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The gambling market has changed a lot over the past several years. There are many companies that develop games and software for online casinos. They create more and more titles, which means that many casinos have even 4 or 5 thousand games on their offer. Most of them are online slots. These are divided into several important categories, which we would like to write a bit more about.
Main categories
Slot machines can be distinguished due to the way they are built, their themes, symbols, and the number of winnings. However, there are also categories that will immediately tell us what games we are dealing with.
Jackpots
These are some of the most exciting games in casinos. They are distinguished from other online slots by their high payouts! Casinos and providers use so-called jackpots, i.e. special pools with money. These can be permanent or progressive. The first means that the casino immediately decides what the prize is to win – 50,000, 100,000, 500,000. Progressive jackpots are more exciting. These are additional prizes that increase with the number of bets. Often there are networks consisting of several casinos that share a common pot for the jackpot in the game. Thanks to this, more and more money goes to such a pot, and if no one wins them for a long time, they can have several million euros. The record win is close to 18 million euros in 2011. The jackpot can be won with special bonus symbols. Many games have 3 or 4 jackpots, each with a different value.
The most famous jackpots are Mega Fortune, Mega Moolah, Ancient Fortunes Poseidon WOWPot!, TNT Tumble Dream Drop, Wheel Of Wishes Wowpot, Atlantean Treasures Mega Moolah, Diamond Mine Megaways Jackpot King, Hall of Gods, Absolootely Mad Mega Moolah.
Hot spot slots
This is a category for retro lovers. These are games that often come from or are modeled on bar machines. Such games have very simple graphics, classic symbols like fruits, stars, 7, BAR, bells, and simple mechanics. Many people choose them precisely because they are simple or because they grew up on slot machines in bars and arcades. The most popular are Sizzling Hot, Sizzling Hot Deluxe, Hot Target, Ultra Hot, Always Hot, Ultra Hot Deluxe, Red Hot Fruits, 5 Dazzling Hot, and Super Hot Fruits. Many of the you can find on the list here – https://gry-hazardowe-za-darmo.com/automaty-online-na-pieniadze/.
Megaways Slots
This is quite a new category. These online slots were created by Big Time Gaming. Unlike many other games, they provide a lot more pay lines, and chances to win. The number of available pay lines on that game changes from spin to spin. Typically, these games have 6 or 7 reels that expand with each win. With each expansion, the number of rows and ways to win increases. Some games even have 117,649 ways to win! The Dog House Megaways, Fruit Shop Megaways, Temple Tumble Megaways, Twin Spin MegaWays, Buffalo King Megaways, Cash’N Riches WOWPOT Megaways, Joker Megaways, Gonzos Quest Megaways, Madame Destiny Megaways, or Great Rhino Megaways.
Fruit slots
This is a very large category of games, which also includes many hot spot games. The main feature of such games is that the symbols on the reels are fruits – lemons, cherries, plums, oranges, grapes, or watermelons. Such games refer to the large history of gambling machines, which dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. Popular titles are Fruit Bonanza, Fruit Shop, Fruit Party, Fruitopolis Fortune Play, Fruits Go Wild, Super Hot Fruits, Hot Hot Fruits, and Smoking Hot Fruits.
| Category | Slots |
| When were they made? | Classic slots late 19th century, online slots late 20th century |
| Where to find it? | Online casinos, gambling sites, mobile apps |
| Top Developers | NetEnt, Microgaming, Play’N Go, Big Time Gaming, IGT, EGT, Novomatic, Wazdan, Evolution, Yggdrasil |
What’s the difference between the slots?
We have shown you some of the most important categories of online slots that you can find in online casinos. However, it is worth knowing that online slot machines can still be divided into different versions. So what can be different?
- Layout: Classic slots had a 3v3 layout. Over time, games with 5v3 reel arrangements were developed, which are the most popular today. However, other games began to be created: 5 x 4, 5 x 5, 6 x 6, 7 x 7, or even bigger. So online slots can have a different number of reels and rows.
- Paylines: Classic games only had 1 pay line which was in the center of the game. Over time, they were increased to 3, 5, 7, 9, and 10. Today, many games have a lot of pay lines like 25, 50, and 100. They also created a ways to win system, where 243 ways are popular, and as we showed with Megaways, there can be a lot of them!
- Bonuses: The first games only offered cash wins from the combination of symbols. However, bonus options began to be added to the games. Therefore, you can find it in various games, for example, gamble, free spins, re-spin, jackpots, multiplier, wilds and scatters, treasures, bonus wheel, expanding symbols, and many more.
- Game themes: the biggest difference with the slots is in their theme. Just as different types of poker or roulette are quite similar, online slots can be completely different. We have written about hot spots and fruit games, but it is worth knowing that games can be about many other categories – countries, legends, stories, fairy tales, movies, comics, love, space, cities, history, creatures, animals, cars, wealth. In addition, there are licensing games that are based on well-known movies, series, and comics, such as DC or Marvel.
- Stakes and winnings: The games are also different in terms of stakes and winnings. There are games where you can place very low bets and those where the highest rate is over 100 euros per spin. The highest prizes bring jackpots, but some games also provide quite large wins.
- RTP: Return to Player is the percentage of wins a slot provides. Some slots are only 91-92%, most are 94-96%, and some are even 99%
As you can see, online slots are a very large category of gambling games where titles can differ significantly from each other.