Essential Slots Features To Enhance Your Experience
If you’ve been spinning the reels of online slots for a while, chances are you’ve encountered the usual party fare like Wilds, scatters, and extra paylines. That’s a good thing; those slot features are the quality core of every game.
But the thing is, you’re not here for the ordinary; you’re here for the extraordinary. If you haven’t ventured off the beaten path, you might have missed out on some of the most cutting-edge features and the big-time payouts they deliver. And we can’t have that!
Today’s slot game features are pushing the boundaries of creativity and winning potential, and we’re here to make 100% sure you know how they work.
1. Hot Drop Jackpots
Now we’re really getting into the fun stuff. And by fun, we mean some of the hottest prizes you’ll find on the reels.
SlotsLV Hot Drop Jackpots are jackpots that are configured to trigger at key times. The hourly jackpot triggers once per 60 minutes. The daily jackpot triggers once per 24 hours. And the Epic jackpot can trigger at any time! Unlike other jackpot games where you never know the best time to play slots, games with must drop jackpots have an hourly and daily timer that counts down for those prizes.
If you happen to land three special crown symbols on any spin, you’ll get a chance to spin a jackpot wheel that awards one of the special Hot Drop Jackpots.
2. Free Spins
Any huge SlotsLV fan will tell you that, oftentimes, the best part of our games is the slots with free spins! And many slot games include this feature.
“Free spins” allow you keep playing the game by spinning your reels, and your balance doesn’t deplete. Any prizes that you win during free spins are yours to keep, of course. That’s what makes them free.
The most common way to trigger a free spins round is to land three or more scatter symbols, although each slot game is unique, so brushing up on the rules before you start spinning will tell you what to expect. Free slot spins can sometimes be retriggered too.
3. Scatters
Typically in a slots game, the standard symbols need to land on a payline in order to award a prize. The scatter symbol is different. The scatter can actually land anywhere on the reels to award its prize.
They’re almost always the highest-paying symbol in the base game. Scatter symbols most often serve as an automatic entry into a free spins or bonus round if you land at least three.
4. Wilds
A Wild symbol transforms into another regular symbol in the game, except for the scatter. If luck is on your side, the symbol it becomes will form part of a winning payline. Many games allow a Wild symbol to appear anywhere, and some games restrict it only to certain reels.
You’ll also see slots with sticky Wilds. This means the Wild symbol will appear somewhere on your reels and stay in the same place until a series of spins has been completed.
Stacked Wilds line up vertically to fill out a reel. Expanding Wilds are Wilds that grow to cover the entire reel that they land on. These Wilds can award multiple wins with paylines that are connected to that reel.
Wild multipliers are where the big rewards are at, and you can find them in games like Mythic Wolf. A Wild multiplier will not only transform into another symbol to help you win, but it will then multiply that win by a designated number.
5. Multipliers
Multipliers are an excellent slot machine feature because they often lead to bigger wins.
A multiplier works like this: the dollar amount of your win is multiplied by the value of that multiplier. It would appear as something like 2x, 5x, or 10x. It could multiply either your entire win from that spin, or just the win on the line that had the multiplier.
In some instances, they can combine to form bigger multipliers, like Golden Buffalo which reaches up to 3,125x. In other cases, games can have increasing multipliers that get bigger with every win, so it’s important to check the online slots paytable.
6. Cascading Reels
Cascading reels are also called tumbling reels. It means that whenever a win is awarded in the game, the symbols involved in that win disappear, and new symbols take their place.
Whenever this happens, there’s a chance that these new symbols will immediately form another win. In most games with cascading reels, like Zombie FC, the feature will continue giving you fresh symbols until there are no more wins on the reels.
7. Hold & Win
Have you ever thought how cool it would be if every symbol that landed on the reels awarded a prize just for showing up? That’s the brilliant idea behind Hold and Win games. Trockso play one, you usually have to land at least six of a special symbol, like the shimmering pearls in Pearl Pursuit Hold & Win or the rockin’ black vinyl records in Rockstar World Tour Hold & Win.
Then, you open a shiny new grid with only those special symbols and start the round with three re-spins. Each time a new bonus symbol locks on the reels or is “held”, you get three more re-spins. This ride continues until you either run out of re-spins and your bonus symbols are tallied up, or – drumroll please – you fill the entire grid with bonus symbols and score the grand fixed jackpot.
