Slot games are popular at all times in all casinos and among the majority of gamblers. Slots are plenty, colourful, various, easy and fun to play with. Many software providers make only slots and release a new game, or more than one game, every month. However, it means that slots are not “all the same”, because they have not only various designs and themes, but also various tech specs and, of course, bonus features. That’s the reason why choosing a slot game for real money by its theme and design is not the best idea. Slots are to be chosen by bonus features.
Why Slots Are Not Created Equal
Slots are made by different companies that have not only different experiences and resources for games development but also various visions and approaches to style and design. Some companies try to change the skins of their games while keeping the mechanics basic, other developers look for unique features they can add but don’t offer much variety in design, etc. Many casino sites like Yukon Gold Casino allow filtering the slot games by features in their lobbies so that the customers could get a bigger picture of what’s offered and make their choice faster. People prefer various features, and providers try to meet different needs – this is the main reason why slots are not created equal.
The top features to be looked for are:
- Free Spins & Respins
- Sticky Wilds
- Stacked Wilds
- Multipliers
- Gamble / Risk Game
- Customizable Volatility
- Bonus Buy
- Jackpot
- Cascading Wins
- Megaways
Free Spins & Respins
Free Spins are among the most desired features because they allow players to win real money, but without spending their actual funds on bets; in other words, the player’s bets are paid by the site, but whatever the player wins is theirs. But the Respins feature is even better; it means the Free Spins can be retriggered right inside the current Free Spins session, and the number of spins and wins, therefore, immediately increases.
Sticky Wilds
Wilds are symbols that land on the grid and transform into symbols needed to hit the payline if they are on the payline’s way. Whatever symbol is missing for the payline to be activated, Wilds complement it. Sticky Wilds are even better, though, because as the symbol sticks to the grid, it can complement a payline again and again with every spin, and therefore the player can win several times in a row.
Stacked Wilds
These Wild symbols work as all Wilds, but they get stacked on the grid, and the amount of Wilds on different positions on the grid allows to complement more potential paylines. The more Wilds are stacked, the more a player can win after unlocking this feature!
Multipliers
Multipliers are not often, because this is a more complicated and well-paying feature in a slot game, and many providers do not have it at all, while those who have it do not offer it in every new game. Multipliers are activated by a certain combination of symbols or a certain action, and the point is that they multiply the size of the bet, or the size of the win, thus increasing the sum of the win eventually. Most games have one or two multipliers, but some have more, and they get unlocked one by one.
Gamble / Risk Game
Gamble, also called Risk Game, is different gameplay that is unlocked after hitting a combination or meeting a certain requirement within the slot game. A classic Risk Game is choosing a card out of 4 cards on the table, trying to get a more valuable card than the virtual dealer gets. If the player wins, they increase their winnings and usually have another try; if the dealer wins, the Risk Game ends, and the player is returned to the reels gameplay. Sometimes Gamble suggests choosing not cards, but chests of treasures, boxes, etc. trying to guess where the prize is.
Customizable Volatility
Volatility is the correlation between the frequency of the wins and the sums of the wins. As a rule, the higher the frequency, the smaller the wins, and the other way around. The benefit of smaller but frequent wins is that a player can enjoy the game longer even with a small budget, while high volatility and higher wins are more about a higher budget. Customizable volatility is a rare feature because only a couple of providers have this technology, but its point is that a player can choose the preferred level of volatility depending on their budget.
Bonus Buy
This feature is basically about depositing more money into the game besides making your classic bets, and after the player deposits, they immediately unlock a bonus feature they wanted to buy. In other words, Bonus Buy is not about buying winnings, it is about guaranteed unlocking of the desired bonus feature, which is potentially more profitable than wins from regular bets, and more often than not, it immediately covers the money deposited into Bonus Buy. However, Bonus Buy is pretty rare and few providers offer it.
Jackpot
Jackpot is a cool feature that allows a gamer to accumulate the jackpot sum while spinning the reels, and if the feature is activated, a player can win a life-changing sum that covers not only their bets. Most games that offer a jackpot feature have only one jackpot option, but some slots have two or three levels of jackpots, from smaller to bigger. Depending on the player’s luck, they may win some nice prizes.
Cascading Wins
This awesome feature basically works almost like Free Spins because when the mechanics start, a player does not have to do anything but watch and hope for the wins. But in this case, the reels don’t spin, rather, the symbols get stacked and then drop, making space for the next symbols to drop, and hitting more and more paylines with every dropping symbol. Cascading wins bring rewards with almost every move, and the feature is activated and deactivated by symbol combinations within the game.
Megaways
Megaways is a mechanic that few providers have since it is quite a complicated one. But it is very advantageous for the players because regardless of the initial number of paylines in the regular gameplay, this feature enables the player to unlock literally thousands of ways to win. Megaways are incredibly profitable in terms of winning, and even a small bet can eventually bring a life-changing win.
