Most casinos today are packed with hundreds of different slot machines (online slots and offline slots), and there are many different types of slots to keep an eye out for, such as classic slots, video slots, progressive jackpot slots, and live dealer slots.
You can also find several other categories, such as 3-reel slots, 5 and 6-reel slots, bonus round slots, free spins slots, Megaways slots, and more. Here, we will be taking a closer look at some of the main differences between the many different types of slots.
What are the main types of slots?
Today, there are a handful of different types of slots, and for each type of slot, you can find hundreds of different varieties. Also, don’t forget that one online slot machine can fall into several different slot categories. In 2022, the main types of online slot machines are
- 3 reel classic slots and video slots
- 5 and 6 reel video slots
- Fixed coin jackpot slots
- Progressive jackpot slots
- Bonus round slots
- Free spins slots
- Live dealer slots
- Win ways slots
- Megaways slots
Although there are many different individual categories, you will find that most slots fall into more than one. For example, The Goonies Return Jackpot King online slot from Blueprint Gaming that you can enjoy playing in the real money mode and free play demo mode right now at 32 Red online casino UK, is a 5 reel video slot, a progressive jackpot slot, a bonus round slot, AND a free spin slot. Another example is The Dog House Megaways slot from Pragmatic Play, which is a 6-reel video slot, a fixed coin jackpot slot, a free spins slot, and a Megaways slot.
What is a Megaways slot?
A Megaways slot is a game that generally has 5 or 6 reels, and it comes with the Megaways game engine. Megaways is basically the number of different ways you can win per spin, and each time you hit the spin button, it’s random. Each reel can have anywhere from 2 to 5 symbols (of varying height), which means that there can be anywhere from 324 Megaways (which is basically like paylines or win ways) up to 1,000,000 or more Megaways.
You never know exactly how many Megaways there will be on the next spin, which is what makes them so exciting. In most Megaways slots, each time you land a winner, any winning symbols that are in view will explode and then disappear from the reels, which then immediately cause more new symbols to drop down from above and fill the empty positions.
If this creates another winning combo for you, and the same process will keep on repeating, for free, until there are no more new wins in view. An Increasing Win Multiplier that climbs by one value after each win can also help boost your winnings even further.
What’s the difference between progressive jackpot slots and fixed coin jackpot slots?
It’s simple. A fixed coin jackpot is capped at a certain amount, which is often worth anywhere from as little as 100x times your total stake up to 50,000x times your total stake, and it will never exceed the set amount. A progressive jackpot, on the other hand, can climb to no fixed amount before being won. Progressive jackpot slots are connected to vast networks of online casinos, and hundreds of thousands of people play these games, which is why the jackpots in these games often reach well into the millions.
Each time one player places a wager on a progressive jackpot slot, a tiny amount of that stake will automatically be added to the pot, which is why you can always see the jackpots growing in real-time. The Mega Moolah jackpot slots from Microgaming have a seed amount of $/€/£1,000,000.00, and at the time of writing, the MEGA jackpot (the largest of four jackpots) in these games is worth around $/€/£2,330,231.17 and climbing by the second. When a player wins the jackpot in any of these games, the jackpot value will reset to $/€/£1,000,000.00 and not to zero.
Live dealer slots
One of the latest developments in online slot machine technology is the birth of live dealer slots. There are literally just a handful of live dealer slots out there today, and they can only be found at certain live dealer casinos. It’s the same as a regular online slot, except the action is brought to you by a live dealer casino host in a live dealer casino environment, and you play with an unlimited community of players who you can chat with in real-time using the chat feature.
It’s not clear yet as to whether live dealer slots will take off or not. We will just have to wait and see. When playing slots in the real money mode, always remember to set deposit limits to help you stay in much better control of how much you spend.