BEST SLOT SITES 2021

Video Slots

These are the most popular type of game at an online casino and the ones you are most likely to play. The average video slot will have a reel set of 5 or 6 reels, each with 3 or 4 rows of symbols. Some will take their inspiration from classic fruit machines, but most will draw on a wide range of interests – pretty much ANYTHING can be used as the theme for a slot game, which is what makes this type of gambling so fun. Prepare yourself for some pretty sensational graphics, animations and video too. Many of these games have Hollywood-level production values!

Megaways™ Slots

The Megaways™ slot engine has revolutionised this sector of the gambling industry. Here, each reel displays a random number of symbols after each spin, usually between two and seven. The more symbols displayed, the greater the number of paylines in play – as high as 117,649 in some games. Compare this to the typical video slot which might have just 10 or 20 paylines! Megaways™ creators, Big Time Gaming, have combined this game engine with incredibly high variance to create some of the most infamous high-risk slots of recent years.

Progressive Jackpots

These games are for the big jackpot chasers. Prizes in Progressive Slots can be in the millions of pounds, though of course the odds of winning are very low. You may have heard of titles like Mega Fortune from NetEnt, or Mega Moolah from Microgaming, which are famous for their life-changing prizes. You’ll usually find these games in a special area of a slot site with the prizes displayed in a ticker next to the logo.

Classic Slots

If you want to dip into the retro corner of the market then classic slots could be for you. They will have a very basic design consisting of just 3 reels and they will use the symbols and imagery from old skool game machines – grapes, melons, lucky 7s and gold bars. These simple fruit machines are a great place to start. There are many developers still producing games like this every year. Play n Go’s own Fire Joker Freeze from 2021 is a good example.

Freeplay Slots

If you want to play slots for free you still can at most slot sites listed on this page. In 2019 the rules around freeplay changed in the UK under direction of the UK Gambling Commission. You will first have to verify your ID and age with the gambling operator whose site you are playing at. That means registering your account and providing ID like a scan of your passport or driving license. If you have a small budget and want to play slots for real then you can still do that for very small stakes of as little as 1p or 5p at most casinos too.

Real Money Slots

All slots at the casinos listed here are available to play for real money. If you choose to play for real then have a think about how much money you want to spend before you start and set a stake value that you are comfortable with. Remember that a spin takes just a few seconds to complete so it is possible to spend your balance very quickly. Check out our guides on slot variance and RTP below to find out more about how real money slots pay out.

Themes, Sounds and Artwork

Every slot game has a theme of its own. Some are very popular and crop up many times over – Ancient Egyptian titles like IGT’s Cleopatra or Novomatic’s Book of Ra are very popular, as are games based on Popular Movies or Rock n Roll bands. Others are more obscure with themes like Steampunk or Science Fiction. Whatever your taste there will be something for you – so if you’re going to spend some time with a game, make sure it’s one that looks good to you!

Symbols

Every slot will have a mix of low value and premium symbols. Low value ones are typically card values 9 through to Ace or the suits, Spades, Clubs, Hearts and Diamonds. Premium symbols are always based on the game’s theme. For example, a common symbol in an Egyptian-themed slot would be the Scarab Beetle. In addition there are usually Wilds, which sub in for all other symbols in winning lines, and scatters, which are symbols needed to trigger the free spins round.

Features and Gameplay

Most slots will have additional features that kick in when special symbols land in the base game. Features are what elevate the gameplay beyond the standard spins. They give you more fun, more tension, and hopefully more chance of scoring bigger wins. Here are some examples of typical slot game features.

• Free Spins – These are the most common feature in slots. Something like 5 or more free spins of the reels will play out, often with the opportunity to earn more by landing extra scatter symbols. Free Spins usually come with enhanced symbols like Multipliers or upgrades.
• Multipliers – These are commonly added to symbols or whole reels. When the symbol forms part of a winline then the multiplier value, which can be as high as 15x or 20x, is applied to the payout. Game developers like Big Time Gaming have built amazing slots that combine the free spins and multipliers to sensational affect in games like White Rabbit and Bonanza.
• Cascading Wins – Another slot feature that appears regularly, particularly in Megaways™ games, is Cascading Wins. In this instance, whenever a win occurs, all winning symbols are removed from the reels and new ones drop down in their place. This can create new wins, and further cascades. Check out NetEnt’s Gonzo’s Quest for a good example of a Cascading Wins slot.
• Expanding Symbols – A popular features in high variance games like Play n Go’s Book of Dead is the Expanding Symbol. This is an icon that lands on the reels and automatically expands upwards to fill an entire visible reel space. This enhances your win potential on that spin, and in Book of Dead it is possible this way to fill an entire screen with one symbol and score the top payout.
• Expanding Reels – the biggest change to come about in the slots industry in recent years was Big Time Gaming’s famous Megaways™ engine in which each reel has a random number of rows assigned to it. In the typical Megaways™ slot there will be 6 reels with up to 7 rows, which creates up to 117, 649 paylines per spins when every reel has the maximum of 7 rows each. The Megaways™ model has been licensed to many of BTG’s rivals now and competitors like Yggdrasil have brought out their own variations on the Expanding Reels theme. So what was once a niche type of gameplay is now ubiquitous in the industry and is even making it’s way onto Vegas casino floors too.
• Mystery Symbols – Those who enjoy a bit of extra random action tossed into the mix will enjoy the Mystery Symbol feature in their slots. These icons land as Question Marks or something similar and then all change into one identical symbol from the paytable simultaneously. With more identical symbols appearing on the reels at the same time the chances of scoring a win are enhanced. This is another feature commonly used in slots like Big Time Gaming’s Bonanza and White Rabbit.

These are just a few of our favourite slot features and gameplay enhancements that take the base game action in your favourite slots to a new level. Some of us love feature-packed games because they are more compelling and you rarely get a spin without something extra happening. But not all slots players like all these features and you can still play some classic 3 reel slots and even some high variance games where the gameplay is stripped right back to the basics. It’s worth trying both kinds of game to find out which you prefer.