This page answers a question that gets very little attention and causes a good deal of quiet annoyance: once a machine owes you something, how do you end up holding it? Nothing below is about proportions, averages or the odds of anything — that material lives on the return figure page, and the two subjects are worth keeping apart, because confusing them is how people end up arguing with a cashier about probability.
The sequence, start to finish
- Money goes in, by note acceptor or by whatever cash arrangement the venue uses, and the screen converts it into credits.
- You play. Wins and stakes move the credit meter up and down; nothing has left the machine yet.
- You press collect (sometimes labelled cash out).
- The machine either dispenses money where you sit or prints a ticket representing the balance.
- A ticket is taken to the counter, where a staff member redeems it.
- Above whatever threshold the venue and its system apply, a staff member attends the machine instead and pays the amount by hand.
Six steps, and each is a place where somebody has lost money that was genuinely theirs — usually step three, by never reaching it.
A credit is a unit of account, not a dollar
The large number on a gaming machine screen is a credit meter, and credits are not dollars unless the machine happens to be set that way. The relationship between the two is the machine's denomination: the cash value of one credit. A hundred credits on a one-cent machine is a dollar; a hundred credits on a dollar machine is a hundred dollars. Same digits, two very different amounts of money.
Most cabinets let you switch the display between credits and cash, and if you are unsure which you are looking at, that toggle is the most useful button on the panel. Failing that, the denomination is written on the machine's own artwork. Establish the cash value of one credit before the first spin, not after a result you cannot interpret.
| Denomination | One credit is worth | A meter reading 400 credits is |
|---|---|---|
| One cent | 1c | $4.00 |
| Two cents | 2c | $8.00 |
| Five cents | 5c | $20.00 |
| Ten cents | 10c | $40.00 |
| One dollar | $1.00 | $400.00 |
The table is arithmetic, not a description of any room — the denominations in either Angaston hotel are not published, and the mix changes as cabinets are swapped. The same relationship governs what a spin costs, as laid out on paylines, ways and the bet panel.
Pressing collect
Collect ends the transaction. It tells the machine to stop treating the balance as playable and hand it over. Until you press it, the balance is still in the game, still available to the next spin, and still entirely capable of going back where it came from.
Two things reliably go wrong here. People wait for a round figure, and a meter sitting at an awkward number invites one more spin to tidy it up — a spin that is a stake like any other. And a feature in progress generally has to finish before the machine will let you cash out, so if you need to leave at a stated time, stop before a feature starts rather than during one. Our guide to the features describes what those sequences are.
A ticket you carry, or money at the machine
What arrives after collect depends on how the venue's gaming system is set up. A ticket arrangement prints a voucher — a slip carrying the balance and a barcode — which you take to the counter. A machine that pays where you sit dispenses the amount directly, usually with any awkward remainder handled separately by staff.
Treat a printed ticket like cash, because that is what it is. It can be dropped, left in the tray, put through a wash or picked up by somebody else, and tickets commonly carry an expiry, after which redeeming one becomes a conversation with a manager rather than a thirty-second transaction.
Which arrangement applies at 59 Murray Street or at 41 Murray Street is not something this guide publishes. Both hotels list gaming and neither sets out the detail of its payment arrangements; the question takes ten seconds at the bar, and it is on our gaming-room checklist for that reason.
Hand pays, and why staff appear
Past a certain amount a machine stops paying and locks up, with a light or an on-screen message summoning an attendant. This is a hand pay: a staff member confirms the amount, records it and pays it out, often after a second person checks the figure. It is an accounting control rather than a complaint about you, it is not negotiable, and it is not a sign that anything has gone wrong.
Practical consequences: it takes minutes rather than seconds, and longer on a busy short-staffed Saturday; you stay at the machine until it is settled, because the lock-up belongs to that cabinet and the attendant needs to see it; and you will probably be asked for identification. The threshold at which it happens is not a figure this guide can give you — it is a matter for the venue and its system, not a published statewide rule.
Separately, the Gaming Machines Act 1992 fixes the largest prize one machine may pay for a single spin, and the largest stake it may take for a single spin. Both are statutory, both are identical in every pub and club across South Australia, and no venue can alter either. The amounts are not printed here; they have been changed by amendment before, so confirm them with Consumer and Business Services SA.
The machine and the counter are two different stages
It helps to think of being paid as two separate events with a gap in the middle. Stage one happens at the cabinet: the balance leaves the game and becomes a voucher, a pile of money or a locked meter awaiting an attendant. Stage two happens at the counter, where a voucher becomes money. Anyone used only to machines that pay in full where they sit is the person most likely to skip stage two, which is how a slip ends up in a jacket pocket and surfaces three weeks later, possibly expired. Finish stage two before you do anything else, including saying goodbye to anybody.
Money left on a machine
The most expensive habit in any gaming room has nothing to do with the game. It is standing up with credits still on the meter — to take a call outside, to order a meal, to see what a friend is playing two rows over. An unattended machine with a balance on it is unattended money, and once somebody else sits down, the practical chances of recovering it are poor even where the venue is entirely willing to help.
So the rule is boringly simple and worth more than any strategy on the internet: collect first, then stand up. If you mean to come back, collect anyway and reinsert. There is a longer version of this, with several neighbouring habits, on how to play pokies.
Only adults may enter a gaming area in South Australia. Money staked on a gaming machine can be lost, and nothing about the way a payout is collected changes that. If gambling is doing damage to you or to someone around you, Gambling Help Online is free of charge and staffed at every hour on 1800 858 858.
What this page could not pin down
The mechanics above are general to approved gaming machines and to the way licensed venues handle money. The statutory per-spin stake and prize ceilings are in the Gaming Machines Act 1992; the current amounts, and the venue licensing records, sit with Consumer and Business Services SA. Left out for want of a source: the hand-pay threshold at any particular venue, the denominations installed at either Angaston hotel, whether either room uses tickets, and when the counter is staffed. All four are questions for the day you are there. What the venue does publish is on our Angaston Hotel page. Reviewed 10 October 2026.