Slot machines have come a long way and certainly taken a huge step in the couple recent years. It all started with the classical slot known as ''Liberty Bell'' that was implemented in the USA. Today it has gone as far as having a chance to play these gambling machines in an online, internet environment. You don't have to leave your home to play exciting video slots anymore, as all of them are available at online casino sites.
When comparing video slots online to those that are offered in land based gambling environment, the power of internet can certainly be felt. While you will also find a variety of games offered at brick & mortar casinos, especially in Las Vegas, online casinos offer way more than 1,000 of these. Not only are they featuring some trully thrilling and andrenaline rushing features, but also themed after many very popular characters from famous movies, games and stories.
As we are kind of basing this article on these modern video slots that are played in an online environment, it's worth it to compare them to the ones that are offered at land based casinos. From our point of view, online play is certainly more appealing to most people and actually more lucrative too. The payout ratios for online video slots are way higher than for those that can be found at land based, brick & mortar casinos. Online version of these games can reach payout rates that are as high as 98%, which is certainly quite incredible.
Another big argument for choosing the online play is variety of games and a chance to access them from comfort of your own home. No drive, no need to stay sober and take a late drive home. Log onto your computer, sign into casino account and as many as 450 slot machines will be available at a single casino.
Finally, there's also no argument for playing slots in a land based environment for increased gaming experience. Even if you do play live, you are still only clicking buttons. It's not like BlackJack or other table games where a dealer or croupier is assisting you. Hence, online play should on top of your list.
Common Video Slots Features
These modern machines are simply loaded with features, especially the online ones. When you play video slots online there's a whole lot more than just spinning symbols over the reels. It's actually a pretty similar experience to the video computer games. Here's a quick peak at the most common symbols and features in these kinds of gambling machines.
Wild Symbols are usually the most valueable ones of the game and will substitute for any other ones in the game to create or complete winning pay-lines. There are several other types of these in the modern games:
Expanding – when these appears, they expand to cover the whole reel and turn it into substitutes. It's quite obvious that this is a really lucrative feature and can lead to some massive payouts.
Stacked – a little bit similar symbols to the expanding, but instead of being a guaranteed reel in wild, these only offer a chance to do so. Two or three symbols are stacked together, so that chance is actually quite good.
Sticky - a symbol that sticks to the position it initially came up in and stays there for a specific amount of re-spins, depending on the machine you play.
Walking – new type of the wild symbol that I actually saw only recently at a NetEnt video slot. It appears on the reels and sticks to its position just like the sticky one, but after every re-spin it moves one position to the left. It does this as long as it ''walks'' out of the reels.
Scatter Symbols – unlike wilds, scatter symbols do not substitute for any others, yet they are also highly valueable icons of any slot mahine. In most games, these are your chance to win or better said, trigger the free spins feature. Scatters will also award individual payouts when at least two of them appear on the reels. In some machines these will be used to trigger the bonus feature.
Bonus Rounds – this is kind of a desert. Bonus features are almost exclusive to video slots and well, now also featured in 3D slot machines. They are mainly offered to increase the entertainment that can be gotten from playing a video slot online. Though, when a game offers some sort of a progressive jackpot, it can often be won exactly by participating in the bonus game. Note that bonus rounds are usually triggered when at least 3 ''bonus symbols'' make an appearance on the reels.