Slot Machine Games Guide

Bonus Slots A type of slot machine in which a specific combination will launch a bonus feature. This allows the player to add to his winnings. The bonus feature usually involves either another (bonus) game play or free bonus spins.

Coin Size The size of a basic bet on a single spin. For instance, if you wish to play a 25-cent slot, the coin size is a quarter

Hit a slang term for winning on a slot

Max Bet Is short for maximum bet or the largest amount of coins you are allowed to play on one spin. Even if you are playing a slot with a "coin size" of a quarter, the machine will usually allow a "max bet" of more than one coin. More often than not you will have to play the max bet in order to win the largest payout on the slot machine you are playing.

Progressive Slots Are a type of slot machine that offers a large sum of money (called "progressive jackpots") that increases with every spin and that can be won if one player hits on a pre-determined combination during play. Progressive slots are usually linked to other similar slots so that the jackpot is increasing across many slots and many different sites.

Payline The winning line or lines on a slot machine as indicated by the pay table. Older slots used to have only one payline but in today's video slots they can have as many as 40 paylines.

Payout This is simply the amount a machine awards a customer for a particular win. This varies from machine to machine and the type of game being played.

Payout Percentage This refers to the amount of every bet put into a slot machine that is given back to the customer as a payout. If say a machine is said to have a 98% payout percentage then that means that 98 cents out of every dollar is given back to customers in payout's, while the remainder (the two remaining cents) is the casino's take. This percentage can vary between an upper and lower limit depending on the machine for instance between 96% - 98%

Pay Table This is sometime also called the Pay Schedule. It's a chart on a slot machine that shows how much money is won on every type of winning combination.

Reels The spinning part of the machine. The wheels often comprise of many symbols and pictures inside the slot machine that spin around when in play. Where they land and the combination of where they land determines if a player is a winner or not.

Symbols These are the pictures on the reels used to determine wins. The traditional ones include stars, fruit and numbers, but today's machines have symbols that can include just about anything that stays with the theme of the machine.

Winning Combination Means the different combinations of symbols on the reels that must be hit on a machine in order for a payout to occur.

Wild symbol On some slot machines this is a symbol that can be substituted for any other symbol in order for a payout to occur. There are also bonus symbols and scatter symbols in the newer more complex slot machines. Full explanations of these will be found in the games 'help' section.