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Every slot machine design is a little different from the next. While this typically means that machines have different genres, symbols, sounds, and designs, some machines buck traditional slot machine design by incorporating multiple paylines as well as more reels. To win, players need to match symbols across the paylines, so most people believe that more paylines mean more opportunities to win.
However, the number of paylines does not directly impact the likely size of winnings a person receives. Factors like RTP and variance have more of an impact on the likely winnings a person can take from a machine.
How Do Paylines Work?
A payline is a horizontal, diagonal, or another line across the reels of a slot machine that, if the player matches symbols or achieves the desired pattern, they will win a prize. Traditionally, slot machines had a single payline but modern machines on sites like 76PaylineSlots can have as many as 76 or more.
As well as the horizontal line down the middle, paylines can be found on every horizontal line, as well as diagonal lines, and in almost every conceivable direction. Although paylines and reels are not the same, they are linked. The more reels there are, the more paylines it is possible to add to the game.
There are two types of payline games available: fixed payline and variable payline games.
Fixed Payline Games
In fixed payline games, the player has no option as to how many paylines they play. The machine might have a single payline, like a traditional game, or it might have five, a dozen, or tens of paylines. But, no matter how many lines there are, the player has to play all of those lines.
Variable Payline Slots
In variable payline slots, the player has the choice of how many paylines they want to play with. With some games, the player has complete freedom to choose any number between a single payline and the maximum. In other cases, options might include playing with horizontal lines, diagonal lines, and additional lines. Playing with more paylines means paying higher stakes because the chosen stake is typically per payline. Stake a penny and choose 76 paylines and it will cost the player 76c every time they spin the reels.
Why Do Players Prefer More Playlines?
With the price increase, it might seem odd that players choose to play games with multiple paylines, rather than sticking to a single one.
More Opportunities To Win?
With multiple paylines, the player can win if they get the desired pattern or match symbols across any of those paylines. With a single payline, that means a single opportunity to pick up a prize. With a dozen paylines, that’s 12 opportunities to win. At least, that’s how it appears.
However, while it is true that there are more lines, playing multiple lines doesn’t necessarily increase the statistical chance of winning more money.
More In-Game Activity
Some players might find spinning the reels and watching for wins on a single line mundane. With multiple lines, there is certainly more going on. This is especially true if the machine has bonus games and bonus symbols, and even though modern online slots do all of the work for you, checking to see whether you’ve won or not, watching the extra lines brings a greater sense of enjoyment to the game for a lot of people.
Playing ten pay lines at once is essentially likely playing ten basic machines at once, and that can really ramp up the excitement and enjoyment levels.
Greater Choice
It’s good to have more choices. According to psychologists, having choice makes people feel more powerful, and when playing slot machines having a greater sense of power means feeling like you’re more likely to win.
This feeling of power is increased even further if some of those choices have seemingly higher rewards, even if they require more effort. Playing and monitoring more pay lines feels like it has a greater chance of winning, and it certainly has greater effort, which can spur some players to opt for dozens of pay lines rather than one.
Alternatives To Traditional Paylines
Games with multiple pay lines are popular, but there comes a point when you can’t feasibly incorporate any more pay lines into a game’s design. To counteract this saturation, game designers have moved to alternative designs. So, as well as seeing more machines with more pay lines, we are starting to see an increase in alternative slot machine styles.
Video poker games were the first alternative to slot games. Recently we have seen more push-your-luck style games like crash games. But, cluster slots and scatter pay games look and play similarly to traditional slots but with different pay line styles.
Cluster Slots
In cluster slots, players spin reels but are looking to get clusters or connected groups of matching symbols. Candy Crush is still the most popular mobile game, by download, and cluster slots can feel more like a Candy Crush game than a traditional slot game. Like Candy Crush, these games tend to have cascading effects so once a cluster is formed, it pops or explodes and new symbols take their place, potentially leading to multiple prizes at a time.
Scatter Pay Games
In scatter pay games there aren’t any pay lines and the symbols don’t even need to touch, they just need to show up in the game interface. Reels are spun, and if the required number of the necessary symbols are visible anywhere on the symbols, the player wins the prize. This means symbols are literally scattered across the reels, hence the name of these games.
Conclusion
Pay lines are an important part of slot design, and while traditional slots have only one pay line, modern machines can have as many as 76 pay lines. There is a greater chance of winning when playing 76 lines at once, but the player also needs to pay 76 times the desired stake, so player returns per dollar do not increase. However, excitement and choice do increase, and this is appealing enough for a lot of players.