Slot machines are a staple of casino gaming. You’re sure to see banks of them if you walk into any land-based casino worldwide. And now, they’re just as significant in the online sphere, drawing in many players with their simple gameplay, cutting-edge effects, and unique themes.
But if you’re looking to play online Slots, you might find yourself faced with many words and phrases to pick up. To help give you a leg up, we will run down some essential terminology that anyone planning to provide Slots a Spin needs to know.
Reels and Paylines
Starting simple, the reels are the vertical lines on a slot machine that will spin once the game is activated. These used to be part of the mechanical heart of the machine, but since the move to video slots and online, those have been replaced by graphics.
The pay line is the other key feature in a slot game, with this being the line where you need a set of matching symbols to stop to win. A classic slot game will only typically have a single payline, but many modern games allow players to play with dozens or even a hundred different lines at once.
Wilds
Like a joker in a pack of playing cards, wild symbols are the wildcards that can substitute for other symbols in a combination. This means that even if you don’t get three matching symbols on your payline, a wild can still give you a winning combination.
Another common feature of wilds is adding multipliers to a combination, potentially boosting the payout for a pay line they appear on.
Return to Player (RTP)
In gaming terms, this is one of the most important factors for players to pay attention to. A game’s return to player (RTP) rate is the percentage of all bets placed on a given slot machine that will be paid back to players over time, in theory.
It isn’t a hard and fast number, serving more as a guide of how good the possible odds on a game are. No matter what the RTP on a slot machine is, it’s never guaranteed, so always take it with a pinch of salt.
Volatility
This one also comes up when discussing a slot machine’s potential payout. High volatility Slots will usually have larger payouts, but those will come less frequently, as opposed to smaller but more frequent wins on a machine with lower volatility.
When considering what Slots game to play, it’s helpful to consider its volatility.
Progressive Jackpot
Slots jackpots come in two forms – fixed or progressive. A progressive jackpot is a little more complicated, changing over time as more players take a spin on the game until someone gets the right winning combo.
A small percentage of each bet placed on every slot machine within a linked network will go towards the progressive jackpot. You’ll know which games feature a progressive jackpot as they show the number going up in real-time.
Of course, this isn’t a complete list of every piece of Slots terminology. But hopefully, we’ve equipped you with the basics to go out and understand more slot machine jargon than before.
