Deciphering the World of Online Slots

The online casino industry has changed beyond recognition during the past decade; regulation has brought change on a previously unimaginable scale for players in several countries, whilst some jurisdictions which had previously banned any online casino gaming have opened their doors to players for the first time.

This seismic shift throughout the online casino industry has not stopped at the state level – there used to be just a handful of software houses creating slot machines for the online gambling industry. We have come a long way since then; today there are countless studios publishing an endless stream of new games every week.

From a Shelf to a Library

Some players have a small selection of favourite slots that they will stick to every time they make a deposit at an online casino, but this creates a chicken and egg scenario – you must find your favourites before you can stick to them! Other players may prefer to try a selection of new games each time they play, but the selection on offer is quickly reaching unmanageable proportions.

Browsing the catalogue at a world-class site such as the 32Red best online casino reveals thousands of existing games, and there are dozens more being published each month. The situation is forcing online casinos to ask: “how big is big enough?” – should these sites continue adding new games indefinitely? Or should they curate the selection of titles they offer to help their players find the best online slots?

There are indications that even experienced players who are just searching for new games to try are now finding themselves outfaced by the sheer scale of the modern online casino library. If this is true, new gamblers cannot hope to know where to start! Whichever camp you fall into, we have a few suggestions to help you on your way:

Search & Sort

Many online casinos allow you to sort their games by attributes such as the name or developer, but you may have to dig a little deeper to find the games which pay the most. One of the first things to look for as a player is the RTP of each game – this describes the ratio that the game is designed to pay out in relation to how much a player has put in.

The average number for an online slot machine is 96%, so try your best to find games which pay out a minimum of 96% to give yourself an early advantage over the online casino. An example of a high RTP game is NetEnt’s Blood Suckers, an online slot with an RTP of 98%. With this in mind, why not just play Blood Suckers rather than any other game? Variance is a crucial factor, too; Blood Suckers is a low variance game, meaning it will tend to pay out smaller amounts regularly as opposed to a high variance game which may pay more, but much less often.

Themes

We all have our favourite genres of music and movies; even video games are often easy to classify, so why not slots? It may sound obvious, but if you are a fan of the Batman movie franchise, for example, you could use that as a starting point before trying other superhero-themed slots. When you find something that you like, look for other games written by the same developer or that use similar mechanics behind the scenes.

Whatever theme you can imagine, there is almost certainly at least one or two online slot machines already out there that are based on it. You may not like those specific games, but it gives you a starting point rather than endlessly scrolling through a catalogue looking for something you want to play.

Mechanics

Once you have been playing slots for a week or two, you are bound to begin to notice that different games pay out in a very different manner. Some players prefer high variance games which pay out large amounts infrequently, whilst others would prefer to win a little less, but much more often. Slot developers almost always give a variance rating to their games which you can use to gauge how likely you are to enjoy a particular game.

Another important attribute is the payout mechanic – some games utilise clusters of matching symbols whereas others make use of strict pay lines, and others still utilise huge numbers of possible pay ways. Generally speaking, games with a lower number of ways or lines are likely to deliver larger wins for hitting a full line/way of matching symbols, making this another easy method of finding games that you enjoy.