Slots

Slots in all shapes and sizes

Visit a casino, and you’ll find a slot machine stuffed in every nook and cranny. Slots might have started as second-tier gambling devices; nowadays, they’re the backbone of just about all major casinos. Slots take up the majority of floor space and can be found in all shapes and forms. They are exciting to play and don’t demand a dealer working for the casino, making it an excellent proposition to both the casino and the players.

Classic Slots

These slots are the oldest. They were the first to join the online casino floor, offering an experience equivalent to those offered at land-based gambling halls. Traditional slots normally have only 3 reels and a limited number of paying lines, sometimes just one. The collection of symbols usually includes different kinds of fruit, which is why these slots are also called fruit machines.

Some of the standard symbols are often bells, BAR symbols and lucky sevens. Classic online slots rarely feature any special bonus rounds. They offer the basic slot experience, which makes them charming in their own way.

Video Slots

Online video slots represent the modern version of slot machines made for the virtual world. This is the most diverse category of slot machines, as they can feature all sorts of themes and various structures. What they all share is better graphics than classic slots and better design (by modern standards), as well as a higher number of reels.

Video slots never come with fewer reels than 5, yet they can have 6, 7 or even more reels. With more reels, they deliver more paying lines, featuring often from 10 to 50 paylines.  In addition, they feature Wild symbols, Scatter symbols and different kinds of bonus rounds. They can include free spins, re-spins, money-wheel bonuses, pick-me rounds, multipliers and similar modifiers.

Progressive Jackpot Slots

Slots with progressive jackpots are usually separated from other machines at casino lobbies.  They all feature accumulated prizes which can be won is a specific way. In terms of structure and graphics, jackpot slots can be very different. Some have 3-reels, others have 5. The themes can be as versatile as the developers want them to be, and there are no restrictions in regards to bonus features.

However, all the progressive jackpot games have one thing in common – they offer a progressive jackpot. It is a prize that can be won by either collecting special symbols or spinning a bonus wheel and landing on it, for example. The frequency of bets, as well as their size, on the game determines the value of the jackpot. Certain progressive slots awards millions in jackpot prizes, while some jackpot can be hit more frequently for less money.

Branded Slots

If you didn’t know what branded slots are, that is a question we can easily answer. Branded online slots are slot games based on a specific movie, TV series, musician, video game, sports team, game show and the like.

The developers obtain a license or strike a deal with the owners of a brand to make a slot machine. This game carries original content from the company/brand holder. For instance, if it is a slot based on a movie, you will likely see movie characters on the reels and hear the film’s original soundtrack.

A good example of a branded slot is Guns N’ Roses from NetEnt, which has a playlist of the band’s most popular songs and features their images as symbols. Of course, there is more like The Dark Knight, The Simpsons, Jurassic Park, Narcos and so on.

Ways-to-Win Slots

This distinction may come as a surprise for some, but we believe it is a viable classification, since there is a group of slot machines that does not have a standard payline structure. For years, video slots would have a fixed number of patterns that one would need to complete to win a payout. In slots that have a certain number of ways to win, there are no paying lines.

There are situations in which matching symbols will land in adjacent positions and count as a win. The more reels the slot has, the more ways to win it can generate. In the early days of these games, one could expect 243 ways to win on each spin. Now, slot developers have managed to increase this number to 720, 4,096, up to 117,649 and even more.

History

The slot machine’s predecessor stems from the late 1800s and used playing cards instead of symbols. And it wasn’t casinos where you would run into one; you’d find them in saloons, bowling alleys, brothels, and barbershops. The popular symbols like watermelon, lemon, and cherry date from back in the day these slots would dispense gum and not coins.

Themes

Today, figures from the latest movies or tv shows have mostly replaced the iconic symbols from the game’s past. But their working hasn’t changed much, and most slot machines are still similar at their core. Check out the number of betting lines and your wager per spin, and off you go. The roles start spinning, and your gambling faith is in the computer’s hands. If they stop their whirl in the right place, you get more credits than you wagered. Find a specific combination, and you’ll trigger a bonus play gifting you the chance of winning even more credits.

While the basic principle is similar for all slots, there is a lot of diversity in design and bonus options. You can find slot machines with love seats, with second screens, with money wheels included, and with interactive features.

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