Books have been stated on this topic, and the disquiet and face-offs about where the "hot" slot machines are positioned in a casino are still intense – over 60 years after slot games were first added to the gaming floor in the casinos.
The traditional rule is that the most favorable slot games were put just inside the entry of the casino; so that folks going by would see real jackpot winners … be challenged to come unto the gaming floor and play. Our philosophy is that this is definitely no longer true.
Just about all of the large casinos today are jumbo complexes and now you can’t see inside from the sidewalk, so there’s no longer a reason to have the ‘loose’ slot games in close proximity to any entrances.
An additional standard rule is that loose slots are placed on the major aisles in the casinos, again so that more folks 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 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!
Nowadays, casinos are constantly changing their philosophy about where to place the loose slot machine games.