Start with Three Paylines

The payline choices on most nine-payline games are one, three, five, seven, or nine lines. Unless you are an old hand, resist the urge to hit the MAX BET button, which will commit you to a bet of ninety credits on some nickel machines. That amounts to $4.50 a spin! Even if your bankroll can handle higher denominations, until you get very familiar with these games, you should stick with the nickel machines.
To preserve your stake on a line credits multiplier, never start by betting all nine lines. If you start with only one line, however, the payouts are so infrequent that you may get discouraged before you win anything. No matter what the machine denomination, it is usually best to start with one credit and three lines. On a nickel machine, this only amounts to fifteen cents, or seventy-five cents on a quarter machine.
If you are losing after a dozen spins, try another machine. If, however, you have accumulated some credits, then start betting two credits. If you continue winning, increase your bet to three credits, and so forth. While doing this, you should activate only three paylines. You can play this way in an informal manner, or you can learn the betting sequence in the next section and use a more methodical approach.

Use an Incremental Betting Sequence

With so many choices of paylines and credits, you can make a total bet of as little as one credit or as high as forty-five credits. On a ten-credits-per-payline machine, you can make a one-credit bet or a ninety-credit bet. This leads to the idea of some form of systematic play to minimize risk and maximize gain.
One way of doing this is the sequence shown below, where the number of lines is kept at three while the number of credits is slowly increased. This progression for forty-five credits has many more steps than a common doubling system, and is easy to remember. The amount shown in the last column is the total cost per spin on a nickel machine.