There are many different types of slot machines available in every casino, ranging from single-coin and multi-coin machines to touch-screen and video slot machines. Picking the right device is extremely important for a player because they will not want to bet on a slot which their bankroll cannot support.
If you can imagine it, some casino software producer out there has probably already made a slot about it. From big budget movie tie-ins to retro video game revivals, and everything in between, there are thousands of slot machines out there each with their own distinctive qualities.
With all of that said, even a relatively quick glance at a slot machine can actually tell you a lot about how it will play.
A look at different types of slot machines, such as mechanical slots, video slots, 3 reel slots and 5 reel slots. Mechanical Slots Mechanical slots machines do not have much variety. In a nutshell, slot machines may be categorized based on the type of game, number of reels, the type of jackpot, denominations used, and whether the slot is a class II or the more traditional class III type which is also called Vegas-style slot machine.
Even though there are hundreds of different slot machines made by a variety of different manufacturers, all slot machines basically fall under one of six categories. The different types of machines have their own unique playing characteristics, and understanding these differences is important. As the name indicates, bonus video slots are slot machines that use a video screen for displaying the reels and have some sort of bonus stage. There are countless types of bonus games with the most popular being free spins. Other types of bonuses include wheel bonuses, pick X or Y and story slots.
3-reel games are generally either older titles or are trying to evoke a sense of nostalgia. With a limited number of paylines, and more in common with the fruit machines you'll find in British pubs than Las Vegas video slots, they're not as popular as more modern and flashier titles.
Five reels is, in the world of online slots, more or less par for the course. You may, however, find a title that throws in an extra row/reel or two from time to time. This immediately gives the game a bit of novelty value, as it's different from the norm, so it's easy to understand why developers love to create such games.
Sometimes worth millions, or even tens of millions of CAD, we know exactly why so many slots players stick exclusively with titles that offer progressive jackpots. However, like when you play the lottery, the odds of actually landing one of these huge cash prizes is very small.
Standard jackpots may be much smaller than the average big progressive win, and are usually in the region of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of coins, but they're also more dependable i.e. you know exactly what you're going to get if you win big.
In theory, it's possible to win a progressive jackpot just after it's been won. Even in this case you would probably win tens or hundreds of thousands of C$, but you might be disappointed if the player who won just before you took home millions.
The number of paylines a game has depends, to some extent on how many reels it has. The average game has between 25 and 50 paylines, but features like Reel Power mean that many games boast hundreds of different ways to win.
The more ways to win, the lower the value of most prizes you'll rack up will be. If the high number of paylines in a game means that you'll be winning every few spins then you can't realistically expect most of those wins to be more than, or even equal to, your initial bet.
We've already touched on this above, as the number of paylines a game offers has a significant impact on its variance. In layman's terms, variance refers to the risk of a game. High variance means that there's a high risk you'll burn through your bankroll very quickly without winning anything.
Low variance, on the other hand, means that you can expect to pick up lots of small wins while you play. So why would anyone choose a high variance game over a low variance one? Simple – the higher a game's variance, the higher its jackpot.
Because players win less regularly in a high variance title, casinos can afford to give away a larger prize when someone does hit the jackpot. It may not be immediately obvious whether a game has a high or low variance, but a look at its jackpot and number of paylines should give you a big clue.
A game with lots of paylines and a low jackpot is likely to have a very low variance, while a game with just a few paylines and a high jackpot has a high variance. Most games sit somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.
Virtually all slots, with only a few exceptions, contain mini-games or bonus features. Even those that don't will probably have some form of re-spin feature or similar, which is in itself a type of bonus feature.
Most games have a bonus round comprised of a set number of free spins with a fixed multiplier and/or extra wilds, but others will give you a choice over whether you want more spins/wilds or a higher multiplier.
It's worth taking a look at the types of bonus features a game has before you start playing. If a game has, for example, four bonus rounds but you only like the look of one of them then it may be worth looking elsewhere for a title that's more your style.
With so many different titles to choose from, and so many different components that make up a game, actually choosing a game to play can be a bit overwhelming. The truth of the matter is that most slots players jump between a few slots in the early days of their playing 'career' while they figure out what they like.
