Books have been said on this subject, and the disquiet and disagreement about where the "hot" slot games are located in a casino are still intense – more than sixty years after one armed bandits were 1st placed in the casinos.
The quintessential rule is that the best slots were positioned just inside the door of the casino; so that folks going by would be able to see real jackpot winners and be stimulated to come into the casino and play. Our persuasion is that this is definitely no longer the case.
Many of the large casinos nowadays are humongous complexes … you can no longer see inside from the sidewalk, so there’s no longer a reason to put the ‘loose’ slots near to any entrances or exits.
An additional traditional rule is that loose slots are installed on the major aisles inside the casinos, again so that more folks could see winning jackpots and be galvanized 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 slot 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 very 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 slot machine games.