Kinds of Spinning Reel Machines

On the surface, many reel spinners still look similar to slot machines installed in the early Las Vegas casinos over a half century ago. They have three spinning reels, and some of them still have a pull-handle on the right side, just like the old one-armed bandits. Inside the cabinet, however, they are totally different.

They may have mechanical reels, but those reels are driven by electric stepper motors that are fully controlled by a microprocessor. The pull-handle, which used to engage gears and cams that mechanically spun the reels, now simply operates an electrical switch connected to the same circuit as the switch under the SPIN button. Many progressive machines are also reel spinners, but this post only covers games with a static (unchanging) top jackpot.

Although the variety of spinning reel machines may seem endless, they come in just four main styles. All other differences have to do with the kinds of symbols used and the amounts of the payouts.

Following are the four basic types:

Coin Multipliers
In most casinos, multipliers are very popular machines. Multipliers are single-payline games where the number of coins bet on one spin multiplies the potential payouts. When this mathematical relationship is exact, the game is called a true multiplier. Bally’s “Double Trouble” is an example of a two-coin true multiplier.

In most games, however, the top jackpot is higher than the multiple when the maximum number of coins is bet. This version is called a modified multiplier (see illustration). The purpose of a modified multiplier, of course, is to encourage the player to bet the maximum on every spin. For instance, on most three-coin multipliers, if the top jackpot pays one thousand coins for a one-coin bet, the second coin will pay two thousand coins, but the third coin may pay four thousand coins (instead of three thousand coins), or even five thousand coins or more. Hence, the conventional advice is to always bet the maximum number of coins. However, this is not necessarily good advice, as will be explained in the strategy section.

Typical modified multiplier paytable.

Multi-Line Games
As you visit different online casinos, you will notice that there are plenty of reel spinners with multiple paylines. In the industry, they are called line games because the paytable is payline-driven. While a single-payline slot machine has one horizontal line across the window, a three-payline slot has two extra horizontal lines, one above and one below the center line. The extra Kinds of Spinning Reel Machines paylines are activated by betting additional coins, giving you two additional chances of hitting a winning combination. Although you may activate one, two, or three of the paylines by inserting one, two, or three coins, to qualify for the maximum jackpot benefit, you must play all three coins.

Some machines have five paylines, with two of them crisscrossing the window diagonally, giving you a total of five winning chances (see illustration). These machines take up to five coins, one for each payline, and here again, you must play the maximum number of coins to qualify for the top jackpot. From the standpoint of return on investment, the multi-line slots are perfectly fine machines if you don’t mind the higher bankroll requirement.

REEL GOOD ADVICE
Don’t assume that all machines with the same name are identical. The IGT game called Triple Diamond comes in several versions that have one, three, five, or nine paylines. Furthermore, the one-payline version comes as a two-coin or three-coin multiplier.