Multi-line Bonus Slot Machines

by Guide Bill Burton

The casinos are always looking for the most popular slot machines that willkeep people playing for long periods of time. Obviously the longer they playthe more money the casinos will make. The number one goal of slot machinemakers is to design games that people will enjoy and to come up with uniqueways to keep them playing. Over the past few years this has been accomplishedby the introduction of Bonus Slots Machines. These games have a secondarybonus round that is triggered by getting a certain combination of symbols,collecting the correct number of these specialty symbols.

Australia's company first introduced the bonus games to this country in1996. The slots in Australia are called pokies and differed from the Americanthree-reel machines by offering multiple paylines, various betting optionsand multiple winning combinations. These winning combinations appear acrossthe screen and were dubbed scatter pay machines. They also have a bonus screenthat gives the player the opportunity for a bigger additional jackpot whentriggered. The games were first placed in certain Indian casinos and gainedpopularity. The pokies came to Atlantic City in the summer of 1996. I hadthe opportunity to participate in a focus group where we played the machinesand offered our feedback on the games. They were different and fun to playand I found them entertaining. So did the majority of people who played them.

The American slot makers took notice and started to design multi-line bonusgames of their own. It was discovered that players would play longer in hopesof reaching the bonus screen. The majority of the new machines offer somesort of bonus round. Some of these new machines have up to ten pay linesand you can bet multiple coins on each line. Playing maximum coins couldcost you $12.50 per spin on a quarter machine. Because of this the more andmore nickel machines are appearing on the casino floors. By offering thesemachines with a nickel denomination, the casinos are employing a subtlepsychological ploy. It can cost you $2.50 per spin playing maximum coinson a multi-line nickel machine, compared to 75 cents on a three-reel standardmachine. But since the player is using nickels it doesn't seem to them thatthey are actually risking more money. This translates into a significantincrease in casino revenue.

Video Poker machines were not left out of this multi-line multi-coin movement.(IGT) introduced, a video poker game that deals three hands, with only one appearingface up. Choose the cards you wish to hold from the exposed hand, and thosecards are held for all three hands. Hit the Draw button and the game concludesby finishing all three hands, each hand drawing from its own 52-card deck. followed suit with their multi-line, that allows players to play four hands at a time. They also introduceda bonus screen in some theirvideo poker games. This is a banked bonus feature thathas become popular lately.

The slot makers wanted to give players a little more incentive to keep themplaying, so they introduced the banked bonus machines. These machines bankcoins and add them to the jackpot that can be collected when the player reachesthe bonus screen. To entice you to play longer the machines shows you eitherhow much money is in the jackpot or how many more symbols are needed to activatethe bonus round. When a player knows the value of the bonus its possibleto determine when the machine offers a positive expectation for playing it.I will discuss these banked bonus machines next week.

Until next time, remember:
Luck comes and goes...Knowledge stays forever.

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