You might be one of those who haven't played slots yet. You don't know what you're missing then! And if you are one of the many fans of this very popular type of casino games, then you know exactly what are we talking about! It's been about two decades since we have internet slots casinos, and that's a fair amount of time. Also, they get more popular as days go by and the competition in the online slot games is quite intense. Developers and designers are trying really hard and employ all of their creativity in order to enable you to enjoy yourself and have fun! Naturally, you associate gambling with winning and losing money, but it doesn't mean that you have to put in real money in order to enjoy. You can save your Rands and still have lots of fun with all the available free slots. People from all over South Africa are checking us out, why don't you join them?!
On this page you will get everything you need to know about slots, including:
If you are more interested in getting on with the game end and taking a shot at some exciting slots than reading on here, we recommend the following three sites:
Coming to the types of slot machine games available, there are different kinds of slots for you to choose from at an online casino. We take a look at a few basic types here to understand them better.
Classic slots are some of the first slots that you could find right around the time the online casino industry came into existence. Back then, there were few slots and they were quite like the slots you find in land-based casinos. Most of these were 3-reel slots that utilized classic symbols, including liberty bells and the number 7. Old is gold, they say, and that is why you still find classic slots around even though technological advancements have seen the online casino industry enter the mobile gaming space as well.
Most of the early classic slots have just one payline at the center. However, today you also find classic slots with five paylines, and you will also find classic slots with a progressive jackpot attached. Different classic slots come with different payout percentages and return to player (RTP), depending mainly on the software provider. Take for instance the Flying Ace slot from Microgaming. This classic slot has 3 reels and 5 paylines and boasts of a RTP of 94% - 95.5% and a payout percentage of approximately 94.95%.
Video slots are different from classic slots in that they are more advanced and evolved after the classic slots. They usually come with multiple reels that are spun at random: there is no set pattern to individual spins as these are determined by the random number generator (online casinos usually use RNGs certified for randomness) in the casino software. They can have as many as 7 reels and up to 20 paylines, though today you get to see games with even higher paylines, depending again on the software provider. Video slots come with or without bonuses.
An example is Playtech's "A Night Out", which has a very high RTP of 97.06% making it of those rare slots you have to play.
Slots with free spins evolved from the earlier existing slots and were designed with the intention of making the slots more attractive and player-friendly. The free spins in many slots today come as part of a bonus round: the player achieves a certain goal and the free spins get triggered.
Take for example the Captain's Treasure slot from Playtech. This game has re-triggered free spins and has a RTP of 96.03%.
The next step in the evolution of slots was the introduction of the re-spin feature. The name is an indicator of how this feature works. When you get a specific set of symbols in a certain pattern during a free spin, the free spin gets re-triggered, also called a re-spin. How many times the re-spin occurs depends on the pattern that appears on the screen during the free spin round. The reels that triggered the re-spin do not move; they are locked in place and it is only the remaining reels that spin away again. Y
One example is the Iron Man 3 slot from Playtech which has the All Systems Go re-spins feature. This feature activates when you get an Iron Patriot symbol on reel 5. You receive 3 re-spins. This game has an RTP of 93.02% which is on the low side but the max wins are huge which makes up for this.
Over time, software providers started coming up with slots that had progressive jackpots attached to them. These are very interesting and an exciting option for players because they drastically increase the chance that a player has of hitting the jackpot. In a progressive jackpot, a player every spin gives the player a shot at the jackpot. There are a large number of progressive slots nowadays from different software providers. One example is Gladiator Jackpot, a game from Playtech. This 5-reel game with 25 paylines has a 91.5% RTP (excluding of course the progressive jackpot) but we all know we don't play progressives for the theoretical return alone. We want to win the big one!.
I-slots were first developed by Rival Gaming, a well-known online casino software provider. The i-slots are essentially theme-based slots that have a progression to them, much like a story. The story unfolds as you play the game and brings to you newer screens, features, images, and also bonus rounds. The best thing is that when you return to the casino later for another round of i-slots, the game takes from exactly where you left it. And to top it all, they are interactive. One example is Cosmic Quest II from Rival Gaming. This cool i-slot comes with 5 reels and 20 paylines and has a RTP of 98%.
Today, there are a number of online casinos that South African players can opt to play slots in. So which of these would be the best options for a South African player? There are criteria that go into determining the best, and there are different yardsticks for different people, obviously; what is good for one may not work for another. Here are five casinos that we think are the best for South African players.
