaSys client, circulates an array of herbal scents, including lavender, throughout the casino floor.

Why the olfactory overload? It's generally believed that people will stay longer — and therefore spend more — in a place with a pleasant smell, says Peltier. Lavender aromas, in particular, have been clinically proven to induce drowsiness and promote relaxation, says Wendell Combest, a professor at the Shenandoah University School of Pharmacy. The scents have no known harmful side effects, but be aware that it might be more than just the free drinks making you feel so happy-go-lucky.

5. 'Ninety-five percent payback doesn't mean you won't lose a lot of money.'
Casinos often advertise that their slot machines pay out a very high percentage of the money they take in; 95% payback is a common claim. But the numbers can be misleading. Advertising 95% doesn't mean all the casino's slot machines are paying out at that level. It is true that each slot is programmed to return a percentage of the money players feed into it — anywhere from 83% to 99% over a long period of time, says Jeffrey Compton, a gaming analyst at Compton Dancer Consulting — but not all pay out the same percentage. So at any given point, some machines pay out nothing while others pay out much of their take. To arrive at the 95% figure, casino management simply limits the scope of their claim to a subset of slot machines that will deliver a 95% payout.

State gambling regulators will punish any casino they discover advertising a particular payback on its slot machines and returning less. But again, the regulators are looking at a very long time horizon. So don't be fooled by the casino's marketing efforts. If you feed $100 into a slot machine on any given day, there is no guarantee that you will get $95 back.

6. 'The less you play, the lower we pay.'
Think you're saving money by playing the penny slots? Think again. Slots and video poker machines with lower denominations have lower payouts than their more expensive cousins. The reason? The house takes in a lot more money on higher-value machines and wants to drive customers to them, says Rick Santoro, senior vice president at Trump Hotel Casino Resorts.

The Argosy Casino in Lawrenceberg, Ind., is typical of many in the U.S. In November 2004, for example, Argosy kept just over 11% of the $23.5 million that customers wagered at its 232 penny machines. But at its 97 $5 machines, Argosy kept less than 3% of the $57.5 million that was wagered, paying out the balance in both cases. So customers, on average, got a much better payout percentage at the $5 machines than they did at penny machines.

Players can increase the payouts on a penny or nickel machine by increasing the amount they gamble on each individual bet. Wagering 100 nickels, $5 worth, on each pull of a nickel slot can make newer machines pay more like a $5 slot. That's because the payout is based on the amount of money that is being bet, not on how many times the machine is being used. 7. 'Card counting is legal...'
Tempting as it may be, don't try to use X-ray glasses, electronic devices or other gadgets to give yourself an edge on the casino floor. That type of cheating can get a player thrown in jail.

But you are perfectly entitled to keep track of how many aces are left in a six-deck blackjack game by using just your brain