Most online casino games are slots. Since the humble beginnings of the game, slot machines have come a long way and today offer an extremely engaging experience. These games are often flashy and have their own themes. You can expect to find slots with themes like history, nature, fantasy, retro, cultural, brands, sports and more.
All these slots will have their own grids, ways to win, maximum winning combinations, bonus features, free spins, jackpots and more.
How To Play Slot Machines
The main principle in slot machines is that you will have to rotate a number of reels when the reels stop, matching symbol combinations must have landingthem. The number of reels, number of symbols, winning combinations and how much each combination pays varies from slot to slot. Typically, you can understand how each game works in a matter of minutes, or even less if you have more experience with slots. Each game will come with its own structure, symbols, features and bonus features.
Types Of Slots
There are three main types of slots: classic slots, video slots and arcade slots. Most titles are classic or video slots, and these basically have reels, lines and paylines. Paylines are paths that can be traced on the reels from left to right. If you have matching consecutive symbols along one of these paylines, from left to right, you will earn a certain amount – depending on how many consecutive matching symbols you own. Paylines always start on the first reel on the left and go to the right unless specified by a game, but we’ll cover it later.
Classic Slots: These are the simplest slots you can find. They usually have 3 rolls and 9 paylines or less and have relatively few bonus features – if any.
Video Slots: These slots are slightly more advanced versions of classic slots. These are usually slots of 5 rolls or larger, and there are many more paylines available. These slots usually have their own bonus features, which can be pick spins, free spins or even features that can occur during normal play.
Arcade Slots: Arcade slots differ greatly from the other two types of slots. Here, instead of paylines or gaining combinations through paths, you will have to land corresponding symbol groups horizontally or vertically to win. These slots can also offer bonus features and bonus rounds, but this varies for each title.
Progressive Slots: any type of slot can be linked to a progressive jackpot and sometimes jackpots can be worth millions. Jackpots constantly increase, as whenever a player makes a bet, a portion of the bet is added to the pot. If you are lucky and hit the jackpot, you will receive a large amount of cash and the jackpot will be reset to its default value.
Slot Features
Slots can have many features to make each game even more attractive to players. Some common examples are wildcard symbols, multipliers, cascading coils, Megaways, two-way paylines, and more.
Wilds are symbols that you can obtain and will replace any other symbol to create a winning line. Some games may have expanding or sticky wilds, which will expand to fill an entire reel or remain in place for several rounds. Sometimes a title can have wildcard symbols with multipliers. This will multiply the gains by x2, x3, x5, and so on.
If you get a winning combination in a game with cascading reels, the winning symbols will be removed after you win and the above symbols will fall instead. If you get another winning combo, the same will happen again, until there are no more wins.
Megaways is a feature where the number of rows changes after each round. This changes the number of ways to win after each round. Two-way paylines are where you can earn by hitting a combination from left to right and right to left.