by Matthew Gover | Date of Publishing: 15 March 2023
Online slots have come a lot way since the days when traditional fruit machines with three reels gained popularity in pubs, clubs, and multiple casinos worldwide. These hugely popular slots are operated by software developers and play out like video games without the limitations of three mechanical reels.
Video slots developers have pushed boundaries over the past years, developing games with five or more reels, numerous paylines, different bonus rounds and special features, not to mention HD video and 3D graphics.
Slot machine features add excitement to slot machines, but there is much more to them than mere entertainment. Now, they offer what most slot players strive for–boosting their winning chances, provided they select the right game to make it work.
In this guide, we will cover all the details online slot features offer, from bonus symbols to bonus games to win boosters. You will also find various slot machine games with bonus features in our extensive catalogue at JeffBet.
Table of Contents
Slot features are key components that make up most slot machines. These are essentially designed to make playing online slots more exciting and boost players’ wins. Think of bonus features like scatter symbols, wild symbols, jackpot symbols, multiplier symbols, progressive jackpots, free spins rounds, and other bonus features. These are some of the common bonus rounds found in most modern slot machines.
Online slot games with various slot bonus features may seem daunting if you have never dabbled in playing slot games before. However, with a bit of experience, they become easy to understand. The more you play slots online, the quicker you will recognise the features of the online games.
It is crucial to note that the first generation of slot games only featured a 1×3 layout with a single payline. There were no multiplier symbols or jackpots in mechanical slots with fruit symbols. The introduction of the digital slot game format led to the proliferation of 5×3 reels, with scatters and wilds being the standard slot features.
When that did not seem sufficient, game developers added new modes and game mechanics to make their bonus games stand out from the rest. Features like larger reel layouts, all-ways paylines, bonus icons, gamble features, and mini-games started emerging in various slots over the years, with new mechanics and gameplay added to new titles at online casinos.
The more pay slots games you play, the more slot machine features you will come by. As you play slot casino games, below are some of the common features you will find in all popular slot games:
A payline refers to the row in a slot machine upon which identical symbols must land to create winning combinations. The single payline is the middle row along the three reels in 3 reel slot games.
In modern slots, players can bet on multiple paylines ranging from 5, 10, 20, 50, to even 100. The paylines, also known as winning lines, can range from horizontal paylines to zigzag. They can also be flexible or fixed, usually displayed in each game’s pay table.
Video slots featuring five to seven reels can have any number of paylines, some even incorporating thousands. A player’s bet for each spin is divided between paylines; therefore, if they play at a 20-payline slot machine, their stake will be one unit per payline. Most slot games allow players to choose the number of paylines they want to play and the amount they want to bet on each payline.
There is much more to slot games than special symbols, paylines, or ways to win mechanics. Reel features such as locked reels and reel swap help boost a player’s winning chances. Many slot games also have features such as the ever-popular cascading reels and the unique “reel hold” feature, where players manually choose which reel they want to hold in place for their next spin.
Wild reels are another feature where the entire reel only comprises wild symbols, giving players better chances of forming winning combinations.
While slot volatility does not count as a feature, it is crucial to how you play slot games. High volatility slots generally give you fewer wins, but the payouts are substantial when you do win slots. On the other hand, low volatility slots pay out more often, but they consist of smaller wins with an occasional big win.
Low volatility slots suit players with limited budgets as they pay out more often in small amounts to keep from overwhelming the player’s bankroll.
Lastly, medium volatility implies the payouts and hit rate are set to medium.
Jackpots are large prizes paid to gamblers hitting winning combinations on online slots. These typically require significant bets. Such vast sums are paid out after RNGs choose winning numbers from a pool of outcomes.
Progressive jackpots have always been prevalent in land-based casinos and work by linking multiple machines to pool a huge jackpot. Any player on any one of the machines can win a significant amount of money. The internet has also made it convenient to network slot games online.
Wild symbols substitute for other symbols in the slot game except for scatters allowing players to match other symbols that are high-paying symbols. In certain slot games, wild symbols offer the best possible prizes by matching three or five of them.
Aside from being substitutes for other symbols, some particular slots include extra features with their wilds. These include a multiplier functionality for any other symbols it matches.
Other slot games may include duplicating, spreading, and expanding wilds that increase the quantity of these symbols on the reels, offering more chances to create winning combinations. Sticky wilds are yet another feature where wilds stay in place while the reels spin.
The free spins feature in slot games is one of the most common features where players receive a set of free spin rounds. In each of your bonus spins, your active paylines and bet are determined based on the spin when you activate such free games.
You can activate free spin rounds in many ways, e.g., when certain symbols land in a row on one of the slot reels. The game awards you a certain amount of spins, and any winnings stack up as the spins revolve around the reels.
