Players have to feel sufficiently excited and rewarded to continue engaging with the game; mechanisms that keep people playing are known as retention mechanics.
The secret is that, while machines have an indicated jackpot, the jackpot cannot exceed the amount wagered on them, although the machine can show the indicated jackpot without sufficient money to pay.
Bonus rounds
additional prizes in some sort of bonus round, which might involve pick-and-win games, point-and-shoot games, treasure hunts, and – these days – deeply layered adventures with progressive play and escalating stakes.
Bonus rounds entice players to keep playing: think free spins rounds and jackpot bonuses. Bonuses are a great way to create new content without spending more money but, because they increase the chances of you losing money, you should consider their risk against their rewards before you play.
And of course hitting a bonus round is easy, usually involving just three particular symbols. Likewise, most games require at least three scatter or bonus icons to trigger a bonus round; some titles lock the round when the required combination is hit on the reels.
Scatter symbols
The goal of most slots is to hit combinations of symbols along a fixed payline in order to garner cash winnings. These are aided by the appearance of ‘scatter’ symbols that cause effects beyond the payline, like free spins, through which you keep trying to land winning combinations, or mini games with rules that differ entirely from the game you’d been playing up until that point. These usually involve characters, either expert gamblers or the villains we’re trying to outwit, and the theme of a specific game.
There is an important difference between scatter and wild symbols: while the latter can stand in for other symbols (hence their name) and complete winning bet lines, scatters are meant to trigger special features such as free spins or multipliers; sometimes they’re even the key to the most exciting game elements.
Scatter symbols pay in a slightly different manner than line-based games. Instead of paying out based on bet-per-reel amounts, scatters count all the bets that went into a spin. That’s why some slots with scatter symbols pay more per game and have a higher frequency of bonuses than three-reel spinners, or even five-reel video slots: the rules about how scatters pay often differ from one game to another, so it’s always a good idea to read the paytable before you hit Spin.
RTP
Return-To-Player, or RTp, is the primary attraction of casino gaming, and is statistically one means of indicating how often the house will win overall in the long run relative to total player loss in the long run. Nevertheless, it is never a guarantee of success: some players win and some lose big.
RTP have become critical to the functioning of such sites because they allow a particular casino to promise odds on winning – to manage the customers’ expectations of what they’re going to experience, and to keep inviting them back to try again. Occasionally RTP provide clear, historically accurate depictions of what a player may run into during a particular game. But more often than not, they smudge over the particularities.
While RTP (return on investment) is also a useful benchmark of how much profit a casino makes out of a player, it is often proudly displayed on its website or in its advertising material. Knowing that number, a player in the aisle can go into a casino with the additional information of whether the game he is choosing is going to make him a winner with high potential or whether the expected return is really best. Know your RTP and you will make better choices.