More about these casinos and specifically their slots offering follows:
Part of the well-known Mansion Group, Casino.com brings to you some of the best online casino games, loads of promotions, and cool jackpots in a completely secure environment. This casino is certified by Technical Systems Testing (TST) and licensed band regulated by the Government of Gibraltar. This casino is available for download as well as instant play, and there is a mobile version as well. Casino.com accepts the South African Rand; you can deposit money in Rands without opting for currency conversion.
When you sign up to play at Casino.com, you open yourself to a world of amazing slots, including some of the best slots available - The Incredible Hulk, Gladiator, The Amazing Spiderman, and many more. In all, you get more than 100 slots to choose from when you play at Casino.com, all with high quality graphics and animations. Besides, the casino has a range of jackpots, from standalone jackpots, to static jackpots, to progressive jackpots. There is a jackpot version for each casino game at Casino.com. The total jackpot value at this casino currently is a staggering $11,354, 700.
Casino.com also offers some amazing bonuses, starting with a fantastic welcome bonus of up to $/£3200. This includes a first deposit bonus of 100% up to $/£400, followed by 7 more superb reload bonuses of $/£400 each. Other bonuses include a 10% cash back, daily top-ups, seasonal bonuses (currently there is the Christmas bonus), reload bonuses, loyalty bonuses, a refer-a-friend bonus, prize draws, and more. Adding to the bonus frenzy is a superb VIP program as well.
The Springbok Casino has been immensely popular and needless to say, Rugby fans have been flocking to this site for the last two years since its launch. It is available in both download and instant play modes, and there is also a mobile casino available for those who want to play games directly from their mobile devices (including Android and Apple Smartphones and Tablets). When you sign up here you get to play a huge collection of games and jackpots in a secure environment.
For those who love slots, Springbok casino is a good option as there are more than 100 exciting slots here. These include the famous Real Series slots unique to RTG casinos - Achilles, Aztec's Millions, Basketbull, Crazy Vegas, and many others. There are more than 200 games in all, including video poker, roulette, blackjack, baccarat, and craps. There are also 9 progressive jackpots at this casino, ranging from R138,018 (Caribbean Hold'em, Caribbean Draw Poker, and Caribbean Stud Poker) to R13,239,440 (Aztec's Millions).
There are promotions for new and existing players as well at Springbok casino. The welcome bonus is spread across the first three deposits and is worth up to R11500 - 100% up to R1500 on the first deposit, 50% up to R5000 on the second and third deposits each. There are other promotions as well, including an exclusive 300% up to R600 bonus, the 100% Lucky 7 bonus (100% bonus up to R777), comp points, and the chance to participate in the daily slot tournaments that the casino organizes.
Powered by RTG, the Silver Sands Casino is the oldest casino that accepts the South African Rand. This casino is owned by Paxson Marketing Ltd. and is licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission.
It is available in both download and instant play modes, and for mobile gaming lovers there is a mobile casino version as well. At this casino, you get a good selection of games, exciting promotions, and some fabulous jackpots.
Silver Sands casino has an exciting collection of games, including over 60 exciting slots. Some of the best slots you get here include the Real Series slots, which are unique to RTG-powered casinos - Megasaur, Coyote Cash, T-Rex, Shark School, and Football Frenzy. Other games available include video poker, multi-hand video poker, craps, Keno, roulette, blackjack, and some more exciting table games. In all, there are over 100 games to choose from at this casino. The casino also has 9 progressive jackpots totaling a grand R20,586,359.
Promotions at Silver Sands casino include a R8888 sign-up offer. Other bonuses include a 50% alternative payment bonus for choosing Skrill as your preferred payment method, a R50 no deposit bonus for sharing the casino page with your friends on Facebook, weekly bonuses, cash backs, weekday bonuses, and also access to the slots tournaments organized by the casino.
EU Casino offers something totally different with a range of games that many players in SA would not have encountered before. This casino is owned by SK Processing Ltd. and operated by Skill On Net Ltd, who package games from a number of the best developers in the business. It is licensed and regulated by the Lotteries and Gaming Authority (LGA) of Malta and is available in download and instant play modes.
EU Casino has over 40 slots of different kinds - 3D slots, classic slots, video slots, and jackpot slots. Some of the best slots available here include Vampire Feast, Fun Fair Ride, Jukebox, and Wizard of Odds. In all, the casino has about 65 different games and boasts of new slots every week. There are also four progressive jackpots here: Progressive Blackjack, Fun Fair Ride, Millionaire Genie, and Good and Evil, with Millionaire Genie currently valued at €1,207,160.
