Which type of online slot machines pay the best?

What is your favourite type of online slot machine? It is a good question and one to ponder because if you are choosing to play slots that don't offer you adequate recompense for your spend, then you could be putting yourself in a position where you have fewer chances to win a larger amount of money.

It is tempting to think that slot games are generally very similar and while they do share similar characteristics, there are some key differences between types of slot games, as well as individual games, which makes some slot games more likely to offer players a better value pay out, compared to their spend, than others.

In this article, we are going to take a broad look at the different types of online slot machines you can find available online today, available on desktop devices or as a mobile slot, that on balance offer you the best chance of a decent value payout.

What do we mean by paying the best? Well there are two possible answers to this. The first could be the games that pay out most often, but these tend to be the lower variance slots, so that is a rather mundane answer. So for the purposes of this article, we are going to consider slots paying the best being the ones that will offer you the best chance of a big payout.

And with that, we have to now post a caveat about the list that follows.

The caveat

Before we go through the list, I must point out one key caveat about the list and that is that there is significant overlap between these different genres of slot. What do we mean by that? Well we mean that you can sometimes find a slot that fits into one of the categories, that will also fit into another. A common example of this is that you can find a significant number of progressive jackpot slots that offer 3-reel versions of the game, as well as the more typical five reel version.

Games such as Major Millions and Tunzamunni are good examples of slots which fit into the progressive category, but which also fit into the category of three-reel games. Similarly, you can also find other examples of games that will fit into a specific category for one reason, but also fit into another for a different feature in the game.

So it is important to know that while this list generally appraises slots, there are games that can fit into more than one category and there are also examples of slot games that may be one specific type, but which pay far better, or far worse, than the average.

So this list is compiled 'on balance of probability', so with that in mind, let's now take a look at how we see your chances of winning big on some typical slot games.

• Progressive Jackpot slots

There's no doubt that when it comes to the big money prizes available on modern slots, then the one type of game you should always be looking to play are the progressive jackpot titles. There are a large range of games in this section, some of which have much smaller jackpot prizes, but in among them are the real behemoths of online gaming, that can offer prizes of hundreds of thousands and also millions.

Progressives can pay out these huge jackpots as they have an additional prize pool alongside their standard slot prizes and this pool can grow, if it is not won, over time to larger amounts. With each spin, a small percentage of that bet goes towards the progressive prize as it continues to build in size.

There are a small but hugely popular number of progressive jackpot games to play, but for the ones that offer the really big prizes, you should play the likes of Mega Moolah slot, Mega Vault Millionaire slot (if you are a member at a Casino Rewards casinos) and Wheel of Wishes slot (also on mobile), which is seeded at two million pounds!

• Retro slots

Retro slots generally tend to be three reel games that have a rather simplistic game play, that harks back to the 'fruit machine' era of slots. These games tend to have smaller number of pay lines (which is a positive as it makes them cheaper to play) but as an upshot of this the amounts you can win playing them tend to be smaller than on other slot games.

One thing to note with retro slots is that there is a considerable crossover in the types of retro slot games available nowadays. You can find plenty of the three-reel variety outlined above, but there are a growing number of 5-reel games and also, some of these newer 'retro' games also feature some additional bonus features, more commonly seen on more modern slots, which can offer some more sizeable wins than you would ordinarily find.

The retro slot scene is an expanding and developing one and it is going to be interesting to see how it develops over the next few years, but in very general terms, a retro-styled three reel slot is most likely to offer you only smaller value payouts, but it generally can be also one of the cheapest types of online slot games to play. Examples of good retro styled slots include Wacky Panda, Reel Splitter, and many more.

• Win Both Ways slots

Win Both Ways slots are fewer in number, but they are popular games as players can win left to right and right to left across the reels. You can also find some Win All Ways slots, where you can land a win if you land three consecutive symbols of the same kind anywhere across the reels, including on the middle three reels.

These types of slots are generally characterised by having a relatively small number of pay lines in play (10 is about the average) but of course, being able to win both ways effectively doubles that number of winning options, but without doubling the cost of a spin.

Jackpots on these games tend to be smaller as a result, but you do have the option of wagering more per spin to increase the value of the win. Popular options for this type of slot include the recently released duo Banana Odyssey and Aurora Wilds slots.

• 243 Ways to Win slots

This particular type of slot is one of the most popular games to be played as it allows players to win using any combination of three, four or five symbols, from left to right, across the reels. Provided they are landed consecutively from the leftmost reel. In truth, there are a wide range of 243 Way to Win games and some of them offer some of the biggest non-progressive jackpot prizes you can find online today.

Classic games like Thunderstruck II, Immortal Romance and the Sporting Star series of games (Football Star, Cricket Star etc) all offer sizeable jackpots, but these jackpots can be very difficult to hit and the fact that you can win any way across the reels, tends to mean that smaller value wins are smaller than on slots that do have a smaller number of pay lines. Le Kaffee Bar is one the latest 243 Ways to Win slots and it is also a lower variance game meaning there's more chance of winning. You can also read about our Top Ten 243 Ways to Win slots in this article.

• Standard 5-reel slots

In truth, there is a broad range of prizes available on 5-reel slot games, and you can find one that pays out very small amounts, and ones that pay out much larger amounts. I have ranked these above the 243 Ways to Win slots as generally, they tend to pay out more when you win than on the 243 Ways to Win slots, simply because it is more difficult to win when you have, say 25 pay lines in play, than you do with almost 10 times as many.

Some 5-reel slots have smaller jackpot prizes, which can be increased in value if you up the size of your initial bet. However, there are some that do offer sizeable prizes. Games like the Break Da Bank series of games are good examples of slot games that can offer some sizeable cash prizes.

In truth, you can find 5-reel games that would sit alongside the games at the top of this list, as well as the bottom, so on average that would put this type of slot bang in the middle of the list.

• Film & TV tie in slots

When a slot company like Microgaming purchases a license to develop a slot game for a film or TV show, then you can imagine that doing so isn't a cheap deal for the slots developer. As such, in order to make sure that investing in these licenses are worth it, Microgaming often develop film and TV tie in games that offer lots of great bonuses and, of course, some sizeable prizes.

Some of their games offer jackpots of hundreds of thousands of coins, while others have a top prize of over the million-coin mark. Of course, how much you bet will determine the size of the prize available, but even so, a million-coin jackpot, even if you are playing a minimum bet, is still a large prize to win.

Some great examples of film and tv programme inspired slots with bigger jackpot prizes include Game of Thrones, Highlander, Phantom of the Opera, Bullseye, Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, and Halloween, and many more.