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One example is a first-person shooter game, where you move the cursor around and shoot different objects. Your ability to do well affects what kind of bonus prize you get. In these cases, the results are predetermined because you only win what you can shoot. Which Kind of Slots Bonus Round do You Prefer? The type of slots bonus round that you like will depend upon your individual preference. Bonus slot machines or bonuses in general are features in slot games that can range from free spins, free games, spin and bonus multipliers, or double or nothing features, just to name a few. With free online slots, the variety is endless, whereas before, players did not have nearly the range to choose from as they do today. The first community slots bonus game on a live slot was Bonus Road Rally, by A.C. In Bonus Road Rally, a display above a bank of $1 IGT three-reel mechanical slots had a track and 10 cars, one for each machine at the bank. As customers played the main slot game, their wagers would advance the cars along the track. For players in a land-based casino, like Harrah’s, a slots bonus would refer to the bonus game, or feature you get to play on a slot machine, like a free spin round, or spinning the Wheel of Fortune. The main types of slot machine bonus are: Free Spins (for example, you might be awarded 10 free games) Pick and Choose. Scratch Card. Spin the Wheel.

What if — one day — you entered a slot machine bonus round and walked out $15,000,000 richer? For some lucky players, that has actually happened.

Long gone are the days when you spun 3 reels with fruit symbols on them and won a few free spins as a bonus round. These days, there are all sorts of awesome, entertaining bonus rounds which make video slots appear more like video games.

I’ve played thousands of slots in my time, and thousands of bonus rounds, too. I’m going to share the best I’ve encountered here.

Unsurprisingly, most of them give you the chance to win huge amounts of cash, which is part of what makes them so great to begin with!

The Mega Fortune Bonus Wheel

When it comes to slot machine bonus wheels, most people think of Mega Moolah by Microgaming first. While that is a pretty cool feature, I personally think the Mega Fortune bonus wheel is slightly better.

This is a feature that will get your adrenaline pumping for sure. It’s a multi-layered wheel with cash prizes and several progressive jackpots up for grabs.

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So, how do you win the Mega Jackpot and walk away a millionaire? Each time the wheel spins, you need to land on an arrow to proceed to the next layer. If you make it all the way to the center, you can officially call yourself filthy rich.

This feature can actually be triggered fairly often in Mega Fortune. A few days ago I was able to unlock it 3 times within the same quick session.

The Scary Rich 3 Free Spins Round

Unless you’re a hardcore slots player like myself, you might never have heard of Scary Rich 3 from Rival Gaming.

It’s a horror-themed slot which is relatively unremarkable overall, apart from the cracking free spins bonus round. If you manage to trigger it with 5 scatter symbols you will get 666 free spins, which I can tell you from experience takes around half an hour to play through.

While that’s a heck of a lot of free spins and is enough to make this bonus round noteworthy by itself, there are also expanding wilds in play throughout. These significantly increase your chances of making winning combinations.

As I said before, it’s one of those slots few have heard of, but I have personally never seen another slot offering as many free spins in one feature.

The Avalon II Grail Bonus Feature

Sometimes a bonus feature is actually multiple bonus rounds all rolled into one, and that’s the case with the Grail feature in Avalon II from Microgaming.

If you manage to trigger this feature, you will have 8 different entertaining possibilities. There’s a dice roll game, 3 free spins rounds with up to 20 free spins and dynamic multipliers in one of them, 2 picking rounds with up to 160x your stake available, a fighting game with cash prizes, and a bonus wheel round, all within one feature.

This feature also has somewhat of a storyline to it, in which you need to retrieve ”the grail” and bring it back to Avalon. It’s got epic graphics and sound effects, which I have come to expect from Microgaming.

Why do I like this feature so much? Because it doesn’t get boring even when you trigger it multiple times within the same game. Oh, and you can win serious money, too.

The Breakaway Free Spins Round

Breakaway is an ice hockey themed game from Microgaming. It’s got loads of extra features, but the one which stands out most to me is the free spins round.

