Introduction to progressive slot machines

Many people believe that progressive slots  have been around for as long as the slot machine has been around and in reality this is probably not far from the truth. In fact, when you take a look at all of the different historical accounts of the different slot machine types, it does appear that many of them were slot machines of a progressive nature. However, since that time progressive slot machines have matured and grown to the point where they encompass almost every single slot machine category that currently exists. While any slot machines can be a progressive slot machine, a progressive slot machine is not just any slot machine.

Reels

Progressive slots are not bound by the same categorical definitions of other slot machines. In truth, all you have to do to make a slot machine progressive is to create a number of different additional coin bets and then put those coin bets towards the progressive jackpot slots. For this reason, progressive slot machines can have any number of reels. There are conventional progressive slot machines with three reels as well as video progressive slot machines with five, seven and in some cases even nine reels. It’s all the same for a progressive slots and this is one of the major reasons why they have grown to such prolific heights in the online world.

Pay Lines

The same argument that was used for the reels can also be used for the pay lines when you are thinking about progressive slot machines. A progressive slot machine could be a prototypical conventional slot machine and because of that only have the single horizontal pay line across the middle of the reels. At the same time however, there might be another nine reel progressive slot machine that could have something like fifty pay lines, allowing you to win across a multitude of different combinations. The pay lines are even more varied than the reels and this is definitely one of the things that make progressive slot machines as interesting as they are to most people.

Coins

The coins that are used in a progressive slot machine can vary as well. A conventional machine would have a 3-5 coin maximum per spin, whereas a video slots with multitudes of pay lines could easily have that amount be between 300 and 500 coins, fully 100 times that of the conventional machine. While the coin sizes can vary the same across slot machines of different types (especially in online games), the coin amounts for maximum efficiency per hand vary more than either reels or pay lines as far as progressive slot machines are concerned.

Symbols

Finally, symbols also vary a great deal across progressive machines. There are the old fruit machines with fruit, bar and number symbols on their reels as well as the modern progressive video slot machines with themes that include symbols of animals, things, people, places and everything else in between. Symbols are the greatest variation within the progressive slot machine category and that is one of the reasons that progressive machines remain fresh to most people; there is always a new one to play.