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With so many online casinos serving millions of gambling enthusiasts around the world, the iGaming industry is impressive in terms of annual fund turnover and the number of players involved. It's no secret that slots are central to the gaming collections of many gambling portals and apps. With dozens of slot machines being released daily, gambling enthusiasts have become more demanding for the gameplay features they offer.
Thus, new slots should have revolutionary game mechanics and some innovative features to attract players' attention. Although slot machines are becoming more sophisticated and advanced, they are still based on symbol combinations landing on the reels.
While classic slot machines boasted only one or two unique symbols, modern slots feature a variety of icons performing different functions, from Scatter symbols (slot machine bonus icons) triggering bonus games to Expanding Wilds occupying the entire reel's surface. Ultimately, every gambler wants to see what happens when each bonus symbol lands on the reels. So, we propose to trace slot machine symbols vector to find out how slot machines evolved over the years, and what new types of symbols are available now.
Which is the Oldest Slot Machine Symbol
As a gambling enthusiast who prefers to spin the slots reels, you have probably noticed that the symbol set of most games includes card icons (from 10 to A). This would suggest that card symbols are traditional and the oldest symbols in slots, but they are not. If we go back to the roots of slot machines, we see the Horseshoe and Liberty Bell included in the symbol set of vintage slots. The fact that the Liberty Bell is the first commercially successful slot machine enjoyed popularity among gambling enthusiasts in the early 20th century.
As for the fruit symbols and slot machine 'BAR' symbol, they appeared at a time when the government imposed a ban on playing for real money. Accepting the new realities, bar and saloon owners modified slots, as a result of which they rewarded winners with fruit gum, candy and drinks from the bar instead of money. That's why these icons were included in the classic slot machine symbols sets.
How Many Symbols on a Slot Machine Reel Can Be Landed?
This question excites the minds of many gambling enthusiasts. The truth is, the answer is easier if we consider classic slots (one-armed bandits or fruit machines). Each reel of slot using 3-reel mechanics displays 20 symbols. Given that we are dealing with a machine featuring 3 reels, it is easy to calculate that this gives 8,000 possible combinations, among which there is one bringing that big jackpot payout. As for modern slots with 5 and more reels, simple mathematics does not work here.
However, all slot machines are still RNG-based games, so landing any combination on the reels is the result of chance and nothing more. So, anyone wondering how to get 3 vault symbols on the slot machine, should understand that there is no recipe or trick to make the slot machine show the combinations you expect.
What are the Common Slot Machine Symbols
Among the many different icons appearing on the playing field, we can distinguish several types of symbols that perform their special functions:
- Simple or standard symbols. Being the foundation of any slot, these symbols most often represent fruits or things that resonate with the main theme of the slot, as well as card symbols. The only task of these icons is to pay out winnings where the player has managed to land 3 (in some cases 2) or more identical symbols on active payline. Slot machine fruit symbols or 'BAR' are typical representatives of simple icons.
- Slot machine Wild symbol. Depicted as a 'W', the game's main character or logo, these symbols perform several important functions. Firstly, they can replace any simple symbol, helping the player to form a winning combination. Secondly, they form payable combinations of their own. Third, they can take over the function of some other special icons. As slot machines have evolved, many Wild subtypes - Sticky Wilds, Walking Wilds, Expanding Wilds and several others - have emerged with their awesome features.
- Scatter symbols at slot machines. These symbols are known for their ability to trigger bonus games and rounds with free spins. To unlock this or that bonus feature, you must land a certain number of Scatters on the reels. Notably, the Scatters are not tied to paylines. Moreover, you can land Scatters in any place on the playing field to get a reward or some perks. For example, playing the slot, you land 3 Scatters on the first, second and fifth reels respectively. It doesn't matter where they fell, you'll still get 10 free spins or some other promising bonus.
- Bonus symbols. Similar to Scatters in many ways, these symbols are added to the games to relieve the set of functions performed by Scatters. Unlike the latter, Bonus symbols can be tied to paylines. In addition, you will most likely need a lined up Bonus symbols combo to activate a bonus in the game.
There is another type of special symbols that we decided to put separately from the list, as these symbols are quite rare. We are talking about Multiplier symbols, which can both land on the reels and appear next to them. The essence of these symbols is clear from their name - they multiply winnings by a certain number of times.
Bottom Line
With so many different types of symbols, modern video slots no longer seem as simple as their classic counterparts. However, everything is not as complicated as it seems at first sight. You don't need to memorize the symbols available in the game and study the payout table, as all payouts are accrued automatically. All these new symbols have been added just to make the gameplay more interesting and variative. If you don't want to get into the newer features available in the newest slot releases, you can always opt for classic machines most of which are optimized for play on mobile devices.
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