Gone are the days of the simple three-reel games with fruit and bar symbols that hark back to an era when prizes were candy-filled.
Today, slot machines offer an explosion of features that elevate your gaming experience to a whole new level. Imagine spinning with bonus games, unlocking massive progressive jackpots, or letting wild symbols transform your fortunes.
Let’s take a deeper look at the different types of bonus features in online slots and how they can amp up your gameplay.
Types of Slots
Before we dive into bonus features, it’s essential to understand the different types of available online slots. The most common types include:
- Classic Slots: Think of classic slots as a nostalgic journey to the past, featuring simplistic fruit or bar symbols and fewer paylines. These games embrace a traditional slot machine vibe, perfect for those who cherish a straightforward gaming experience.
- Video Slots (Bonus Slots): If you’re a fan of vibrant graphics and immersive themes, video slots are your go-to. Packed with entertaining bonus rounds, these games offer more paylines and varying reel configurations. They’re the most played online slots. Check FanDuel Casino if you want a good collection of real money slots.
- Progressive Jackpot Slots: For thrill-seekers chasing that life-changing payout, progressive jackpot slots are a must. Each spin contributes to a staggering prize pool, and the tension builds as you play, knowing that your next play could land the massive jackpot.
- Megaways Slots: Innovatively designed to offer up to 117,649 ways to win, Megaways slots shift the gaming paradigm. With changing reel sizes and an unpredictable number of paylines, the excitement never dulls, keeping you on the edge of your seat with every reel spin.
Common Slot Features
Thousands of slots are available in land-based and online casinos, each with unique features like wild symbols or bonus rounds. Let’s begin with the common features found on most slot machines.
- Autoplay: Ideal if you like multitasking or simply watching reels spin, autoplay lets you preset spins, enhancing convenience and control.
- Wild Symbols: These act like jokers, filling in for missing symbols to complete winning combinations. Look out for sticky, expanding, or cascading wilds.
- Free Spins: Earn spin opportunities without a wager through scatter symbols or specific triggers, often with a chance for re-triggers along bonus play.
- Scatter Symbols: Scatters break the payline requirement, bonus-triggering wherever they land, with the potential for lucrative payouts and features like free spins.
- Bonus Rounds: Engaging, interactive rounds offer enriched gaming experiences with elements such as pick-to-win mini-games or thematic levels aligning with the slot’s story.
- Multipliers: Multiply your winnings instantly by a set value, often integrated into other features, boosting your potential payouts significantly.
- Progressive Jackpots: These offer constantly increasing prizes from a small percentage of each bet, providing life-changing winning opportunities for a lucky few.
Unique Slot Features
We’ve covered common slot features like wilds, scatters, and add-ons, including progressive jackpots. However, this only scratches the surface of land-based and online slot features.
Below is a list of features unique to specific machines or slot providers.
- Cascading Reels: This feature removes winning symbols, causing others to fall into place and potentially forming new winning combos in their wake.
- Cluster Pays: Unlike traditional paylines, cluster pays rewards when symbols form a group, offering more ways to win and a dynamic gaming experience.
- Mystery Symbols: These enigmatic images transform into matching symbols, adding a layer of excitement as potential rewards are revealed across the screen.
- Win Both Ways: This feature allows wins from left to right and right to left, doubling your chances and keeping the game thrilling.
- 243 Ways to Win: With no strict paylines, this feature rewards for adjacent symbol matches, leading to high payout possibilities without restricting spin outcomes.
- Megaways: Altering reel sizes and up to 117,649 paylines, Megaways creates endless possibilities, keeping each spin fresh and engaging.
- Expanding Reels: Reels surprise you by extending to add rows, increasing winning potential, and maintaining anticipation with every spin.
- Sticky Wilds or Locked Wilds: Wild symbols stay in place for subsequent spins, boosting your chance for continual wins by holding strategic positions.
- Colossal Reels: Large symbols that cover multiple reel spots increase win potential and create a striking visual impact during gameplay.
- Nudges or Nudging Reels: This subtle, automated shuffle adjusts reels to enhance winning arrangements, often to complete near-misses with bonuses.
- Buy a Bonus: For a set cost, enter directly into bonus rounds, bypassing the chance for immediate access to enhanced gameplay and bigger payout potentials.