There are up to 25 free spins offered, which is nothing remarkable in and of itself, but all wins are instantly boosted 1,000% by a 10x multiplier.

Breakaway has a 125,000-coin jackpot, which is also worth playing for. Still, this is all about bonus rounds, and I definitely want to mention the free spins round here. Multipliers of 2x and 3x are common, but 10x deserves a special mention.

If the ice hockey theme doesn’t appeal, then either Football Star or Rugby Star also have free spins rounds with 10x multipliers. Check them out.

The Hall of Gods Picking Feature

Hall of Gods by NetEnt takes you back to the mythical era when Odin, Loki, and Thor ruled the minds of the Nordic people.

Thor’s hammer is a symbol we still recognize today, and it’s an important one in this bonus feature. How it works is that you take Thor’s hammer and smash various shields on the screen for cash prizes.

What makes this relatively simple feature so special? The fact that you can win millions instantly by finding one of the Hall of Gods progressive jackpots behind the shield you smash.

This feature has the power to make you a millionaire in a few seconds flat, and I think that makes it special, even if I haven’t yet had the good fortune to win it.

The Gonzo’s Quest Avalanche Reels

Gonzo’s Quest is one of NetEnt’s most popular slots of all time. It’s a simple game, but it has one brilliant feature I really like.

The “Avalanche Reels” make it possible to win multiple consecutive times off one single spin. This means that when you create a winning combination, the symbols involved disappear and are replaced by new ones, potentially unlimited times in a row.

While this is not totally unique in itself, Gonzo’s Quest adds extra spice to the rice by adding a dynamic multiplier element. For each consecutive win, a multiplier will increase by 1x, up to a maximum of 5x.

Just imagine 5 wins in a row from one spin, with the fifth win boosted 500% automatically (after all the others). That’s why this feature deserves to be included on this list, in my view.

The Mega Moolah Bonus Wheel

There’s no rule against having two entries for great slots bonus wheels, right?

While I stated clearly above that I feel the Mega Fortune bonus wheel is the best of the lot, the Mega Moolah one is still pretty immense.

This is more of a traditional bonus wheel, meaning there is just one layer to it. There are 4 progressive jackpots which can be won, starting with the Mini and going all the way up to the Mega.

If you’re lucky enough to land the Mega jackpot, welcome to the millionaire’s club! Mega Moolah is renowned for paying out ridiculous jackpots more suitable for a state or national lotto draw than a slot machine.

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The EPROM chips, which control the theoretical return percentages on slots, are generally changed very rarely. It would be bad business to loosen and tighten the slots according to the day of the week. For any given casino there is some optimal return to maximize profit. Wherever that is, a smart slot manager would find that point and then just leave the EPROMS set to that return.

Michael V.

Sure. There are lots of ways. Putting in fake coins just to name a simple one. Be warned that in Nevada cheating in a casino carries the same kind of penalty as bank robbery, or so I hear. Let the record show that I disapprove of all forms of cheating.

Thanks for the kind words. I always enjoy hearing from high school math teachers out there because I almost became one myself. Based on seeing par sheets and speaking to industry insiders I can confidently say that if the alternative choices are shown at the conclusion of a bonus round then the game is honest about them. In other words the prizes were randomly determined and what you see at the end is truly how they were hidden. However in games where the alternative choices are not shown the odds are likely similar to a prize wheel, with lower probabilities for the higher wins. I played Price is Right enough to see the Showcase Showdown twice. As you said, the values behind the price tags are revealed at the end. So I maintain that the game is indeed truthful and speculate that you have just been unlucky.

Your girlfriend is right. Nevada Gaming Control Board regulation 14.040.2(b) states..

'For gaming devices that are representative of live gambling games, the mathematical probability of a symbol or other element appearing in a game outcome must be equal to the mathematical probability of that symbol or element occurring in the live gambling game. For other gaming devices, the mathematical probability of a symbol appearing in a position in any game outcome must be constant.'

In other words a representation of dice must have the same odds as real dice. Thus there would be no way to predestine an outcome because the player could roll anything during the course of the game.

