Books have been set forth on this topic, and the debates and interchanges about where the "hot" slots are placed in a casino are still passionate – over sixty years after the slots were 1st placed in gambling houses.
The quintessential rule is that the more favourable slot machines were positioned just inside the main entrance of the casino; so that persons walking by would see jackpot winners and be stimulated to come inside … play. Our opinion is that this is not so anymore.
Just about all of the mega casinos presently are humongous complexes … you can no longer see inside from the sidewalk, so there’s no longer a reason to situate the ‘loose’ slots near any entrances or exits.
An additional standard rule is that loose slot machine games are positioned on the major aisles inside the casinos, again so that more persons could see winning jackpots and be roused to play. Nonetheless, we find that this also is no longer a universal rule.
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 the slot machines 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!
These days, casinos are constantly changing their perspective about where to place the loose slots.