You want to win at any game, but a wealth of skill and strategy is involved in playing slots. That’s why you should learn how to play them online. Let us take you through the basics and give you a few tips on how to keep your bankroll healthy while maximizing your odds of winning those big-money jackpots.

Use your head

Arguably the most crucial tip is to use your brain. Think things through rather than do things blindly. There’s nothing more frustrating than throwing away money on a slot online that you know can be beaten by simply using your brain. To illustrate, let’s look at one of the most common games in any online casino: the classic five-reel slot machine.

Most of these machines offer three rows of 32 slots, with payouts ranging from 500 to 250 coins per line, depending on how many symbols are on each reel. So, a winning combination would involve five in a row from left to right on the first reel. It wouldn’t be a winning combination if you got four and one on the following four.

The same rules apply for three and two symbols – if you get four red sevens, but there are blanks placed after them on the address, middle and third rows, you will not receive any winnings. These rules may seem obvious, but so many people keep hammering away at these games to lose their money – especially those who have been lucky in the past.

Use the wild and scatter symbols.

While the classic three-reel, one-pay line game no longer exists thanks to the fantastic modern graphics and sound effects available, there are more than a few slots that carry the same rules. These games are still around because of their simplicity – you can easily understand what you must do. And because of their simplicity, it is easy for online casino software developers to make some money by adding extra features.

Something almost every slot game has nowadays is wild or scatter symbols. These unique icons allow you to win from left to right regardless of where they appear on the reels – they replace any other icons with which they match. When you see a scatter symbol, you automatically win regardless of how many similar icons appear after it.

Circling this feature is that a wild card is, in effect, one of these scatter symbols. It replaces all the other icons, but if it appears anywhere on the reels, you’ll receive a win regardless of how many symbols come after it. Whether these are better than getting five in a row or two and then winning again is debatable – but they are better than not getting anything.