I asked three casino executives about this hypothetical situation. They all said that you can’t win a bet if you don’t make a bet. In the case where betting somebody else’s money is consensual then they will pay the person pressing the buttons. However in the case where it is not consensual they will not pay the person who pressed the button. A more difficult question is whether they will pay the person who did put money in the machine. That seems to be taken on a case by case basis. Considerations include whether the player was vigilant in guarding his machine, how much the player was playing for, and if he is a known good customer. Basically a player should follow the McDonald’s rule of 'keep an eye on your fries.' However even if the player was remiss in guarding his machine the casino may not want to anger a good customer. It also helps to be playing a high denomination game.

It depends. If the slot play may be used in any machine in the casino, including video poker, then it can be worth 99 cents on the dollar or more, depending on the video poker offerings. For example, the MGM Mirage casinos award $1 in free slot play for every one point earned. It can be used in any machine in any casino connected to the MGM Mirage player card. Most MGM Mirage properties offer 9/6 Jacks or better, so the value of $1 in free slot play is worth 99.54 cents, with correct strategy.

However, sometimes free slot play must be done on particular promotional machines that don’t accept money. The value of this kind of free play is hard to estimate closely, but generally very little. For example, the Las Vegas World used to sell “$1000” vacation packages for $400. Of the alleged $1000 value $600 was in promotional slot machine play. In his book “Million Dollar Video Poker,” Bob Dancer writes that he did this deal numerous times over, and estimates the value of the free slot play to be about ten cents on the dollar.

Thanks. As I say about machine jackpots, 0.5% to 1% of the jackpot amount after taxes is good. Whether the dealers pool their tips or not should not make a difference.

I asked a source of mine who works at one of the casinos that utilize this technology. Besides the Treasure Island, this technology is also used at casinos in California, Michigan, and Mississippi. Here is what he said,

'Nothing can be changed if there are credits on the game. The slot machine will always reject any changes sent when there are credits on the meter. In Nevada, the machine also has to be idle for four minutes prior to and following any changes. It’s also not completely transparent to anyone standing in front of the slot machine. A black window pops up that says ’Remote Configuration In Progress’ (or something like that).

We mainly use ours to change the available denominations on our games. Similar to how table games will raise minimum bets on when the casino is busier, we will remove lower denominations on Friday morning and return them on Monday morning.'

So, rest assured, that the slot manager can not tighten up a game on you just because he doesn’t like you. As long as you have credit in the game, nothing can be changed.

Let:

p = Number of Party Poopers.
w = Number of wins.
e = Party Poopers needed to end bonus.

Imagine the w wins in a row, like a loaf of bread. Then place the p Party Poopers like raisins equaly along the bread, creating the same distance between consecutive raisins as well as from each end. For example, if the bread was 12' long, and you had 3 raisins, you would place the raisins at the 3', 6', and 9' points, creating 4 segments of 3' each.

The expected number of wins picked is the product of the length of each segment and the number of Party Poopers needed to end the bonus, or e × (w/(p+1)). Let's look at an example.

Suppose there is a field of 40 icons with 8 Party Poopers. It takes three Party Poopers to end the bonus. That would leave 32 wins. So, p = 8, w = 32, and e = 3. The expected number of successful picks is 3 × (32/(8+1)) = 32/3 = 10.67.

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'Anonymous' .

Community, or group, bonuses is a popular new concept in slot machines. While the bonus can be earned in different ways, depending on the game, the concept is that more than one player can play the same bonus round at the same time. Usually the outcome is shown on a large video screen visible to all players. One exception is the Wheel of Fortune community bonus, where an enormous wheel sits between the individual machines.

From what I can tell, the Wheel of Fortune community bonus is earned by an individual player achieving the initiating event on his own. It then starts a 10-second countdown, to give other players a chance to trigger a bonus. Usually this doesn't happen, so the player who earned the bonus plays by himself.

