We will be wasting your time if we group all the different kinds of slot machines into groups. Slot machines are a big part of what draws people to traditional and online casinos. Slots come in a huge variety of styles, including single-line, three-line, three-reel, five-reel, bonus games, and progressives, to name a few.
It makes more sense to look at what slot machines are like in general.
How many reels
Slot machines usually have 3 or 5 reels. The first slots only had three reels. We remember them as machines that were “classic” or “normal.”
5 reel slots are common today, and most of them have more than one payline.
Count of Rows
Slot machines have one, two, or more horizontal rows that show where the positions on the reels are. Extra rows, usually one above and one below the payout display, are meant to entice players by showing them how close they came to winning.
Count of Pay Lines
One or more paylines can go across the reels. It’s common to see three, five, nine, fifteen, or even twenty lines. For a winning combination, the symbols must fall on a line, usually the horizontal line in the middle.
In a classic machine, there is only one payline that goes across the three reels. You can bet one or more coins per spin, but only the middle line pays, and increasing your bet doesn’t increase your chances of winning.
You can make more lines payout if you play more coins on a slot machine with more than one payline. You don’t have to bet on every payline that’s available.
Say you’re playing a three-line slot machine and you need to put in one coin to play the middle line, another coin to play the line above the middle, and a third coin to play the line below the middle. If you now bet only one coin and the reels show a winning combination on the line above or below the center, you don’t win anything because you played too few coins.
Slots with 5 reels can have anywhere from 5 to 20 paylines if they let you make diagonal matches.
The value of one coin
There are slot machines that take as little as 5 cents and as much as $5. High roller slots may accept “coins” worth as much as $500, but these are rare and hard to find. Some online casinos set special limits for their big players so that they can place big bets.
How many coins can be played
The most you can bet on most classic slots is three coins, but some only let you bet up to two coins. Again, this has changed a lot because of video slots. Some multi-line video slots now let you put up to 10 coins on each line.