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To be honest, there is no real difference
However, I believe that the video slots are the 5-reel variety or the unique 3-reels that do NOT look like a typical reel.
regular online slots are the 3-reel slots that look like classic slot machines at land-based casinos.
In reality, they are all video slots. But that is the difference as I see it.
Yes, that’s it.
The regular slots look like the classic slots.
Like the one arm bandits.The video slots have only a button to spin the reels.
Thanks.
Typically, if an online slot game has 3 reels, it is called a “reel” slot. If it has 5 reels, it’s a “video” slot. This is how I split them up, anyway. This is how most online casinos seem to split them up as well.
There are gray areas and exceptions to the rule, such as the Playtech game Gold Rally, which has 9 different spaces on a 3 x 3 grid… like a tic-tac-toe board. I call this a 3 reel, 8 payline “reel” slot, but some might say that this game actually has 9 unique “reels” and 8 paylines, and they might call it a video slot since it doesn’t really look much like a traditional reel slot.
In theory, all online slots are video slots since the terminology originates from land based casinos. Reel slots have physical spinning reels and video slots have monitor displays that mimic reels in a more vibrant interactive fashion.
One of the reasons that video slots became so popular is that the physical reels on the slot machines could only hold a realistic maximum of 22 or so symbols on them before they became too big to work on a mechanical level. With a video slot, which is computer-driven, you can theoretically have 40, 60, or even 100 symbols on each virtual reel, which changes the odds dramatically and enables you to offer much larger jackpots than you would be able to otherwise.
But as far as online goes, yeah, they’re all video slots, it’s just that some of them are set up to act like the old mechanical slots with 3 reels and 20 or so symbols per reel.
Here’s some more interesting slot machine trivia for anyone who’s interested: the reason that fruit became the symbol of choice on slot machines in the earlier part of the century is because it became illegal to pay out cash at one point. So they modified the slot machines so that you could win fruit-flavored candies. The “bar” symbols that you see on a traditional slot machine reel are actually a corruption of a symbol for prizes of sticks of gum.
Didn’t I already say all that?
Except for the really cool part about the sticks of gum, yeah, you probably did. I just felt like participating today. :cheers:
Yeah… I was just giving you some shit.
Edit>Insert Smiley
:laughcry: :clapper: :drunk2: :happy: :tongue:
I found that an interesting bit of trivia, with the gum and candy.
The first slot machine was invented in 1895 by Charles Fey.
kwblue wrote:Didn’t I already say all that?
I see that you did, having read your post the second time around. The first time i just read the first few words of your reply before i got all excited and had to have my say.Randy wrote:One of the reasons that video slots became so popular is that the physical reels on the slot machines could only hold a realistic maximum of 22 or so symbols on them before they became too big to work on a mechanical level. With a video slot, which is computer-driven, you can theoretically have 40, 60, or even 100 symbols on each virtual reel, which changes the odds dramatically and enables you to offer much larger jackpots than you would be able to otherwise.Today even the machines with mechanical reels are computer driven, allowing for the concept of unlimited sysmbols per reel, even though they only have 22 physical positions per reel. Each reel has its own random number genereator that will generate a number between 1 and 128 for arguments sake, and each of the 22 physical reel positions will be mapped to one or more of the random numbers generated.
I wrote an ebook once about my experience as a slot machine technician, explaining how slots work. It is still available online. You can read it at xhttp://www.slotsjournal.com/slots-secrets-ebook/ (remove the x).