8. Progressive Jackpots
Progressive jackpot slots are some of the most popular games at an online casino, as they can award some of the most jaw-dropping, totally life-changing wins.
A progressive jackpot is a jackpot that grows with each wager that’s placed in the game. A certain percentage of every person’s bet goes into the pot. The way to win progressive jackpots is different for every game, though.
In some of our progressive jackpots, you can win at random at the completion of any spin – like in Cyberpunk City. Other games award it from within the bonus round, or free spins round, by landing the right set of symbols. Others still will have you spin a wheel, and the methods keep going.
For most progressive jackpots, you have to be playing on the maximum bet to be eligible to win, but that’s not the case for all slots online. To find out which games do or don’t have that requirement, refer to its game paytable.
9. Re-Spins
A slot respin is slightly different from slots free spins.
A respin is a special feature in which some symbols – or maybe even an entire reel – will stay fixed in place, while the remaining symbols or reels will spin again. This can be triggered by a non-winning spin, winning spin, or select symbols (it depends on the game). Ultimately, this gives you another chance to form a win with your existing symbols rather than starting afresh.
10. Mystery Symbols
The outcome of every spin in a slot game is a mystery until it’s right there in front of you. (It’s part of the thrill!) In some online slots, a special kind of symbol will add an extra dose of intrigue to make the mystery even more enticing.
Mystery symbols commonly appear as a question mark symbol, like they do in 777 Deluxe, or in another form that matches the theme. When it lands, it will transform into almost any other symbol in the game (but usually not the scatter) and it may help complete a winning combination.
11. Bonus Buy
Tagging along with the Buy 2x Chance feature is the Bonus Buy. This dynamic duo is often seen together, but bonus buy slots add a juicier twist. Instead of giving you a mere chance to win, when you activate the Bonus Buy feature, you skip the line and get dropped directly into the bonus round – no waiting needed.
The cost to kick off the Bonus Buy feature varies with your bet size, but it’s usually a small investment for the grand potential within the bonus round. Take the slot Dragon Era, for instance. Here, you can snag a max win of 5.624x, making the cost of the Bonus Buy a small price to pay for a shot at the payout.
12. Gamble Feature
If you like to live on the edge, then you’ll love the gamble feature. If your chosen game includes this feature, it can usually be entered after any winning spin.
When you opt to play, you’ll engage in a game of double or nothing for your latest win. Sometimes, that means flipping over a card. In the case of A Night With Cleo, it means guessing which of her hands – left or right – holds a lotus flower. The gamble feature in that game makes it one of our most popular.
13. Buy 2x Chance
The Buy 2x Chance feature is gaining popularity, and it’s easy to see why. When you activate it, your online slot tacks a little extra onto your bet and then automatically boosts your chances of landing a specific feature.
The boost varies from game to game, but in Tropical Elvis, for instance, it gives you a 2.5x greater chance to trigger the coin re-spin feature or the free spins round.
14. Cluster Pays
While some slots grant wins from anywhere on the screen, other games like 8 Win Up and Temple of Clusters take another unique approach with “Cluster Pays”.
This means that whenever a certain number, usually four or five, of the same symbol land together in a touching cluster, they award a payout regardless of the shape or pattern, making winning much easier.
15. Paylines, and Ways to Win
In order to be awarded a prize in slots, you need to land matching symbols in a certain pattern. Those patterns are the paylines.
Some paylines are fixed, which means you must pay for each payline during each spin. They cannot be adjusted. Others, however, will allow you to select the number of paylines you’d like to play with.
“Ways to Win” is a more modern take on slot machine paylines. A common theme is to form wins with “adjacent symbols”. This means that three matching symbols must appear adjacent to each other across three consecutive reels going from left to right. That’s why you see games with 243 ways to win, 1,024 ways to win, and many more winning combinations being offered.
Top Online Slots Features – Conclusion
Just like plain popcorn transforms with a splash of butter and spices, a slot game truly comes to life with the right features.
These are 15 of the best online slots features, and you can find them right here at SlotsLV Casino, from Hold & Win to Buy Bonus to Cluster Pays, and everything in between, all the way to your city’s featured bank.
