Modern slot machines with 5 reels and their main characteristics
Online gambling industry offers a wide spectrum of entertainments: roulettes, card games, scratch cards, lotto. But the biggest variety that you can ever find you’ll see in 5 reel slot machines - slots with 5 vertical rows of symbols, that are the one of the biggest segment of gambling business.
Story of 5-reeled slot machines development
There’s an opinion 5 reel slot have appeared online. But this point of view isn’t entirely correct. The ancestor of modern slot machines have appeared in 1891. Created in Brooklyn, New York, USA by the Sittman&Pitt company, this poker-themed slot machine had 5 reels. This exact slot became one of the first slot machines in the history of gambling world, and 5 reel slot machine.
Models, similar to the modern versions both in design characteristics, and the working principle, have appeared in 30s-40s of 20th century. America was basically their motherland, slots were located in casinos, pubs, bars and clubs.
First electronic slot machine, the Big Bertha slot machine, was created back in 50s. The engine power of this slot was 5 hp, the number of reels – 8. Fully electronic slot, called Money Honey, has appeared in 1963.
Year 1980 is considered to be the beginning of development of online slot machine era. It was then when the video model of poker, equipped with computer, was presented. Then the gambling industry started to expand with amazing speed. The important steps in gambling market development were formation of numerous companies-software developers, manufacture of various slots, development of bonus games, allowing to play 5 reel slot games for free and the creation of random number generator.
It’s important to know, that during the development of Internet gambling industry, slot machines not only haven’t lost their advantages, but have acquired additional features, buying them the adherence of players.
Random number generator - a guarantee to play 5-reeled slot machines fair
The introduction of the random number generator on 5 reel slot machines has made a whole revolution happen. Such an algorithm had made it possible for the process of gaming to be completely spoofing-proof transparent and interference-free.
RNG makes it possible to generate thousands of thousands of random numbers sequences in a second thus allowing for it to be used effectively and honestly. Not only does pressing 'Play' powers the reels but it also does activate the RNG sequence, which in turn defines the winning combination trough it's final results.
Thematic design of slot machines online
There is a huge variety of themes, designs, stories and game rules. The developers are proving that their fantasy is truly limitless. The big attention is paid to musical, graphical and animation accompaniment, the features that are making each video slot truly individual.
Among the most popular themes there are:
- fruit-themed slot machines. Those models usually are improved versions of one-armed bandits. Those slots with classical symbols have bigger amount of payment lines (comparing to old one-armed bandits) and presence of special bonuses. The best examples of those 5 reel slot games are Fruit Shop, Fruit Case by NetEnt manufacturer, Cherries Gone Wild by Microgaming, and others.
- cosmic slots. Devoted to popular theme about devour of faraway planets and fights with aliens, they got themselves quite a lot of fans. Decent models of slots, devoted to adventures in outer space, are Aliens slot, Starbust, Cosmic Fortune, Battlestar Galactica, Big Bang.
- slot machines, devoted to TV series and comic books. The wide collection of such games is provided by PlayTech and Microgaming companies: Hitman, King Kong, Halk, BridesMaids, Terminator.
- other themes. You can see the wide variety of themes of modern slots on pages of licensed casinos.
Famous developers are creating software for gambling establishments in several modifications at the same time. The mandatory components of the package are emulators, the exact copies of popular 5 reel slot machine, developed for players that are used to play for free. Story, interface, working principle, functionality - those slots are full copies of normal slots. All slots are provided in flash-version and mobile versions.
Possible amount of lines in 5-reeled slot machines
The usage of 5-reeled slot machines has expanded the number of gaming lines. Starting with 9, the developers had increased the usable amount to 15, then 20 and later - up to thirty possible bets. Besides that the traditional vertical bet has been expanded to cover diagonal and curved bets as well.
Modern 3D video-slots are offering up to 243 variations. It isn't as important in those particular models to get some pictograms in a straight line as it is important to get the same pictogram on the neighbouring reel.
Control panel
Control panel was kept as simple and straightforward as possible. It is customary for some simple functional keys to occupy the space on the panel of the 5 reel slot machine. Such as:
- Bet Lines - define the amount of lines. This option is not necessarily present in all of the models, whereas the number of lines could be fixed;
- Bet Level - the amount of coins per bet. Accepted values range from 1 to 10;
- Coins Value - the value of each coin translated to real currency. Varies from 0.1-10 USD;
- Max Bet - allows to instantly max out the value of the bet being made;
- Autoplay - enables autonomous game mode;
- Spin/Start - spin once;
- PayTable (Info, Help) - show payment table.
At the same time players are able to adjust some of the more technical parameters: reel rotation speed, graphics quality, audio settings and others.
Prize options
An indisputable benefit of the modern day 5 reel slot machines is the vast variety of prize functions. Ability to play for free is present as well. Customarily those are set at the lower limit of two.
The most widespread varieties of such functions are:
- free spins play. Activated when three or more special symbols, called scatters, appear on the reels. It yields 10 or more spins that are bet-free while also increasing the prize value up to 2-3 times over a normal play.
- bonus plays. A common one would be pick & play style game. While the sequence of bonus symbols is being formed, various objects can be seen appearing on screen. Some of those can lead to financial rewards while others signal the end of the round.
- random prize functions. Multipliers, special case symbols, multifunctional wild symbols, etc.
Jackpot
A distinct part of the modern 5-reel slot machine functionality is no doubt it's progressive jackpot system. The first accumulative prize formation system was introduced by the 'Microgaming' Inc. The others, such as Playtech company and NetEnt, had soon followed.
The whole thing behind progressive jackpot boils down to a small deduction of the overall betting amount made by the whole lot of players and its separate storage. Very quickly such deduction surpassed most individual bets and become a yummy prize for even the most rugged of all gamers.
Most slot machines that are a part of the progressive jackpot system have multiple possible cases for such deductions to be won. That doesn't mean that such things appear to happen too often... One also should keep in mind that many of the progressive jackpot-enabled machines share a slightly lesser win rate compared to the ordinary jackpot-enabled ones.
Generalized payback rates
Modern gamers had stated that one of the primary perks of online 5-reeled slot machines is in their superior return rates. It ranges from 95% to 98% on average.
Most manufacturers also publish RTP values for their products. One should never neglect the analyse of this number. In order to collect such statistic one could play 5 reel slot machine for free.