Are you looking for a little risky fun? The latest in games of chance are found online, where the pleasure of green felt card tables and the visceral thrill of ratcheting back the arm on the slot machine is replaced by the overwhelming convenience of being able to do it from anywhere you choose. Fortunately, online gambling can still be accompanied by the chime of the reels and the pleasure of a dry martini. Most of all, best slot machines online still come with the joy of the jackpot, where hundreds of coins spill out.
Slot machines are the mainstay of many casinos and especially for slot casino apps, both online and in the real world. They’re easy to play, with straightforward rules, and are most importantly fun. This doesn’t mean they’re always simple, though. For that reason you’re going to want to make sure you’re familiar with the basics of online slots.
Basic Features
The simplest game of slots has the player put in a fixed amount for the bet, pull the lever, and wait for the three spinning reels on the machine to stop. If all three reels line up with the same symbol on the pay line across the centre, they get paid according to what that symbol says on the paytable. So if cherries all lined up, and they are listed as $1000 on the paytable, the player gets 1000 dollars. Easy, right? However, online games can improve on this classic version.
- Betting: Most slot games online let you increase your bet from the minimum to increase your payout. These vary from letting you increase the number of pay lines as you bet higher, to let you win five times the base amount even though you only need to bet three times the minimum. Be aware of the betting rules so you can get the highest jackpot.
- Spinning: Online slot games have spin buttons somewhere on the screen rather than an old-fashioned lever. In addition, they typically have five reels, not the classic three, and may offer a payout if you get three, four, or five of the same symbol.
- Pay Line: While most games start with the classic line from left to right across the centre, a slot machine can have far more than one pay line. Pay lines don’t even have to be in a straight line, instead of forming clever patterns across the reels. Symbols have to be lined up along one of your pay lines in order to count towards a win. Take careful note of not only what pay lines are in the game, but also what you need to do to win on them.
- Pay Table: Pay close attention to the paytable because it tells you how much you actually earn from a victory. Usually, you just have to look for the symbols and they will show you what happens if you get three, four, or five of them along a single pay line. Often, the value is expressed as a multiple, meaning that you get that much times the original bet, but look out for bonuses which can increase this further.
Advanced Features
There are extra features that are common in online gambling, building on the basics of slot machines in less direct ways. These don’t really have a clear analog for non-digital machines but are extremely helpful. Since you’re playing online, you can take full advantage of them.
- Auto-Play: If you’ve figured out how much money you want to bet on the reels over the night, why not let the computer do it for you? Auto-Play, once enabled, lets you simply lean back and watch things light up rather than requiring pushing the spin button every single time, which can add up to a fair amount of time wasted on clicking if you’ve got a long night of betting on your hands.
- Bet Max: Conveniently, a lot of games have a button for making the maximum bet in one click, so you don’t miss out on the maximum payout. In one click, you place the highest bet possible, and then you can spin the wheels. It is a good idea to be careful, as some games place this button next to the spin button, so you should learn to tell the two apart.
- Bonus Features: All kinds of extra bonus rounds are possible in an online casino. They may give you 100 free spins, let you double your winnings, or have a game within the game that you can play. The rules for these are often highly different from the game itself, but usually fairly simple. Still, it’s a good idea to read what these are about before they come up, rather than get confused about it mid-session. These features are the most variable between games, so keep an eye out for new and interesting versions.
- Progressive Jackpots: If you see a jackpot listed somewhere that is climbing higher and higher, that’s probably a progressive jackpot. Their payout progresses over the course of people playing the game, giving them their name. A player typically only can earn the full sum of the progressive jackpot by betting the maximum amount the game allows, so keep that in mind when playing those games. You might as well bet as much as you can when progressives are in place.
Gamble for Free?
Finally, there are always free slots. It may seem counter-intuitive to be playing a gambling game for no money, but there’s a lot of fun to be had simply by playing for points. These kinds of sites make their money from small advertisements, so there’s no payment involved and they really are completely free. If you’re wondering how you might do in a real game, or just want to check out online slot machines for fun, then maybe you should try some free slots.