Slot games are a lot of fun, and playing them online is great – it offers convenience, you can play whenever you have a spare few minutes, and there is a huge amount of choice. However, online slots can sometimes be a little confusing; there are a large number of features that people may hear about and see when they are playing that just don’t make any sense.
Although it’s perfectly possible to play these games without knowing all the ins and outs of slot machines such as Cops and Robbers slot, when you do understand them more you are more able to make good choices and the right decisions. Read on to find out more.
Coins
When you play a physical slot machine you know you need coins to play it with. The same is true of the virtual slots; they still need coins, although of course you aren’t able to feed them directly into the machine as it is a digital creation.
When you are playing an online slot game, you effectively have to purchase however many coins (if it’s easier, think of them as credits) in order to play. So you pay your money and then have a certain number of credits to play with. Remember to check out the different paylines you are operating on; if you want to make your money go further, you might want to readjust how you are playing. The pay out will be lower, but you’ll have more spins overall.
Reels
Reels are something that all slot machines have, no matter what theme they are created with. In the past, slots would only have three reels, but newer games more often have five, and some have even more. The reel is the vertical area of the game that spins when you click the mouse or press a button.
The more reels there are the more paylines are created, and that means there are more chances to win.
Symbols
When you play a slot machine you are sure to see symbols on the reels. These will vary from game to game (in traditional machines you’ll see pieces of fruit, and in newer ones that have a specific theme, you might see something that relates to that theme – a football, a star, a musical note, or anything else) but in reality what they are don’t matter; it won’t make a difference to the pay out.
You will also see special symbols when you play online slots that don’t tend to be in place when you play traditional, physical ones. These will be symbols such as ‘wilds’ and ‘scatters’. These make the game that much more exciting, especially since a wild card can replace any other symbol, and could potentially give you a win when you weren’t expecting one.
Paylines
We’ve mentioned paylines a few times in this article, but what are they exactly? Paylines are simple to understand – they literally are a line that pays out (a line being a horizontal line across the reels).
Depending on the game you’re playing and how much money you’re playing with, you could have hundreds of different potential paylines open to you. Some will pay more than others. And whereas in the past they had to be in a horizontal line across the centre of the slot machine, they can now be in various different patterns and directions including diagonal and even zigzags. To win at slots, a payline needs to be filled with matching symbols.
RTPs
RTP stands for ‘return to player’ and it will be shown as a percentage. UK law (The Gambling Act 2005) means that every slot game has to have its RTP showing, allowing players to make an informed choice. The higher the RTP, the more chance there is of winning and the lower the house advantage.