There are promotions galore at EU Casino, including a cool welcome package of up to €5250: 100% up to €1000 on the first deposit, 100% up to €500 on the second deposit, 150% up to €750 on the third deposit, 100% up to €1500 on the fourth deposit, and 150% up to €1500 on the fifth deposit. Other promotions include reload bonuses, calendar promotions, loyalty promotions, VIP promotions, and also access to races and tournaments that the casino organizes regularly for its players.
If the advent of the Internet saw the casino industry going online, the recent rapid developments in mobile communications technology has seen the online casino industry make a significant transition resulting in the birth of the mobile casino industry. The mobile casino industry personalizes casino gaming to the highest levels, as it makes the games available to players on the go.
What makes it even better is that you get to play the casino games of your choice on your mobile phone whenever you want, wherever you want, without having to worry about security breaches. All you need is a smartphone or a tablet, as most mobile casino offerings are compatible across Android, iOS, Blackberry, and Windows platforms. The high-end technology that you find incorporated in hand-held devices today ensures there is no compromise when it comes to the quality of the mobile slots and speed.
Online casinos like Silver Sands and Springbok, both mentioned briefly above have very appealing and player-friendly mobile versions of their casino software. Silver Sands even has a downloadable app that players can install on their hand-held devices to enjoy online gaming on the go. This gives players three play options - download, instant play from a browser, and the mobile casino.
The image that you see above is a screenshot of the Springbok mobile casino interface on an Apple iPhone 5S. To play directly at this casino from your phone's web browser, without having to install software, all you need to do is tap the screen image.
The result of such advancements in technology is simple and profound: a significant increase in the target audience range for casino operators and a happy personalized gaming experience for the players, i.e. a win-win situation for all.
Slots are the hot favorites of most online casino players. This is because they are fun, easy to play, and also have loads of bonuses. And playing slots at an online casino becomes even more exciting when you play using the bonuses available. There are, of course, both advantages as well as disadvantages to playing slots using bonuses.
One direct advantage of playing with bonuses is the boost they give to your bankroll. When the bonus amount gets added to your account, your bankroll automatically increases. This means you can plan and play longer, thereby increasing the prospects of scoring a win, when you play with a bonus. And if the bonus is a no deposit bonus, it is an even bigger help because you play directly with the money the casino is giving you; anything you win with this boosts your bankroll even before you start using it.
On the downside, when you play with a casino bonus, you run into the wall of limitations that are imposed on you. Withdrawal restrictions come into effect at many casinos, and then there are playthrough requirements and rollovers as well. And there is the risk of incurring penalties too. If you accidentally violate the terms and conditions associated with the bonus, you are likely to incur penalties, including early withdrawal penalties and restricted game penalties, and that is never a good feeling. On the whole, however, playing with bonuses can work to your advantage provided you play well and carefully.
There are different kinds of bonuses associated with slots at an online casino. Three major ones are no deposit bonuses, match bonuses, and free spins.
No Deposit Slots Bonus
A no deposit bonus can be a great option for those coming to a casino for the first time. As the term suggests, this bonus comes to you even before you deposit money into your casino account. You sign up with the casino and it gives you a no deposit bonus. So you can start playing with the no deposit bonus and whatever you win with that is yours to spend. No deposit bonuses are usually not huge; but the fact that you get it even before you use your money makes it worth the effort.
Slots Match Bonus
A match bonus comes to you when you make a deposit into your casino account. You make a deposit and the casino matches your deposit with money of its own. The percentage of the match bonus can vary and depends totally on the casino operator. Some casinos offer 100% match bonuses, which means if you deposit $20 the casino adds another $20 to your kitty. Deposit bonuses may, hwever, come with playthrough requirements. Match bonuses need not necessarily be welcome bonuses, they can be reload bonuses as well.
Free Spins
The third kind of bonus associated with slots games is the free spin. A free spin bonus is offered in two ways: it is either offered along with a welcome bonus or any other deposit bonus, or it comes to you as a feature in a slot game, a bonus that gets triggered when you achieve a certain goal within the game. A free spin, as the term suggests, basically entitles you to a spin of the slot without having to wager additional money, and whatever you win during a free spin you get to keep. One example of a free spin bonus is at CasinoLuck, where you get a 100% welcome bonus up to R1400 and 100 free spins.
