Getting Started
What Is Innage?
Innage is the total amount of money you put into a slot machine before your first spin. It's the starting number — your buy-in, your stake, your initial commitment to the session.
Where the term comes from
The term was popularized by Vegas Matt and his team, specifically the World's Biggest Gambler (WBG). Before every slot session, WBG loudly declares the innage — the exact dollar amount going into the machine — so that fans following along on stream or in the theater of the mind can accurately track every dollar in and every dollar out.
The original definition
"Slot machine slang for the initial amount of money inserted into a slot machine prior to the first spin of a slot-playing session, made famous by none other than WBG himself (a.k.a. the World's Biggest Gambler) of the Vegas Matt Team. It is critical to clearly & loudly declare the innage so that multi-tasking fans with no access to video are able to accurately follow the ebb & flow of monies audibly in the theater of the mind."
Why declaring your innage matters
Without a starting number, you can't measure anything. If you walk up to a machine with $200 and walk away with $350, that looks like a win — but if you also reloaded another $300 mid-session, you're actually down $150. Innage makes the math honest.
Knowing your innage lets you calculate your true net, your win rate, and how much you typically put in vs. get back. Over dozens of sessions, those numbers tell you things your gut never could.
How Innage the app uses it
Every session in Innage starts with one required field: your innage. It's the anchor for everything else the app calculates.
Net result — cashout + handpays − innage (minus any free play) − tips paid
Win rate — the percentage of sessions where you cashed out more than you put in
Average session size — how much you typically stake per session, game, and casino
Reloads — every time you feed more money in mid-session, it gets added to your innage total so the math stays accurate
Innage vs. cashout vs. net
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Innage | Total money put in (buy-in + all reloads) |
| Cashout | What you walked away with from the machine |
| Handpay | A jackpot paid by an attendant, separate from the machine cashout |
| Net result | Cashout + handpays − innage − tips |