An easy way to get a jump on this is to ask yourself the following question: 'what do I want to get out of playing the slots?' If you're feeling lucky and looking for a quick flutter with a massive potential jackpot, then you want to find a progressive title that has a high variance.
If, on the other hand, you're feeling very patient and want to pad your bankroll gradually over long playing sessions then you probably want a lower variance game with a smaller jackpot. Fortunately, with thousands of games on the web, you'll be able to find whatever you're looking for!
Sometimes I have a hard time coming up with topics to write about, but sometimes I get a brilliant idea – usually in the form of a question I haven't seen answered anywhere else.
Today I was thinking about the wide variety of slot machine games.
And it made me realize that I've never seen a website that tried to come up with a total number of slot machines that exist in the world.
On top of that, how many different kinds of these games are available?
When you factor in the games available online, the number might be more staggering than you'd think.
Different Types Of Casino Slot Machines Games
How Many Casinos Are There in the World?
According to the information I found on Statista.com, it looks like there are at least 3600 casinos in the world. That's a statistic from 2011, though, and I think the industry has expanded since then.
If you wanted to extrapolate the total number of actual physical slot machines from that number, you'd need to know the average number of slot machines per casino and multiply.
It's safe to assume that there's at least an average of one slot machine per casino, so we know there are at least 3600 slot machines in the world.
But we also know that most casinos have more than a single slot machine on the floor.
In Nevada, for example, there's an estimated total of 165,000 machines throughout the entire state.
Since we know that there are 334 casinos in Nevada, calculating the average number of machines per casino is easy. It's just 165,000 divided by 334, or 494 slot machines per casino.
Let's call that 500 slot machines per casino on average.
Let's also recognize that in some countries, slot machines make up a lower percentage of the gambling games on the floor. (In Macau, for example, 80% of the casino seems to be devoted to baccarat.)
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The average worldwide might be 250 slot machines per casino.
If you have 3600 casinos in the world with between 250 and 500 slot machines in each, you have a worldwide total of between 900,000 and 1.8 million slot machines.
But How Many Different Games Are There?
Obviously, not every slot machine in every casino is different from the game next to it. Most casinos have a variety of games available.
Again, we're stuck making estimates, and here the math is going to get even fuzzier. I'm just not sure how many of each kind of game are available in each casino.
We might be able to make some estimates based on the number of different games available from a single manufacture. The biggest slot machine manufacturer in the world is IGT.
Can we look at their site to see how many different games they make?
When I go to the IGT website and look at their library of games, I see that they claim to have the largest library of slot machine games in the world.
Different Types Of Casino Slot Machines
When I do a search of their games, I get the option to choose 'all games.' This results in a list of 559 different games.
This is obviously above average, so maybe we can assume that the average number of different games from each manufacturer is much lower than that – let's call it 200 games per manufacturer on average.
You still can't extrapolate an average number of different kinds of games per casino, because a lot of casinos are going to have games that are also found in other casinos.
How Many Different Companies Manufacture Slot Machine Games?
When I search for 'how many different companies manufacture slot machine games,' the top result claims to list 31 different companies which make slot machine games.
It might make sense to assume a lower average, though, since the biggest manufacturer only has a library of 559 games.
Let's assume an average of 250 games per company instead.
Now we have an estimate of 7500 different slot machine games in the world.
What About Online Slot Machine Games?
Odds calculator poker texas holdem rules. It's still not that easy to answer this question, because it doesn't account for the number of software companies which make slot machine games that are available exclusively online. Even if you look up the number of different casino software providers online, it gets sticky with overlap.
Some companies make games for both brick and mortar casinos, while others make games exclusively for real money online casinos, and still others do both.
However in ancient Greece gamblers had the support of a couple of Gods - Hermes and Pan. Even the Gods were said to have played a game or two – in Greek mythology, Zeus, Hades and Poseidon played ‘throw the dice' in order to split the Universe between them. Hermes – The Greek God of Gambling If you are familiar with the Greek mythology, you would know that Hermes is most famous for being the Gods' messenger, a 'divine trickster' and the guide to the Underworld, among other things. His name, however, also had a very special meaning to the ancient gamblers. Greek mythology gambling.
