It is common for standard slot symbols to look like fruits such as cherries, bananas, lemons and grapes. Most of the symbols you see on a slot game are just your regular types of symbols that don’t have any special attributes. Getting into playing slots, and wondering what all the different types of slot machine symbols are? Explore the mechanics of slot tournaments, including their common rules, formats, scoring methods, and effective strategies. Discover how volatility influences payouts, risk levels, and learn how to select slot machines that fit your gaming style.
Unlike regular symbols, scatters don’t need to appear on a specific payline to be effective, they only need to land in the required quantity anywhere on the screen. The wild symbols on a slot machine have a unique ability to substitute for any other symbol to create a winning combination. Classic slot machine symbols are the traditional icons that date back to the early days of mechanical slots. Moreover, each symbol has its own value or function; some award payouts, while others trigger bonus features like free spins or mini-games. To receive these winnings, you’ll usually need to line up matching symbols.
It’s worth mentioning that in certain slot games that are particularly loaded with special features, you might find Scatters and special “bonus” symbols with a different look. In addition to triggering the bonus round, Scatter symbols will usually always have their value attached, so you’ll also start a win when they appear on the grid. Some slot games have these special symbols in the base game, but more frequently, they’re a feature that can be found within the bonus round. This usually excludes special symbols like the Scatter but includes higher and lower-value symbols. The point of the Wild symbol is that it can substitute for other standard symbols when it appears on the game grid.
Wild Symbols
In the image below, you’ll see a welcome sight from ‘A Night with Cleo.’ In this game the Ankh Keyhole is the game’s lone scatter symbol. You’ll usually need a minimum of two or three scatter symbols to reap the benefits. Like bonus symbols, scatter symbols sometimes deliver a nice payout, or they could trigger a bonus game mode.
The most basic type of scatter symbol is one which shows up when the reels settle after a spin, and then disappears the next time you spin the reels. How do you know how a scatter symbol on a particular game will behave? If the scatter symbol is also a wild symbol, it can help form a winning combination. We have now talked about multiple types of wild symbols that you might run into when playing slots online.
Now you can guess the reason why it is common for a shifting wild to initially appear on the last reel. But there is a really good chance you’ll see it on the last reel. The next time you push the spin button, you’ll see all the other symbols depart the payline as the reels turn—but not the sticky wild. Did you know there are many different types of wild symbols?
- The most commonly cited example is the NetEnt Guns N’ Roses game, which has an overlay wild with a cross shape.
- These symbols will be so familiar that they can fade into the background when you’re playing, and you can just look out for the higher-value symbols and special symbols.
- Advanced animations allow slot machine symbols to interact dynamically, adding excitement to gameplay.
- As scatter symbols, all three Ankh Keyholes count for the player.
- The answer to that is “it depends.” On many slot games which include both wild and scatter symbols, a wild symbol cannot stand in for a scatter symbol.
- In terms of symbols, it featured the famous Liberty Bell, which is still commonly seen at slot machines today.
Why Slot Machine Symbols Matter
But there are slots which feature scatter wild symbols. If you get these on two or three reels at a time, you are in a great position to potentially get some serious payouts. Multi-space wild symbols such as expanding wilds and colossal wilds are sometimes sticky, and may hold through multiple spins. These wild symbols take up more space than a single symbol spot. Each of these stacked wild symbols will behave just like a regular wild in that they can substitute for any other symbols in the game. But other times, the overlay may be imperfect, so that part of the formation is off the edge of the screen and not affecting the paylines.
Standard Symbols
Just as there are sticky wilds, there also are sticky scatter symbols. Below, we go over some of the different types of scatter symbols out there. It is common—though not ubiquitous—for a single scatter symbol alone not to trigger any sort of payout on today’s slots. We’re in a new epoch for scatter symbols, thanks to digital technology. While a single scatter symbol would trigger a small payout, two scatter symbols would pay out more, and three even more, and so on.
- The BAR symbol also became common in the early 1900s, as it was the logo of the Bell-Fruit Company, a popular game manufacturer of the time.
- Others are quite rare, and these trigger big payouts or lucrative bonus rounds.
- Low-value card symbols (10, J, Q, K, A) fill the reels more abundantly, creating frequent small wins that extend gameplay without depleting the game’s RTP allocation for major payouts.
- The slot paytable explanation reveals that payouts often follow a logarithmic scale — two matching symbols might pay 2x your bet, three pay 5x, four pay 20x, and five pay 100x.
- It is common—though not ubiquitous—for a single scatter symbol alone not to trigger any sort of payout on today’s slots.
- Nowadays, all kinds of slot machine symbols are used – the only limit is the developer’s imagination!
An icon is the small image and title that represents the whole machine, and a surprising amount of design work goes into each one. If slot machine symbols are the gameplay, icons act as the storefront. Figuring out what a game's wild actually does is an important part of learning how to win at slots, or at least knowing what you're chasing. This concept kept the machines legal and the players coming back.
Types of Slot Machine Symbols
These are special symbols which can substitute for others. This is a shot from the slot “Pistols and Roses”, one of the most basic slots you’ll find around. Choose a slot game with a fun theme that you enjoy, since you’ll be spending a lot of tweedbet casino time watching those symbols landing on the paylines. But those are just the most common slot symbols out there. It is also common for them to be related to playing cards in some fashion.