Load up on the Luck With the St. Patrick’s Day Casino Party at Punt! Hey, YOU
How Many Paylines Should You Play in Slots?
November 19, 2022
How Many Paylines Should You Play in Slots?
November 19, 2022
How Many Paylines Should You Play? Slot Machine Lines Explained!
If we had a penny for every player asking this question, we could put them all into a slot game and play every single payline available, and we’d be playing for ages. But hey, that’s just us. If you want to know how many paylines YOU should play in online slots, then keep on reading, because we’re going to lay this topic to rest, once and for all.
What are slot machine paylines?
A payline in an online slot indicates in which positions identical symbols need to land on the reels in order to award a payout. In most cases, paylines can be adjusted, meaning you can choose the number of paylines you’d like to play every round.
Each payline usually costs 1 credit, and the more paylines you play, the higher your total bet becomes. Some of the newer slots come with fixed paylines, meaning you can’t decide how many paylines to play, but you’ll find many slots on our menu with adjustable paylines, as we have hundreds of them at Punt – and it’s all the good stuff too.
Usually, a minimum of 3 identical symbols are required on a payline to award a win, but there are slot games that require only 2. Paylines are an integral part of playing online slots, and there are many different kinds. Let’s take a look at some of the types of slot machine paylines.
Types of slot machine paylines
You’ll find various types of paylines in slot games, and some don’t even use paylines. That’s why it’s always important to check the game menu to understand the mechanics of the game.
Of course, you want to know what to look out for, and the most basic knowledge about the games is knowing how payouts are awarded, so take the time.
Here are a few different types of slot paylines:
Single payline slots
This one is rather obvious, as single-payline slots offer only 1 payline, which usually makes the game easy to understand and cheap to play.
Slot machines with only 1 payline are usually the classic penny slots with 1 row and 3 reels, and often have the potential to pay out large sums, as seen in Lucky 7 slot from Betsoft on our menu.
Here, choosing how many paylines to play in slots like these is simple – you have no choice! Plus, they can also offer bonus features and free spins, even though they may seem very straightforward, which they normally are.
How to play multi-line slots
Slots with multiple paylines are the most common, usually offering anywhere between 5 and 30 paylines, and sometimes much, much more. You can usually check the game’s menu to see exactly how many paylines it offers, like the game menu in Wilds of Fortune slot that pays from both left to right and right to left.
If you want to know how to play multi-line slots, just give ‘em a few spins – you’ll catch on in no time. Most newer online slot games have fixed paylines, meaning you can’t decide how many paylines to play. But when they can be adjusted, you’ll have the option to choose how many you’d like to play, and your bet amount for each payline.
Your total bet is calculated by taking your bet per line and multiplying it by how many lines you are playing. For example, if you’re playing $0.10 per line, and you have 10 lines active, that means your total bet per spin is $1 (0.10 x 10 = 1).
243 ways to win and more
Here’s where paylines start to go crazy. 243 ways to win slots don’t really have specific paylines, as they award payouts for landing at least 3 (in some cases 2) or more identical symbols on adjacent reels, regardless of their position on the reel.
Here is an example of how the 243 ways to win slot mechanic works in Grand Dragon slot from Reevo.
Many slots that use this mechanic can offer even more ways of winning, with the ways of winning increasing with every reel or row added. A slot with 6 reels and 3 rows, for example, would have 729 ways (3 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 729), and a slot with 5 reels and 4 rows would have 1024 ways (4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 = 1024).
It all depends on how many reels and rows you are playing. Therefore, deciding how many paylines you should play is not always possible, but some of these slots do allow you to activate and deactivate reels or rows, which is very similar to choosing slot machine paylines.
Cluster pay slots
Ever played Candy Crush on your mobile? Well, cluster pay slots are very similar, as winning combinations are formed by landing identical symbols clustered in groups on the reels, as seen in Mine Mine Quest slot from Tom Horn Gaming on our menu.
Cluster pay slot games are a heap of fun and could see you landing massive payouts. Another interesting feature that many cluster pay slots offer is cascading symbols.
This means that every winning combination will disappear from the reels, leaving empty spaces for new symbols to drop in and award more payouts during the same spin. And there you have it – slot machine paylines explained.
How many paylines should you play?
Now that you know how slot machine paylines work and you have a good idea of the different types of slot game paylines, it’s decision-making time. There are a few things to consider when picking the number of paylines you should play, so let’s suss them out.
What is your goal?
Are you looking for massive payouts or perhaps chasing progressive jackpot wins? If so, you might want to play all the paylines, as many slots require all paylines to be active to award jackpots or bonus features.
However, you will find slot games that award jackpots at random, such as Book of Anime slot from Fugaso, offering Day 2 Day™ jackpots that are awarded daily, at random. But you’ll need to play all paylines in this slot.
Remember, the more paylines you play, the higher your chances of winning. Opening all the paylines will allow you to capitalize on all high-paying symbols that land on the reels, and there’s nothing worse than missing out on a huge win just because you left a few paylines unplayed.
Don’t bust your bankroll
Can you afford to play all paylines in an online slot? Taking the size of your bankroll into account is very important. If you’re down on your luck, you may want to play fewer paylines until you’re back on track and ready to activate all lines to rake in those bigger wins.
The slot machine’s minimum and maximum bets are also important. For example, if you’re playing a slot with a lower max bet or lower bet per line, you’ll be able to play more slot machine paylines with a smaller total bet.
Which type of slots are you playing?
As we mentioned above, there are many different types of slots, all offering different payline mechanics, and some of them may not even allow you to decide on the number of paylines you’d like to play.
If you want to play fewer paylines, make sure the slot game you choose has adjustable paylines and that actually uses a payline mechanic, instead of the 243 ways to win or clusterpay paylines (even though these are amazing).
Lucky for you, we have hundreds of slot games on the menu, and you can even filter the menu by the number of paylines available in slots.
At Punt Casino, you get to choose from only the best online slots with paylines, with top game providers such as Betsoft, Fugaso, Dragon Gaming, Tom Horn, Reevo, and many more delivering top-notch casino entertainment for your enjoyment.
Pump the paylines for epic payouts at Punt Casino!
By now you should have a good idea of how slot machine paylines work to make it easier when deciding the number of paylines to play in online slots – you are most welcome.
You’ve learned about the different types of paylines, how to activate or deactivate paylines, and even how to play multi-line slots, so fuel your account today and start pumping those paylines for jackpots and big wins in our top casino games at Punt today.
