Books have been said on this issue, and the debates and discussion about where the "hot" one armed bandits are installed in the casino are still intense – 60 years after the slot machines were first placed in gambling houses.
The standard rule is that the superior one armed bandits were put just inside the main doorway of the casino; so that people walking by would see actual jackpot winners and be enticed to come inside … play. Our sneaking suspicion is that this is no longer true.
Most of the major casinos these days are behemothic complexes and you can no longer see inside from the sidewalk, so there’s no longer a reason to place the ‘loose’ slots close-by any entrances.
Yet another standard rule is that loose one armed bandits are positioned on the major aisles inside the casinos, again so that more people could see winning jackpots and be roused to play. However, 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!
These days, casinos are constantly changing their philosophy about where to place the loose slot machine games.