Books have been said on this matter, and the controversy and discussion about where the "hot" one armed bandits are positioned in the casino are still on-going – over sixty yrs after the slot machines were 1st installed in the casinos.
The standard rule is that the better slots were placed just inside the main entry of the casino; so that potential gamblers walking by would see jackpot winners and be stirred to come inside … play. Our finding is that this is definitely no longer so.
Many of the mega casinos nowadays are giant complexes and you no longer can see inside from the sidewalk, so there’s no longer a reason to position the ‘loose’ slots close-by any of the doors.
An additional traditional rule is that loose one armed bandits are positioned on the major aisles inside the casinos, again so that more potential players could see winning jackpots and be motivated to play. Importantly though, 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 slot machine games 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 machines.