It was Microgaming that designed the first 243 Ways to Win video slot

To discover what a 243 Ways to Win slot is (or indeed, any ways to win slot of any size or number) we first need to gain an understanding of how slot games work at a basic level and to do that we will go back in time to the development of the very first slot, the Liberty Bell, at the turn of the 20^th century in the United States.

Now that first slot game was devised to be a simple one-line slot game. Players had to match symbols across a single line on the screen. When certain patterns of symbols were created players won prizes (the very first slot didn't award coins, but instead players won prizes such as a Drink at the bar, or a cigarette).

For many years, this idea of a 'line' in a slot persevered. As slot machines grew in popularity and the technology was developed to allow them to award cash prizes, so the games began to develop but despite developers adding new features, such as being able to see three symbols on the reel, a lever to set the mechanical reels in motion and suchlike, games were always one line to win.

For pretty much the entire time that slots remained entirely mechanical, However, one-line wins were the norm but things began to change with the development, first of electrical slots and then with the advent of the microchip.

This new technology allowed more modern slots creators to become much more creative and one of the ways they could do that was by increasing the number of lines on which a player could win on a slot. Soon slots that offered 2, 3 or 5 pay lines across the reels became more popular and it was clear from the popularity of these games that increasing the number of lines in play, was certainly appealing to players.

However, it has been the advent of the digital age and online slot gaming that has seen the most radical change in how slot pay out their wins to players. When the Internet first became popular and the first casinos and slot games began to be made available, it did not take developers long to realise that this new form of gaming, offered them untold possibilities in terms of their slot design.

The digital age: Proliferation of pay lines and ways to win

Given that an online slot game was not a physical machine, but one made entirely from software, this gave designers scope to increase the complexity of their slots, to offer higher value prizes and also offer more ways to win for players.

The easiest way to do this was to increase the number of lines a player could win on a slot and given that the software could recognise any pattern of symbols across the reels that you would want, soon, we say 9, 10, 15 20 and 25 pay line games become the norms.

Soon, companies were looking beyond this and we then saw 30, 40 and even 50 pay line games. Then we saw games of 100 pay lines. The question is where would it end?

The other question to answer was the issue of paying for lines. Early on in the development of multiple pay line slots, it became the norm for players to have to wager one coin (of whatever value) per line in play. So if a game had 20 pay lines, you would have to wager 20 coins per spin to cover each pay line. Games allowed players to increase or decrease the number of lines in play on the game to try and suit their budget. There are many games that still operate using this premise today.

So was it possible to build games with more pay lines, but which remained affordable for all to play?

The answer to that came in 2012 from the Isle of Man-based slots development giant Microgaming. Back then, the company produced all their slots in-house and they had tasked one of their creative teams to come up with a slot that allowed players to play as many lines as possible, for as cheap a price as possible.

The game that broke the mould and became the first 243 Ways to Win slot was the Burning Desire slot, which is still readily available now in many casinos.

Why 243-ways?

Now the first question people asked when they saw a 243 Ways to Win, rather than a pay line slot, was "why are there 243 Ways to Win?" as it does seem such an arbitrary number. In fact, if you take a standard 5x3 reel slot and measure every single possible way that you can land 5 symbols across the reels in any order, then there are 243 different combinations of symbols you can land on the reels.

Essentially, a 243 Ways to Win slot guarantees that if you land three or more symbols across the reels in order from left to right on most slot games that follow this format, then you are guaranteed to land a win, regardless of where they fall on the reels.

The other big issues Microgaming resolved with Burning Desire was the issue of cost. If every possible way across the reels was to be covered by a coin bet, that would mean that a single spin on the slot would cost, at the very least £2.43 per spin. And if you played a 10p coin value, that would increase to £24.30 per spin. Those prices are somewhat prohibitive to the majority of slots players.

Instead, what Microgaming did, and what the real genius of 243 Ways to Win slots is, is take the idea that all lines must be covered by a bet and throw it away. Instead, Microgaming charged just a flat fee per spin, starting at a low amount (n Burning Desire, the lowest bet amount you could play was just 0.25p per spin, although you could ramp it up to £500 per spin if you were a higher roller).

How could they afford to do that? Well the answer is simple, you award smaller win amounts for those lower value wins, with many of these wins returning to player only a fraction of their bet. By making this adjustment, Microgaming made the game not only hugely enticing to players who wanted to be able to win any way across the slot, but also affordable for those players who wanted to keep their spend down to a minimum.

This is why on 243 Ways to Win slots, you will find that 3 symbol wins are generally low percentage returns compared to your bet amount, but the value of your returns increase when you land four and particularly five symbol wins across the reels.

Another great idea was the ability to stack the same symbols on the reels together, which increased the number of potential winning lines on any given spin and meant that players could trigger wins across multiple pay lines to trigger multiple wins on a single spin.

It seems strange to think now, knowing how popular 243 Ways to Win slots are, that there was once a a time when people were not sure if the greater slot public would take to this form of game. However, the fact that it proved such a smash hit success is clearly evident given how many games now use this format.

Beyond 243 Ways to Win

Of course, it didn't take long for slot developers to realise that beyond the standard 5x3 format, lay scope for the number of ways to win across the reels to be expanded. A slot with a lay out of 5 reels with 4 symbols on each reel offers 1024 Ways to Win and beyond that a five by five-reel slot offers a massive 4096 ways to win.

There are games that have these options available, although they are not as common as 243 Ways to Win slots. Some games, such as the Terminator 2 slot, switch between different ways to win when a bonus feature is triggered, often adding an extra reel and increasing the number of ways to win on the game from 1024 to 4096.

Of course, the number of ways to win on a slot is only governed by the number of reels and number of symbols on those reels that are actively in play, but it does seem to be that the 243 Ways to Win is the sweet number for slots, allowing players to play a game that they recognise and is a format that they easily understand compared to slots with many more reels and symbols in play.

You can see a 243 Ways to Win slot in action in our accompanying video to this article in the shape of the new Absolootly Mad: Mega Moolah slot game.

Some of the top 243 Ways to Win slots to play

• Absolootly Mad Mega Moolah
• Jurassic World
• Casino Rewards exclusive Treasure Quest
• Thunderstruck II
• Game of Thrones
• Le Kaffee Bar
• Dragonz
• Bullseye
• Immortal Romance

You will find many more 243 Ways to Win slots in your casino lobby. Register today and start playing!