Slots

Online casinos have had a major influence on a number of casino gambling games but none more than casino slot machines. Slot machines or one armed bandits as they have been called in the past started life as early as the 19th century in the USA and had three mechanical reels with five symbols which included the “Liberty Bell” which we still see around today on some machines. Other machines gave out prizes in the form of fruit flavoured chewing gum that depended on the symbols on the winning reels which is why they were often called fruit gambling machines and is where we get the cherries and the melons from and also was the origin of the BAR symbol which was a logo of the Bell Fruit Gum Company. Slot machines have been around in clubs and bars for a long time as well as casinos of course but until recently were mechanical which restricted the number of reels and variations that could be played but with the age of electronics it has been possible to replace mechanical reels with random number electronics enabling a far greater number of reels and winning lines to be added. Electronics also did away with the need for the handle on the side of the gambling machine to set the reels in motion and replaced it with a button. A modern machine is capable of picking out winning lines and combinations much faster than the player which can be disconcerting to some players. Online gambling slots take the games to a different level again as it becomes easy to have virtually any kind of symbol on the reels and to incorporate all kinds of music and sounds to fit in with those symbols as well as making it much easier to link slots even in different online casinos to create some pretty spectacular jackpots that run into the millions.

Gambling on Slots

The general pattern of machines has either 3 or 5 reels although there are exceptions and there can be up to 100 winning lines in any machine. The simplest are three reel machines with one winning line across the middle but with 5 reel machines the win lines can run across, diagonally or even in zig zag patterns across the screen; all win lines at an online slot will be shown on a separate screen which will be called “pay Lines” or “win lines” or similar. The stakes on a slot machine can be very small indeed and it is certainly a very entertaining way to spend quite a long time with very little outlay but your stake will be per line so if you play a 50 win line online slot your stale per spin will be 50 times your stake per line. You will have the option however to play a smaller number of winning lines even though there might be 50 available.

There are literally hundreds of online slots for gambling to choose from in any online casino so our advice would always be to try them out first either with small stakes or using the free play option available at nearly all online casinos; small stakes will give you more excitement and you might even win. Most slot games will have Bonus features or bonus plays as well a wild symbols and scatter symbols and although an explanation of how these work can always be found there is no substitute for actually playing the game. Free spins are also a frequent feature of the modern slot machine and more often than not you can earn more free spins while paying free spins. Another feature of the modern online casino slots is the jackpots which really can produce massive winnings. There are two types of jackpot; one is a machine related jackpot which is confined to the machine you are playing but the really big ones are the progressive jackpots which can and do run into the millions. This is possible because the software for the slots are not designed by the online casino that you are playing but by specialist companies that license their use. In this way you can find certain slots such as Mega Moolah™ or Tomb Raider™ in a variety of different online casinos and the progressive jackpot is building up as players play at any of the online casinos.

Slots Gambling Facts

Whichever online slot machine you gamble on it is purely down to luck whether you win or not; some players will say there is skill involved but in reality this is pure myth; modern machines are driven by a Random Number Generator or RNG for short which generates combinations of numbers several times per second so the time at which you press the button will decide whether you win or lose. There is in fact nothing to stop any machine paying out jackpots on two successive spins and not does the fact that a machine has not paid a jackpot for some time mean that it is going to any time soon. What is sure is that each machine will payout a percentage of the money put in over a period of time and generally this is around the 95% mark. Some of the better online casino gambling sites will publish monthly figures for the payout percentage but this is only for all machines collectively and not by individual machine; beware of the smaller casinos as you have no way of knowing whether the payout percentage is good or not. Next time you are in your local bar or bookmaker take a close look at the front of the machine as there is a good chance that the payout percentage is displayed somewhere but don’t expect it to be obvious and don’t be surprised if it is lower than 80%. This shows what a good deal online casino slots are compared to some.

Online casino slots are great fun, can be played for very small stakes but also give you the chance to literally win life changing sums of money but to win the really big money you will have to play for the maximum stakes on a machine; nevertheless a great form of entertainment.