No casino game has a bigger range than slots. Most online casinos now have thousands to choose from, which has its pros and cons. If you’re new to slots, then this is going to seem highly overwhelming and not all that straightforward about which games are best for you.
As a result, throughout this article, we want to look at the varying range of slots you can choose from and how each of them work. Following this, you should be able to be better placed to not only choose the best games but also save both time and money whilst you search.
Traditional Slot Machines
Before the online revolution, traditional slots could be found in bars, restaurants, casinos, pubs, clubs, sporting events and pretty much anywhere you could squeeze one in. Whist the machines look a lot different to how the modern slot works, the fundamentals are largely unchanged.
A traditional slot would be a coin-based machine, meaning that you need to feed money in to make it work. You’d have a lever of sorts to start the machine and the reels would spin, creating winning combinations.
How the machine worked would vary slightly. Most of them had what are called pin mechanisms which would sync up when a winning combination was made and then payout a sum of money to the player. An easy way to grasp how this works is by comparing it to a simple lock and key mechanism where only the right key can unlock the lock.
Old school slot machines appeared in more than just casinos. (Credit: Alamy)The games would be multi-line, meaning that you could create several winning paylines within it. Some allowed for the ability for progressive jackpots to be included, which we talk more about in the next section.
Even though traditional slots are starting to succumb to online and video slots, the games are a strong part of the history and tradition of slot machines. What’s impressive is that, when stripped back, the games are very much the same as online.
Slot Machine Jackpots – Flat Tops vs Progressives
Jackpots are one of the most popular forms of slots. All games will allow players to win large sums of money, jackpots are where the life-changing sums can be won.
There are generally two types of jackpots: flat tops and progressives.
Flat tops are jackpots that created within a regular slot and will be a fixed amount for that game. They will be synced up to hitting a certain winning combination and for that combination, you win whatever the jackpot is set at. For example, a slot may state that it has a £10,000 jackpot attached. This the max that can be won from that game for a single spin.
A progressive slot is a jackpot that keeps evolving. To do this the game takes a small amount from each stake the player makes and adds that to a jackpot pool. The amount that is taken per spin will vary based on the game. If we assume 10% as an example, it will mean that if you were to wager £10 on a single spin, £1 of that would go into the jackpot pool and the remaining £9 would be toward your spin.
Given the huge volume of players that target these games, it’s not uncommon for progressive jackpots to hit the 7 or even 8 figure mark. The biggest win to date came on a slot called Mega Moolah which is hosted by Microgaming. The lucky winner picked up a staggering €18.915,721 for a single spin.
One of the ways that online progressive jackpots become so big is that they are often hosted by the game developer and not the casino. As a result, the game developer may have the same game on dozens of casinos, giving a much bigger shop window for players to access these slots. More players equal more money and in turn, colossus prize pools.
