Casino slots and online casinos have come a long way

Online casinos are different places than they were when they first started years ago with the rapid rise in technology allowing ever more complicated casino games to evolve. Fortunately the evergreen casino games of roulette and blackjack are still available at all online casinos but even with these games casinos try to tempt you into playing with some add-ons. Most recently Casinos.ie came across a roulette game called Marvel™ Roulette which is obviously trying to piggy back on the name of famous comic book characters. Casinos.ie has repeatedly warned that playing American Roulette gives a poorer chance of winning than regular European Roulette for the simple reason that American Roulette has an additional number which is a double zero but the payouts remain the same as European Roulette. No surprise then to find that Marvel™ Roulette has an additional slot on the roulette wheel and table called Marvel™. At least in American Roulette if you back the double zero and win you get paid out at 35 to 1 but in this comic book game all you get is three free spins on a three reel slot. Of course you might make money from the free spins but you also might get nothing so it seems you are risking money twice. The roulette game is available at Paddy Power Casino which is very good online casino but casinos.ie must question whether all these extra gimmicks are good for the punter. Perhaps the biggest progress has been made in the casino slots section of online casinos.

If you are old enough to remember, slots or fruit machines as they were known in that day and age were simple three reel one winning line machines and actually one or two are still to be found. One such example is Fruit Slots which can be found at Instacasino.com. This casino slot is created by the casino software company Quickfire which is one of the trade names of Microgaming which incidentally also creates some of the most complicated casino slots with the largest jackpots in the industry. Most casino slots found at online casinos however are much more complicated and have multiple winning lines and five reels. This means that not only must you decide your stake per line before playing but also how many lines to play. Be warned that these two multiply so you could end up staking a lot per spin even though the stake per line seems small. The original five reel slots had simple reels with a fixed sequence of symbols on each reel but modern casino slots although still having 15 symbols visible have them independently controlled. This enables such things as “sticky wins” and win multipliers to operate. “Sticky wins” is a feature at the casino slot Jack Hammer™ which is produced by the well known casino software company NetEnt and can be found at All Irish Casino and other casinos that use the same software. This slot has the fifteen independent symbols and when a winning combination comes up those winning symbols are held automatically and all others are spun again to see if the win can be improved. This does not happen just once but is in fact repeated again and again until no improved win is achieved after which all wins are paid out. This really is a great feature which can enhance your winnings considerably.

There are several casinos that have video slots with win multipliers but a couple of the better ones in the opinion of casinos.ie are Gonzo’s Quest™ and Birds on a Wire™. Gonzo’s Quest™ is again a casino slot from NetEnt and again can be found at All Irish Casino or any other casino using that software. This is an Aztec themed slot where the symbols are carved onto stone blocks. In this game when a winning combination is triggered the winning blocks explode and are replaced by others and at the same time the win multiplier clicks over to two times. Unlike Jack Hammer™ which is looking for an improved win, Gonzo’s Quest is looking for another separate win which will pay double. If this happens the win multiplier clicks on again to three times and winning blocks are again replaced. The maximum win multiplier is five times but there is no theoretical limit to the number of successive wins which can be achieved.

Birds on a Wire™ is similar in operation with winning birds being replace and the win multiplier ticking on but is much more humorous. In this casino slot which is produced by casino software company Thunderkick the birds are sitting on high voltage wires and when a winning combination is triggered the wires become live which in turn frazzles the birds and they disappear in a puff of feathers and soot and are then replaced by others that fly in. For the squeamish these are not anything like real birds and in fact the bonus bird symbol actually flies around in a paper bag while the wild symbol bird is so fat that it is a wonder it can fly at all. This really is a humorous casino slot with a win multiplier running up to 5 times in general play. If the bonus rounds are triggered which can be achieved by getting three or more of the paper bag birds you will progress to the bonus free spins where the win multiplier starts at 4 times and progresses through 8 and 12 before peaking at 20 times the win value. Needless to say, bonus rounds can be very lucrative.

These are just some examples of the hundreds of casino slots which are around at online casinos these days and of course there are far too many to mention. Do take a look around and as online casinos such as those mentioned offer free play even without registering an account it is very easy to try the various casino slots out before switching to real money play and registering for an account.