Slot games drive the online casino industry. The player is never strapped for choice. On the contrary the player often faces difficulties in choosing the slot game he wants to play. The payout table is usually the deciding factor in selecting the slot game. Some slot games offer comparatively lower payouts in the payout table and these games are given the skip. Players who do so are making a mistake. Slot games that offer low payouts through the line wins in the payout table makeup by offering attractive payouts in bonus games. Therefore players must consider the bonus games alongside the payout table while choosing online slots.
One of the most common types of bonus games is the free spins bonus round. The number of free spins offered, the payout multiplier and whether the free spins can be re-triggered are some of the factors that players need to consider. However, if the free spins bonus round is to compensate for low payouts in the payout table then it must offer something extra. There are many ways in which online slot games build in this extra payout in the free spins bonus round. Very often the wild symbol behaves differently in the free spins bonus round. It can act as a multiplier and sometimes it appears more often in free spins. But it really works wonders when it expands to cover the entire reel. And if that reel containing the expanded wilds is held fixed through the remainder of the spins then the payouts can really pile on. In such cases a low-paying payout table should be acceptable because the real benefits lie elsewhere.
There is a Microgaming online slot game called Doctor Doctor. It offers a unique free spins bonus round. Two special symbols can appear during this bonus round. One is the yellow capsule that adds more free spins. The other is the blue capsule that increases the multiplier. If this free spins bonus round is triggered it usually results in high payouts.
The second type of bonus round is the bonus game on the second screen. There is considerably more variety in this type of bonus round. Also there are no clear cut parameters like number of free spins and multipliers. Hence it is more difficult to estimate the potential payout of such games. One way to evaluate such games is through the number of levels. Multi-level bonus games tend to pay out more. A recently released online slot Kung Fu Monkey has a three level bonus game on the second screen with fantastic payouts.
One way to evaluate the bonus game on the second screen is to actually play it. Players can switch to the free play mode and play the online slot till the bonus game is triggered. Repeating this procedure a few times will give a fairly good idea of what level of payouts to expect. They can then factor in the bonus game on the second screen with the free spins bonus round and the regular line payouts.
Another factor that players need to consider is the number of paylines. The more the paylines the more often will winning combinations occur and therefore will make up for lower payouts. Alaskan Fishing has 243 paylines, which is the maximum possible in a 5 reel slot with three rows of symbols. Therefore the maximum line payout of 500 is not all that bad a deal.
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It's not directly related to this article but as it does deal with bonuses I wanted to mention to people that many of the online casinos out there are currently offering some fantastic bonuses to slots players as such casinos that are worth taking advantage of. Just wanted to mention that to all slots players out there.