In contrast, on the American Idol slot machine, all active players play the community bonus. It is also triggered independently of where the reels stop, so no matter how many players are playing, or how fast they play, the odds of a bonus at any given time are always the same. The rest of this answer shall focus on how specifically the American Idol community bonus works.

It would be unfair if there were two players in a bank of community bonus machines, in which one was betting $1 a minute, and one was betting $10 a minute, if they both had the same expected value in the community bonus. To avoid such injustice, a multiplier is applied to the final bonus win, roughly according to the amount the individual player was betting at the time the bonus was initiated, factoring in both average bet and speed of play. How the game determines each player's multiplier is a bit complicated. Here is what I could figure out:

• The game keeps track of the players' last 40 seconds of betting activity for each player, in the form of a queue.
• Each 20 cents the player bets at one time buys him 10 seconds of 1x multipliers. So, a $1 bet would buy 10 seconds of 5x multipliers. This multiplier is added to the end of the player's queue.
• If the player plays at a faster rate than one bet per ten seconds, causing there to not be enough space in the queue to add 10 seconds of multipliers, then it will cram any excess multipliers onto the last few seconds. How exactly it does this, I'm not sure.
• As the player sits at the machine, the game will drop off from the stack the highest multipliers in the queue. Kind of like how in a queue for a Vegas nightclub it doesn't matter your position in line for girls, but how pretty you are; the most attractive girls are removed from the queue first.
• As multipliers are dropped off the queue they are also the eligible multiplier should the community bonus be triggered at that moment.
• At any given microsecond, except if a community bonus is already in progress, there is a fixed probability that the bonus will be triggered. So the time between bonuses would follow an exponential distribution. In other words, a bonus has a memoryless property and is never overdue, much like a royal flush in video poker.

Example: Let's say the player has 35 seconds of 1x multipliers in his queue. He then makes a $1 bet. Normally this would buy 10 seconds of a 5x multiplier. However, in this case there isn't enough room in his queue to add ten seconds. What the game would likely do is add four seconds of 1x multipliers, and one second of a 6x multiplier. I'm not saying it would do exactly this, but something along these lines, where the total time × average multiplier still equals 10.

Besides community bonuses, there are also 'local bonuses' that are earned by each individual player and played only by that player. If a community bonus hits during a local bonus then that local bonus will be put on hold during the community bonus. To keep the local bonus player eligible for community bonus the game will give the player 60 seconds of multipliers. This is an exception to the usual 40-second queue. I am not sure how the multiplier during this time is determined. If the player finishes the local bonus in less than 60 seconds then the multipliers for the remaining time are somehow added to his queue.

One thing I have no idea about is what happens if a player sits down and starts playing during an ongoing community bonus, which the game will let him do. It would be unfair if the player were playing during this time without any chance to trigger another community bonus. I'm told that the machine somehow compensates the player in this situation, but I have no idea how.

This question was raised and discussed in the forum of my companion site Wizard of Vegas.

If you can shed any light on the unanswered questions in my answer, please feel free to write to me or post your comments in my forum.

She was playing a 5¢ machine and the alleged win was $8,588,749.65. This number looked familiar to me as a power of 2. To be specific, 2^33 = 8,589,934,592. If this were a count of tenths of pennies, it would equal $8,589,934.592. The difference between that and the jackpot is $1,184.942.
What I think happened is the machine declared the win as an unsigned integer, meaning a number that could never go negative. However, through some programming error, it wanted to. When you try to put a negative number into an unsigned integer, the computer will wrap around the other end. In this case, I think something bizarre happened and through whatever programming error, the game thought the player had a loss of $1,184.942. When it tried to display this number as an unsigned integer, it wrapped around the maximum value and displayed the win of $8,588,749.65.
Every slot machine I've ever seen says somewhere 'malfunction voids all pays and plays.' If I were the judge, I would have to say that this was indeed a malfunction and side with the casino. This was, of course, what the casino argued. Nevertheless, their $80 compensation offer strikes me as very stingy.
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For more discussion on this question, please see my forum at Wizard of Vegas.

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'Anonymous' .

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As a rule of thumb, the location makes no difference.