Books have been set forth on this topic, and the bickering and disharmony about where the "hot" slots are positioned in the casino are still intense – over sixty years after one armed bandits were first placed in gambling dens.
The quintessential rule is that the better slot games were put just inside the main door of the casino; so that individuals going by would be able to see jackpot winners and be drawn to come unto the gambling floor and play. Our speculation is that this is not so anymore.
Many of the major casinos nowadays are behemothic complexes … you no longer can see inside from the sidewalk, so there’s no longer a reason to have the ‘loose’ slot games in close proximity to any doorways.
Another traditional rule is that loose one armed bandits are placed on the major aisles in the casinos, again so that more people could see winning jackpots and be galvanized to play. Nonetheless, 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 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 machine games.