Maybe we can come to a conclusion about a number by just assuming that there are at least as many different online-only slot machine games as there are brick and mortar casino games.
So we're looking at a likely total of 15,000 different kinds of slot machine games in the world, including both online and brick and mortar casinos.
What kind of growth rate does that imply?
The first slot machine was invented and manufactured in 1895, and at the time, there was just one kind of slot machine game.
That was 125 years ago.
If you assume a steady rate of growth, which probably isn't at all accurate, you just divide 15,000 games by 125 years.
This means that we see an average of 120 new slot machine games per year.
I suspect, though, that during the first decade of their existence, you saw a much slower growth in the number of slot machines. That growth rate has surely accelerated by now, too.
How Do the Different Kinds of Slot Machines Work?
Obviously, with this many kinds of slot machines available, you'll see a variety of different game-play features, but the variations are probably fewer than you might think.
At the end of the day, slot machines all have one thing in common:
Spinning reels with symbols on them.
For decades, slot machines used actual physical reels made of metal. These were set into motion using a lever, springs, and gears. This changed in the late 20th century, though, when electromechanical machines became the standard.
Now, of course, slot machines are more akin to video games or cartoons than anything else. The reels are still there, and they still spin, but as often as not, they're just animations on a computer monitor. The outcomes are determined by a computer program called a random number generator (RNG).
The payouts for the various combinations are set in such a way that the casino has a solid mathematical advantage that's impossible to overcome in the long run.
What Kind of New Features Do Modern Slot Machines Have?
One of the limits to mechanical slot machines was the number of symbols on each reel, each of which usually had an equal probability of showing up on the payline. This limitation was eliminated when a computer program started determining the outcomes.
For example, on a physical slot machine reel, it's almost impossible to include more than 20 symbols per reel. With 3 reels, this means you have 20 X 20 X 20, or 8000 different combinations. This meant that you could only make a profit if the payouts for each combination added up to less than 8000 coins.
But with a virtual slot machine reel, you might be able to have 40 symbols on a reel.
Or you might be able to have 20 symbols on a reel, but some of the symbols might be programmed to only come up once every 40 spins, while others might come up more often, like once every 10 spins.
The obvious advantage of this is that the casino can offer bigger jackpots – sometimes much bigger.
In some cases, the jackpot can be really big – progressive jackpots grow over time as they're played, and sometimes they're even networked with other slot machines. The MegaJackpots slot machine jackpots start at $10 million, which is a huge payout on a game where the minimum bet is $3.
And that's only the beginning of the new slot machine features available.
Other New Slot Machine Features
Another example of the new slot machine features that are available is the wild symbol. If you've played poker in someone's home, you probably already know that a wild card can substitute for any card in the deck that will improve your hand.
A wild symbol on a slot machine works the same way.
Many times, on 5-reel slot machine, when you get 3 scatter symbols on the screen at the same time, you win a prize regardless of which payline (if any) they're on.
The other most popular new slot machine feature is the bonus game. This is an additional game that gets unlocked when you meet certain conditions on the reels. It usually involves a simple guessing game of some kind, but the payouts are entirely random.
Conclusion
When I go to the IGT website and look at their library of games, I see that they claim to have the largest library of slot machine games in the world.
Different Types Of Casino Slot Machines
When I do a search of their games, I get the option to choose 'all games.' This results in a list of 559 different games.
This is obviously above average, so maybe we can assume that the average number of different games from each manufacturer is much lower than that – let's call it 200 games per manufacturer on average.
You still can't extrapolate an average number of different kinds of games per casino, because a lot of casinos are going to have games that are also found in other casinos.
How Many Different Companies Manufacture Slot Machine Games?
When I search for 'how many different companies manufacture slot machine games,' the top result claims to list 31 different companies which make slot machine games.
It might make sense to assume a lower average, though, since the biggest manufacturer only has a library of 559 games.
Let's assume an average of 250 games per company instead.
Now we have an estimate of 7500 different slot machine games in the world.
What About Online Slot Machine Games?
