How Fruit Machines Work: Holds, Nudges & Payouts

Fact-checked by Josh Miller
Edited by Diana Westfield

Updated 10 Nov 2026Written by the CasinoCalcs team

How fruit machines work is a question that has kept pubs arguing for fifty years. You feed in a pound, the reels spin, and the machine offers you holds, nudges, a hi-lo gamble and a feature trail flashing round the glass. It feels like a game of skill with a bit of luck. It’s mostly the other way round: a random number generator decides the outcome, and the buttons give you choices inside a result that’s largely already set.

How do fruit machines work inside?

Modern fruit machines run on the same principle as an online slot. Every play, a random number generator picks a result and the reels are animated to land on it. The machine’s designer chooses how often each symbol combination comes up and what it pays, and that sets the long-run payout percentage before the machine ever reaches the pub. Older machines used a “compensated” approach that nudged the payout back towards its target over time, which is where the legend of the machine that’s “about to pay” comes from. On a random machine there’s no such thing.

Pub machines usually pay back less than online slots. Figures in the 70s to mid-80s per cent are commonly quoted for pub machines, against 94 to 97% for most online games. Put £20 through a pub machine at 80% and the expected result is £4 down; put the winnings back in and the turnover, and the loss, keep growing. The CasinoCalcs RTP and house edge calculator turns any payout percentage into a loss figure for your stakes.

Holds, nudges and the gamble button

Holds let you keep one or more reels in place for the next spin. They’re offered when the machine’s logic decides to offer them, and the best hold is the obvious one: keep the reels that are part of a winning line. Nudges move a reel up or down a position after the spin. Again, the machine decides when you get them, and using them well only means not missing a win that’s sitting one symbol away.

The gamble or hi-lo feature lets you risk a win to climb a ladder. On most machines that’s close to a fair coin flip at each rung, so it doesn’t change your average much, it just makes the results lumpier. Take a £4 win and gamble it twice at 50/50 and you have a one in four chance of £16 and three in four of nothing. Same average, very different evening. The gamble feature calculator shows the odds for any ladder.

Fruit machine tips that hold up

There’s really one: decide what you’ll spend before you put a coin in, and stop when it’s gone. Everything else, from “play the machine nobody’s touched” to “the jackpot’s due after closing time”, is folklore. Machines aren’t due, and watching someone else play one for an hour tells you nothing about the next spin.

For the online version of the same maths, the slot machine simulator plays thousands of spins at any RTP, and how slot machines work goes deeper into reels, RNGs and volatility.

Set a limit before the first coin. BeGambleAware.org has free support if a machine is taking more than you planned.

Frequently asked questions

How do fruit machines work?

A random number generator picks where the reels stop on every play. Holds, nudges and gamble features are part of the game design, and the machine's overall payout is set when it's built, not by how you play.

Do fruit machines pay out more after a long time without a win?

Not in any way you can use. Each play is decided on its own, so a machine that hasn't paid for an hour isn't due. A cold machine is no better than a hot one.

Should you always gamble a win on a fruit machine?

Gamble features are usually close to fair double-or-nothing bets, so they don't change much on average. They do make your results swing more. If you'd rather keep the £5, take it.

What percentage do pub fruit machines pay back?

Usually less than online slots. Pub machines are commonly quoted somewhere in the 70s to mid-80s per cent, while online slots tend to sit around 94 to 97%.