Types of Slot Machines
If you're just learning how to play slots, a walk through slots row might be confusing and a little intimidating. Big casinos have hundreds, even thousands, of slot machines, and countless brand names and individual games to play. If you don't know the slot machine types, gambling can become a confusing mess.
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I'll go over the main sorts of slot machines you'll find in the casino and discuss how you tell a straight slot machine from a progressive slots, and so on. Once you know what to look for, recognizing one from the other and figuring out which games you want to play is easy.
Straight Slots - Slot Machines
Straight slots were the original type of slot machine, which pay out a standard, unchanging amount of coins depending on the payout schedule. A combination of symbols pays out the same amount today as it will pay out next week. This machine has the payout schedule printed prominently on the front of the machine, and everything is in nice round numbers.
Among the straight slots, though, there are a wide variety of machines--roughly four different types. There are the multipliers, the bonus multipliers, the multiple payline slots, and the buy-a-pay slots. Each of these has a conventional pay schedule, but each does something a little different for you.
Multiplier Slot Machines - Straight Slots
This is the basic slot machine. When you win, the coins you win are a direct factor of the number of coins you played. Typically, if you pay in 1 coin and get back 5, then if you pay in 2, you'll get back 10. Three coins equals 15, four equals 20, and five equals 25.
This machine's pay rate might look something like the following.
1 Coin - 100 coins per win
2 Coins - 200 coins per win
3 Coins - 300 coins per win
4 Coins - 400 coins per win
5 Coins - 500 coins per win
With the multiplier slots, you gain no advantage for playing maximum
coins. If the ratio of coins don't make a jump on the maximum coins,
you're playing the straight multiplier slot machine. To make it easier
on you feeding coins into the machine, you should find the denomination
you feel comfortable at and play these machines 1 coin per spin.
Bonus Multiplier Slots - Slot Machine Types
The "bonus multiplier" is a machine which pays out extra if you put
in the maximum coins. This game encourages you to play the maximum
number of coins, because you're paid a higher number of coins when you
hit the big jackpot on these. Many gamblers seek the bonus multipliers
out, because they get bigger jackpots when they get lucky. The drawback
is you are less likely to hit the jackpot.
To compare the multiplier and bonus multiplier slots, the bonus
multiplier machine's pay rate might look something like the following.
1 Coin - 100 coins per win
2 Coins - 200 coins per win
3 Coins - 300 coins per win
4 Coins - 400 coins per win
5 Coins - 1000 coins per win
Notice you get paid double on this jackpot what you might expect on a multiplier machine. To be able to pay this amount, most (if not all) of the winning combinations pay less for wins.
Multiple Payline Slots - Straight Slots
Another type of straight slot machine is the multiple payline game. On these, you'll win for a standard straight-across winning combination, but you might also win for a diagonal winning combination, a vertical winning combination, and so on.
You'll find multiple payline machines that pay off for three lines, those that pay for five lines, and those that pay off for dozens of different lines. These can get really confusing even for veteran players, once you get into the 15 paylines or more range. The lines can twist and turn throughout the reels to produce wins.
A word of warning about the multiple payline slots: if you don't "activate" a payline, you don't win, even if it hits. That usually encourages a player to play the maximum paylines, since no one wants to see a jackpot hit and not get paid for it, though there might not be an advantage in it for you.
The next machine, the most complicated straight slots option, should always be played with the maximum bets, though.
Buy-a-Pay Slots - Straight Slots Deluxe
The buy-a-pay slots has a big jackpot if you hit the jackpot while playing the maximum paylines. If you don't play the maximum bet and you hit the big jackpot, you're out of luck. It's like it never happened. When you find a buy-a-pay slot machine, play it with the maximum coins--or not at all.
To differentiate between the standard multiple payline slot machine and the buy-a-pay slot machine, you'll need to read the fine print on the payout schedule. Like the bonus multiplier, if the maximum paylines jackpot is much higher than expected, you're using a buy-a-pay slot machine. Again, always read and understand the multiple paylines slots thoroughly, and always play maximum paylines on the buy-a-pay machines.
Progressive Slot Machines
This is the second major type of slot machine, and the major reason slot machines have become so popular in the past 30 years. The progressive slot machines are easy to spot, because they have an electronic display which shows the progressive jackpot growing as time transpires.
Most of these machines today are part of a network of progressive
slots. You might have hundreds of machines (of the same game type:
Wheel of Fortune, for example) that are networked together, each
feeding the same central jackpot. The more spins are played throughout
this network of machines, often in different casinos spread out in
states across the country, the higher the jackpot ranges. Eventually,
someone gets lucky and the winner might win tens of thousands, hundreds
of thousands, or even millions of dollars from the one jackpot. That's
why progressive slots are so popular--it has that "win the lottery"
chance.
At the same time, the odds of winning on one of these machines are much lower than a regular straight slots game (also known as "flat-tops"). Theoretically, the progressive slot machines, provided no one hits the jackpot for a really long time, can grow to a point where gambling on the jackpot becomes a break-even proposition. In any case, your chances of hitting one of these isn't very good, and you have to go in assuming you're going to lose on the big progressive jackpots. People love chasing a dream, and a game where you have a chance to walk out with $10 million is a dream, so the progressive slot machines are quite popular these days.
