Tips for Playing Online Slots

Every online slot player has their own tips, tricks, and techniques they like to apply when spinning the reels. Some of these slot machine techniques are aimed at getting the best odds whilst others are more about superstition.

It’s important to remember that slot machine tips can’t increase your chances of winning or boost the size of any payouts, but they can add structure to your playing sessions, help you to stretch your bankroll further, and allow you to play the games that are best suited to your preferences.

To help you separate fact from fiction, we’ve collated all the top tips for playing these online casino games so you can apply them to your next gaming session. It includes everything from essential bankroll management to knowing what to look for when picking a new slot to play.

Learn Everything About Slot Mechanics and Features

Before you hit the spin button on any casino slot, you should have a good understanding of how these games work. After all, without this knowledge, how can you be sure you’re playing it right, what constitutes a win, or how payouts are calculated?

Thankfully, most basic slot features are the same in every game. When you hit the spin button, the reels spring into action, rotating at lightning speed before slowly coming to a stop in a new combination.

If you match symbols across enough of the reels, you’ll win a payout. The size of each win will depend on the quantity and type of symbol you match, as well as whether there are any special multiplier symbols also in play.

Most slots also have bonus features that can come in a range of formats, though most revolve around free spins, prize wheels, and multiple-choice picking minigames.

Some slots also have jackpots that can hit randomly or when you match a special symbol on a payline. Jackpots are much less likely to pay than other types of win, but they’re also much larger, which makes many players look for slots with these top prizes.

Understanding RTP

One of the most-cited tips for playing slots is to look for games with higher return-to-player (RTP) rates. A slot’s RTP is a hypothetical measure of how much players can expect to receive back when they place bets through the game.

In reality, your own return will almost never be exactly the same as the RTP due to natural variance and the fact that RTP is calculated over millions of spins. However, it’s still one of the best measures for how favourable (or not) a slot is compared to other games.

There Is No Strategy to Slot Games

It’s important to always remember that there is no strategy you can apply to slot games that can increase your chances of winning or influence the outcome of spins. These games use a random number generator to ensure complete fairness and unpredictability in the way the reels spin each time.

As a player, there’s nothing you can do to change this. Instead, you’re better of focusing on your bankroll and managing it well.

Always Read Game Rules

Whilst the basic mechanics and features of slot games remain consistent across them all, there are variations in rules that you should be aware of. Pay mechanics, number and type of paylines, special symbol behaviour, and bonus features are all unique to each slot.

Therefore, before you start shoving coins into a new game, make sure you’ve read the rules. They’re usually easy to find and are only a few lines, so getting up to speed won’t get in the way of your gaming.

There Is No “Right Time” For Playing Slots

Some players believe a key slot machine tip to win is to play at the right time. The hypothesis goes that slots sometimes get “hot” and “cold”, referencing times when they’re more or less likely to pay out.

It doesn’t work like that. A slot’s RTP remains consistent but natural variance will mean a player might go several spins without paying out but the average is maintained by a string of wins at another point. This might feel like a game is hot or cold, but it’s just a coincidence as slots are not programmed to win more or less often at different times.

Pick the Right Pay Mechanic For You

Whilst the traditional payline format is still the most common, there are different pay mechanics you can find in many modern slot games. Therefore, the slot machine tip to follow here is to pick the pay mechanic that you like best. The main ones you’ll find are. Paylines: The original slot pay mechanic was the payline, requiring you to match the symbols across the centre line. Today, games often have multiple paylines, giving you more chances to win with each spin Cluster wins: Instead of lines, cluster wins payout when you get three or more of the same symbol touching each other. When they match, they will usually be removed and replaced with more symbols, giving you additional chances to win Pay anywhere: These are slots that pay if the right amount of symbols appear anywhere on the reels, regardless of the position. The mechanic may feel like it gets more wins, but slots with this feature will still pay out in accordance with the RTP.

Set Limits

The most important tip for playing slot machines is to set a budget and stick to it. You should only ever wager what you can afford to lose and never think of wins as guaranteed. Your budget can be weekly or monthly, but it should come from your disposable income - the cash you have after covering all your main bills and expenses.

Bankroll management is important too as it will help you make your budget last the entire week or month. Placing smaller wagers with each spin will give you more opportunities to play.

At Pink Casino, we’ve created safer gambling tools to help you stick to your budget. These tools let you set a series of limits on your gaming sessions, including limits on the amount you can deposit, the amount you can lose, how long you can play for, and how much you can bet.

In addition to these limits, you can use reality checks to let you know how long you’ve been playing for and time-out and self-exclusion features to keep you from betting for a set period of time.

Review Paytables

Whilst there are no slot machine tips to help you win, checking the paytables before you start playing is always a good idea as this helps you understand what payouts you can expect for each symbol.

The paytable usually pops up the moment you start a slot game, showing you a list of all the different symbols and how much you’ll win if you match them on the payline. In slots with cluster or pay-anywhere mechanics, the table will also show different amounts for the different numbers of symbols you can match at once.

In addition to seeing it when then game opens, you can also refer back to it at any time as there’s a button that opens up the table.

In games with a nudge feature, knowing which symbols are the most valuable can help you know whether and which reel to nudge to bag a win.