Volumes have been said on this topic, and the disquiet and squabbling about where the "hot" slots are positioned in a casino are still ongoing – over sixty years after the slots were first placed in casinos.
The traditional rule is that the very best slots were positioned just inside the main doorway of the casino; so that persons passing by would see jackpot winners … be drawn to come into the casino … play. Our philosophy is that this is no longer true.
The majority of the big name casinos nowadays are monstrous complexes … you no longer can see inside from the sidewalk, so there’s no longer a reason to have the ‘loose’ slot machines close to any of the doors.
Another traditional rule is that loose one armed bandits are located on the major aisles in the casinos, again so that more potential players could see winning jackpots and be motivated to play. Notably 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 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!
Today, casinos are constantly changing their philosophy about where to place the loose slot games.