7 Favorite Types of Slots Every Player Should Master
As the iGaming industry continues to evolve ever more rapidly in the 21st century, we witness an ever-changing universe of diversity in almost every vertical, especially with slots. From themes, mechanics and features to RTP, volatility, and maximum payouts, players get bombarded with countless iterations every month, giving them a freedom of choice in each category, on every device, at almost any online casino.
There are thousands of new slots released per year, and it’s getting really hard to stay in the know when it comes to distinguishing quality software from dated concepts.
While each software provider claims to be the latest and greatest, making inexperienced players easy targets and promising them the best gaming experience on the market, certain slots still manage to stand out and raise the excitement bar, so having a backup plan or knowing where to look is highly important if you want to keep on winning.
According to SlotsZar, there are 7 favorite types of slots every player should master in order to identify and reach high standards in iGaming. Despite a growing number of subcategories and ways to approach this matter, we decided to go through some basics first and let you know what every player should become competent in before setting out in the open, since experimenting with one-armed-bandits requires a certain set of skills, as Liam Neeson would say.
Classics and Fruit Machines
Starting with one of the oldest categories of slots, we draw your attention to the industry’s most far-flung collection – classics or fruit machines, as some casinos call them. There probably isn’t an operator on the market without these timeless pull tabs, as every established and up-and-coming studio builds their roster around them.
What’s special about fruit machines is their straightforwardness, simplicity and big payout capacity. You can find them in countless variations, ranging from 5-reel slots and 3-reel slots to classics with a single payline, free spins, mini games, risk play and buy feature. Some of the most popular gaming platforms in South Africa with this type of online slots are powered by Real Time Gaming, Playtech, NetEnt, Play’n GO, Red Tiger Gaming, Skywind, iSoftbet and QuickSpin.
If you want to see a great example of modern fruit slots, try playing Berryburst from NetEnt, released in August 2018.
Penny Slots
Among the most harmless and risk-free slots are the so-called penny slots. Their secret lies within a beginner-friendly coin size ratio, which usually expands from a few cents to just a couple of ZARs or currency equivalent. To help their players recognize these slots upon registering and placing a deposit, many reputable online casinos highlight this category or keep it under instant wins.
Penny slots aren’t very different from regular slot machines; they are also played in a standard 5×3, 5×4 or 6×4 format, only their features and payout potential is significantly lower due to the maximum bet level.
Cascade Slots
Cascading slots rose to fame in the last couple of years and won the hearts of many passionate slot players around the world. The greatest thing about them is anentirely new concept when it comes to making wins. After making a winning combination, tumbling or cascading reels destroy the winning symbols and let a new collection of icons drop from above to fill in the gaps and potentially trigger a new payout.
This concept offers a lot of fun to players and many gamified casinos include them as part of their standard free-to-play portfolio. Cascade slots are perfect for players who like to experience modern iGaming, so if you want to know what to expect, Asgardian Stones makes a really good example.
Progressive Jackpots
The most popular category in the slots industry has paid out hundreds of millions to players around the world. Progressive jackpots usually boast colossal prizes or more of them that can either feature a fixed size throughout gameplay or get progressively larger as more and more bets are placed.
Moreover, jackpots can be confined to a single machine or set of machines, or even shared across several different titles and players. As an example, Mega Moolah from Microgamingset a new record with €18.9 million payout in October 2018, while the entire network cashed out over €1.45 billion since inception.
Still don’t know where to look? Start with NetEnt’s Grand SpinnSuperpotbut feel free to explore if your appetite grows in size faster than mini, minor, major and grand bonanza!
Slots with Megaways
Barely a couple of years old, this category has won the hearts of players all over the world almost overnight. Megaways slots were born in 2016 when Big Time Gaming released Dragon Born Megaways. Their specialty revolves around a game mechanic that offers a completely new way of playing and it paved a way for a brand-new breed of online slots.
The essential difference is in a variable number of symbols on each reel and every spin. On top of that, Megaways slots usually come with six reels that expand the number of winning combinations up to 117,649 different possibilities or more.
Almost every leading software provider bought the rights to Megaways in the last couple of years, allowing them to relaunch some of their greatest hits in a totally new format. Among such suppliers are Microgaming, Pragmatic Play, iSoftBet, Red Tiger, and of course BTG.
A couple of high-rolling spins and a huge win on Megaways slots can make a difference between night and day, so finding an online casino with these providers is where you can locate some of them.
Bitcoin Slots
As crypto becomes more and more acceptable as a payment method at online casinos, certain developers even adjusted their games to virtual tokens only. Among the most popular crypto games of chance are certainly Bitcoin slots, usually played in mBits since the world’s largest decentralized digital currency keeps growing in value.
Each new generation of software vendors makes sure to include cryptocurrencies as means of playing online slots, so don’t be surprised to see this option in your favorite titles if crypto is your main source of funds when depositing.
3D Slots
As the industry changes and gaming standards keep improving, 3D titles slowly but surely take up more and more space in many portfolios of online casinos. They are something in between of video slots and VR slots, usually packed with cut-scenes, high-end animations and sound effects or feature a lot of gamification highlights with interactive elements.
These next-gen titles offer a much bigger visual approach than the average slot due to their tremendous amount of details and graphics, so if you’re looking for some 21st century action, a good 3D slot like Hotline or Finn’s Golden Tavern can be as immersive as watching a 3D movie.
We hope that you’ll find at least one of these categories interesting and become an expert in no time! Feel free to look around.