Volumes have been said on this subject, and the debates and squabbling about where the "hot" slot games are positioned in a casino are still intense – more than sixty years after the slots were first placed in the casinos.
The classic rule is that the better one armed bandits were put just inside the main entrance of the casino; so that everyone going by would be able to see real jackpot winners … be convinced to come unto the gambling floor and play. Our frame of mind is that this is definitely no longer true.
Almost all of the mega casinos nowadays are humongous complexes and now you can’t see inside from the sidewalk, so there’s no longer a reason to position the ‘loose’ slot machine games close to any doorways.
An additional standard rule is that loose one armed bandits are installed on the major aisles in the casinos, again so that more potential players could see winning jackpots and be influenced 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 the slots 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!
Today, casinos are constantly changing their perspective about where to place the loose slot games.