Books have been written on this topic, and the disquiet and discord about where the "hot" slot machine games are located in a casino are still ongoing – more than 60 yrs after slot machine games were first placed in gambling houses.
The standard rule is that the best slots were located just inside the main door of the casino; so that casino fanatics going by would see jackpot winners and be attracted to come unto the gambling floor … play. Our position is that this is definitely no longer so.
Practically all of the big name casinos presently are huge complexes and you can no longer see inside from the sidewalk, so there’s no longer a reason to position the ‘loose’ slot machine games close to any doors.
An additional traditional rule is that loose slot machines are positioned on the major aisles in the casinos, again so that more potential players could see winning jackpots and be energized to play. Importantly though, 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 one armed bandits 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 machine games.