Software providers offer free spin rounds as their games’ main features. They also include other features to make their games stand out, such as extending the free spin rounds via scatter symbols. Other slot games include bet multipliers or progressive features rewarding players with cash prizes.
Below is a list of unique slot machine features that you will find in slot games:
Cluster pays slots are a unique feature and mechanics for playing slot games differently. Cluster pays games replace both paylines and adjacent ways slot games with groupings of identical symbols.
Cluster pays games are usually in a grid layout with sufficient space for symbol groups to grow from four or five symbols to fifteen or twenty.
These games’ paytables are more extensive since the prizes are based on size. For instance, a payout with four symbols could be worth 2x the bet, and ten symbols could go up to 100x.
Unlike wilds, split symbols usually have a more loose interpretation. The main concept behind these is to add more symbols to the game board. For instance, if you play a five-reel slot and split a symbol, you now have a chance at more valuable six-symbol rewards.
Game developers like Yggdrasil and Playtech offer a “Splitz” feature and an “Expand & Split” feature, respectively.
Most modern slots offer the respins feature. A respin can be referred to as a free spin, except it does not start fresh every time.
Suppose you play a slot game where wilds lock and trigger a respin round. During that round, the rest of the symbols exit, the wilds remain, and the reels begin spinning again. Respins offer you more than one payout in a single game round.
Mini-Games offer various options for players, including event paths or mystery boxes. Many of these options comprise random cash rewards. Progressive slot games are known to incorporate symbols in these mini-games that reward players with one of their jackpot prizes.
Other slot games pair mini-games with free spins. For instance, activating an interactive mini-game may let you win free spins, multipliers, or cash prizes. After you finish the mini-game, you are led to the free spins mode, often paired with an active multiplier if you are lucky enough to get them.
Some slots tend to stand out due to their impressive features. Below are some of the ones we feel stand out:
Play’n GO’s Reactoonz 2 is an excellent example of the right amount of bonuses in a slot game. Reactoonz 2 is a unique game with a 7×7 grid layout with multipliers, four wilds, multi-level meters, colossal symbols, symbol explosions, and more.
Players can win by getting five or more identical symbols in clusters, which are removed for new symbols to take their places. While this may seem daunting for new players, the trick lies in the cascading reels, triggering non-stop successive spins, eventually leading to substantial wins.
Buffalo Power: Hold and Win, a product of Playson, is a particularly unique slot known for its bonus features. The free spins feature round starts with 8 bonus spins accompanied by active multipliers.
That said, you can activate the game’s Hold and Win feature by spinning six bonus symbols into view. This feature offers 3 respins where bonus symbols land on the reels and stick to them. You can also win the slot’s Mega jackpot if you collect five power symbols.
Thunderkick’s Pink Elephants 2 is a 4,096-ways-to-win slot game, a successor to the original slot of the same name. The rather-whimsical slot game has mystery scatters and a free spins round comprising symbol retriggers and upgrades. Filling a total of four meters with “Elephant Orbs” (aka white fluorescent bulbs) and transforming symbols into the highest-valued Pink Elephant symbols could lead to wins as substantial as 10,000x the bet.
Knowing which game developers offer the best slots is critical to selecting the best slot games to play. The following are some of the best game developers that continue to thrill players:
Blueprint Gaming is particularly known for using the Megaways system in its slots. The Megaways mechanic changes the number of symbols appearing on a reel on each spin, which generates various ways to win each time. This feature led to Megaways slot games becoming more popular among high rollers due to their higher volatility.
Many of Blueprint Gaming’s slots’ titles feature various bonus games, the feature buy option, mystery symbols, and multiplying wilds. It is also worth noting that Blueprint Gaming is also well-known for its feature buy option.
Red Tiger Gaming is a software developer best known for its unique cartoon-esque games, high-quality graphics, and innovative features.
Not only does the developer feature multipliers, wilds, and scatters in its slot games, but unique features like Smart Spins and the Daily Drop Jackpots Network set it apart from other developers. In fact, Red Tiger Gaming also mixes slots and bingo to offer some of the most entertaining combinations in the iGaming industry.
Yggdrasil has been offering players an extraordinary gaming experience since its establishment in 2012. The developer delivers top-quality slots with breathtaking artwork and ingenious features.
Some of the most prominent features by the developer include the “Splitz” mechanic, as mentioned earlier and the “PopWins” mechanic, where one winning symbol is replaced with two when it “pops.”
Here are some of the most frequently asked questions we receive regarding slot machine features at JeffBet.com.
Author: Matthew Gover.
After graduating, Matthew began working as an English teacher abroad, initially in Spain and then Vietnam before finally coming back to the UK to settle. Matthew has always had a love for writing and an even bigger love for the igaming industry... Read More
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