Odds calculator poker texas holdem rules. It's still not that easy to answer this question, because it doesn't account for the number of software companies which make slot machine games that are available exclusively online. Even if you look up the number of different casino software providers online, it gets sticky with overlap.
Some companies make games for both brick and mortar casinos, while others make games exclusively for real money online casinos, and still others do both.
However in ancient Greece gamblers had the support of a couple of Gods - Hermes and Pan. Even the Gods were said to have played a game or two – in Greek mythology, Zeus, Hades and Poseidon played ‘throw the dice' in order to split the Universe between them. Hermes – The Greek God of Gambling If you are familiar with the Greek mythology, you would know that Hermes is most famous for being the Gods' messenger, a 'divine trickster' and the guide to the Underworld, among other things. His name, however, also had a very special meaning to the ancient gamblers. Greek mythology gambling.
Maybe we can come to a conclusion about a number by just assuming that there are at least as many different online-only slot machine games as there are brick and mortar casino games.
So we're looking at a likely total of 15,000 different kinds of slot machine games in the world, including both online and brick and mortar casinos.
What kind of growth rate does that imply?
The first slot machine was invented and manufactured in 1895, and at the time, there was just one kind of slot machine game.
That was 125 years ago.
If you assume a steady rate of growth, which probably isn't at all accurate, you just divide 15,000 games by 125 years.
This means that we see an average of 120 new slot machine games per year.
I suspect, though, that during the first decade of their existence, you saw a much slower growth in the number of slot machines. That growth rate has surely accelerated by now, too.
How Do the Different Kinds of Slot Machines Work?
Obviously, with this many kinds of slot machines available, you'll see a variety of different game-play features, but the variations are probably fewer than you might think.
At the end of the day, slot machines all have one thing in common:
Spinning reels with symbols on them.
For decades, slot machines used actual physical reels made of metal. These were set into motion using a lever, springs, and gears. This changed in the late 20th century, though, when electromechanical machines became the standard.
Now, of course, slot machines are more akin to video games or cartoons than anything else. The reels are still there, and they still spin, but as often as not, they're just animations on a computer monitor. The outcomes are determined by a computer program called a random number generator (RNG).
The payouts for the various combinations are set in such a way that the casino has a solid mathematical advantage that's impossible to overcome in the long run.
What Kind of New Features Do Modern Slot Machines Have?
One of the limits to mechanical slot machines was the number of symbols on each reel, each of which usually had an equal probability of showing up on the payline. This limitation was eliminated when a computer program started determining the outcomes.
For example, on a physical slot machine reel, it's almost impossible to include more than 20 symbols per reel. With 3 reels, this means you have 20 X 20 X 20, or 8000 different combinations. This meant that you could only make a profit if the payouts for each combination added up to less than 8000 coins.
But with a virtual slot machine reel, you might be able to have 40 symbols on a reel.
Or you might be able to have 20 symbols on a reel, but some of the symbols might be programmed to only come up once every 40 spins, while others might come up more often, like once every 10 spins.
The obvious advantage of this is that the casino can offer bigger jackpots – sometimes much bigger.
In some cases, the jackpot can be really big – progressive jackpots grow over time as they're played, and sometimes they're even networked with other slot machines. The MegaJackpots slot machine jackpots start at $10 million, which is a huge payout on a game where the minimum bet is $3.
And that's only the beginning of the new slot machine features available.
Other New Slot Machine Features
Another example of the new slot machine features that are available is the wild symbol. If you've played poker in someone's home, you probably already know that a wild card can substitute for any card in the deck that will improve your hand.
A wild symbol on a slot machine works the same way.
Many times, on 5-reel slot machine, when you get 3 scatter symbols on the screen at the same time, you win a prize regardless of which payline (if any) they're on.
The other most popular new slot machine feature is the bonus game. This is an additional game that gets unlocked when you meet certain conditions on the reels. It usually involves a simple guessing game of some kind, but the payouts are entirely random.
Conclusion
How many different slot machines can you play?
I have no firm rules, but I have offered some estimates. I'm confident of one thing, though – there are more slot machines available online and off, than you'll ever be able to play in your entire lifetime.