One of the most important technical terms you should know when you are playing slots is the payout percentage of a particular game. The payout percentage is the money a player gets back from a casino when he wins a particular game, and is usually the differential between the total amount a player has bet and the house edge. You can understand this more easily through an example. Say you come to a slot game that has a payout percentage of 98%. This payout percentage is the difference between the amount you wager and the house edge: for every pound you wager, the casino is likely to give you back 98 pence, and the house edge for that game is 2%.
From the above example, it is clear that the payout percentage is a function of each individual software provider, and that there is no generalized payout percentage across board for all games. However, where there are numbers there are bound to be myths, and there are a few with regard to payout percentages as well. The following are a couple of typical myths...
Myth: Slot machines are programmed cyclically and all results will repeat themselves at the end of a particular cycle. What this means is that even if one cycle can include thousands of spins, at the end of the cycle the next set of results will exactly be on the same lines as the previous cycle.
Fact: This is one of the biggest myths associated with online slots. All spins associated with slots at an online casino are software driven and are random. Casinos are audited and certified for this randomness by independent third parties. What this means is simple: spins do not follow any specific pattern; they are random and independent.
Myth: All slot machines are programmed in such a way that the balance of money is restored in the event of a jackpot payout. So if you hit a jackpot, chances are there will not be any further jackpots for a while until the sense of money balance is restored. By the same logic, if there has been no jackpot for a while, there is a heightened possibility of a jackpot being struck in the immediate future.
Fact: This is again a myth. As mentioned above, all spins are random and independent. The odds remain the same for a game and are independent of the timeframe when a jackpot was hit. Neither does the amount the jackpot was for have any bearing on the timing or size of the next jackpot: it could be just around the corner.
Another term to know is the Return to Player (RTP). This is usually expressed in a percentile and is an indication of how often a player is likely to win at a particular game over a period of time. So if a game shows a RTP of 98%, there is a 98% chance of you recording a win over a period of time.
The RTP is usually set by the software provider. Not all providers publish the RTP values for their slots. Some of them, like Rival and Playtech publish the RTP values for their games. Others may not publish the exact value. RTG, for instance, give a range within which the RTP value for a particular game could be. Individual casinos then must ensure that the values for their games are within the range prescribed by the provider.
| Software | Number of Slots | Rate of New Game Release | No. of Progressives | Biggest Win / Game | Special Features | Typical RTP | Example Casino |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Playtech | 200+ | 50 per year | 30+ | $8,211,861 Beach Life |
Marvel slots, Hollywood slots and more | 95%-97% | Casino.com |
| RTG | 120+ | Infrequent; only a few in the past year | 10 | $579,333 Jackpot Pinatas |
Unique Real Series slots | NA | Silver Sands Casino |
| Rival | 110+ | 1 game every few months over the past year. | 4 | $299,673 Money Magic |
More than 150 exciting games to check out | 95% | Slots Capital Casino |
| SkillOnNet | 30 | Regular | 19 | €1,100,230 Millionaire Genie |
Licenses exciting games from other providers like NextGen Gaming | 95% - 96.5% | EU Casino |
| iSoftBet | 300 | Regularly launching new games each month | 25+ | NA | Multi-integration strategy to provide more games to players | NA | Golden Palace Casino |
| NetEnt | 95+ | Regular | 15 | €2.98 million Mega Fortune Dream |
95% - 96.5% |
Another software provider for South African casinos is SkillOnNet. One casino powered by SkillOnNet is EU Casino, and is available to South African players and accepts Rands as currency. Founded in 2005, SkillOnNet offers a bouquet of games of its own, which includes 30 slots as well as other games like video poker, blackjack, roulette, and more. This software provider also uses software from third parties to provide an exhaustive range of games. Other providers from whom it licenses games include Betsoft, Sherriff Gaming, Cryptologic, and also NextGen Gaming.
When it comes to playing slots, there has always been this big debate about whether it is or luck or whether there is an element of skill involved. Gambling itself involves a large slice of luck, but there are games like blackjack where skill plays an important role as well. Skill may not help you win regularly, but it will definitely help you ensure you do not lose too often.
Slots are essentially considered a game of luck. You spin and then depending on your luck you either win or lose. There is no skill involved here because the numbers are thrown up by a random number generator over which you have no control whatsoever as its sole duty is to ensure randomness. Therefore, thinking of developing skills for slots is a waste of time. However, there are some things you can work on that may require some degree of skill, like knowing how to optimally manage your bankroll, learning to control the urge to continue playing when you are not winning, learning that a streak is just a large slice of luck on this one, and more.