If you’re an avid casino player, then you’ve probably heard of the terms ‘hot’ and ‘cold’. If not, then now is the perfect time to brush up on your gaming lingo and learn something new – so the next time you either visit your local land-based venue or log into your favorite casino site to play – you can feel like a pro.
Either way, read on as we take you on a virtual tour of the online casino floor to discover exactly what it means when you hear players use the terms ‘hot’ and ‘cold’.
Which games can be hot and cold?
The terms hot and cold can apply to many casino games. You might hear a player exclaim they’re on a ‘cold’ streak when playing Poker – meaning they’re being continuously dealt bad hands.
Most commonly, though, you’ll hear this being used to describe slot games. And no, we’re not talking about ‘hot’ reels that are likely to burn you when flaming lucky 7’s roll around the screen, just like ‘cold’ reels won’t describe the games that don an icy theme.
We’re talking about how to depict whether a game has paid out in the last hour or so. Aka – hot or cold.
Hot vs cold
Whilst casino games are based purely on chance, and winning or losing streaks typically have nothing to do with how you’re playing – as a random number generator (RNG) has no memory, and games hosted by dealers are kept fair thanks to the professionals – some players like to label their winning ‘streaks’ by describing them as ‘hot’.
In other words, a ‘hot’ game has paid out in the last hour, and a player with a ‘hot’ hand or playing on ‘hot’ reels has experienced some continuous wins.
On the other hand, is the flipside, ‘cold’ reels, games and streaks.
You’ve guessed it, ‘cold’ is used to describe a game that just so happens to be ‘unlucky’ or that has seen a player or players incur losses for a period of time.
How to know whether a game is hot or cold
So, how do you find out whether a game is hot or cold?
Well, in most cases, like Poker, there’s no way to tell whether previous players have seen payouts or if you’re going to be dealt a good hand.
However, some online and live games will allow you to view the statistics of previous rounds, meaning you can view how frequently or not a win has occurred at that particular table.
Remember though, this has no true relevance to your own likelihood of winning or losing, as casino games are chance-based.
Despite this, some slot games will display flaming red or blue ice icons next to the titles so you can see which has paid out over the last hour. Again, this has no correlation to the outcome of your game, but some players may want to see if a particular machine is likely to carry on the winning ‘hot’ streak.
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Will you be using this new terminology to hunt down ‘hot’ games or more easily describe how your time at the casino is going?
About the Author/s
The New Jersey Digest is a new jersey magazine that has chronicled daily life in the Garden State for over 10 years.
