Superstitions are rampant throughout life, particularly with the older generation. Maybe you know someone who won’t get their hair cut on a Sunday, someone else who won’t pass you on the stairs, or someone who would shout if you put a new pair of shoes on the table. There are plenty of examples of superstition - like black cats, ladders, or cracks in the pavement. But even people who are not usually superstitious can find themselves superstitious in certain circumstances - and the biggest example of this is in gambling.

Superstition and gambling have long been linked as going hand in hand. Indeed, many players allow their superstitions and fears to determine the way in which they gamble - the kind of bets they place, or the emotions they feel towards gambling as a whole. Whether they’re signing up to an established casino or a new casino through a review site like hideousslots, players will allow their beliefs to overshadow the truth of gambling. Here are three of the most common gambling myths debunked.

1. Slots Run Hot or Cold

Arguably one of the most common myths in the casino industry as a whole, many players believe slots, or any casino game, can run hot or cold. This is a difficult one to debunk, because for all intents and purposes slots can act hot or cold, but this is different from actually being hot or cold. Here’s what we mean - when you’re on a bit of a winning or losing streak, it’s fair and accurate that you feel the slot is hot or cold. However past game rounds do not impact future game rounds on a game which uses a Random Number Generator (RNG). Whether you’ve just had a winning spin you are no more or less likely to have another winning spin on your next press - your chances of winning, hitting a bonus round, or even hitting the max win are the same every single spin. It’s just like flipping a coin - if you flip a coin 5 times and it lands on heads each time it can feel extraordinary, but the next time around your odds are still 50/50 heads or tails.

2. Your Stake Affects Your Win

Coming in at number two on the list is the belief that your stake will affect your win. We will often hear players say that they feel a slot will give bonuses more frequently, or better paying bonuses, if your stake is lower. Thankfully, this is also false - but we also can be pretty sure of the reason for this. The reason this is false is due to the Random Number Generator (RNG) we just talked about. The RNG does not know your stake and does not know who you are - when you press spin, a random result is selected and displayed on your screen. You can rest assured that no matter the stake you play on, your chance of landing a win, bonus, or the maximum win available in the game remains the same. The reason we think players believe this, however, is due to what they see online. The fact is that most players choose a lower stake, both for affordability reasons and to prolong their play time, so when we see highlights online of players sharing their wins, it stands to sense that they are normally on lower stakes - these are the most common stakes.

3. Only New Games Pay Out

Whew, where to start with this one. This kind of ties into ongoing trust issues players have with casinos. Where you’ll hear players say that only new games play out, they normally are implying that casinos make it this way to reel you in, only to ‘change’ the game after a few weeks so you’re less likely to win. The same players will often say that RTP is higher in demo games, again to reel you in. Whilst casinos may sometimes be given a selection of RTP settings from the game studio to choose from, the game studio itself (that is, the creators of the games) set the RTP and create the maths model that determines your chances of winning. This is vigorously tested and doesn’t change after release. Why it will sometimes feel like new games pay more is because they are played more, and therefore winning combinations that should occur 1 in every 10 million spin may occur multiple times in the first month, but then only a few times in months 2-6. The chance of the combination, however, remains the same.

It's important to be pragmatic when playing online casino games. Although it can sometimes feel like the Gambling Gods are working against you, they aren’t. Don’t forget - the casino already has the edge, they don’t need to manipulate things even further or lie.