Pennsylvania Online Casino Guides: How to Play, Key Terms, Strategy

Pennsylvania online casino apps have a wide range of offerings, and if you’re new to the online casino world, some of the terminology might be intimidating. Crossing Broad’s PA online casino guides are here to be helpful in education casino players as well as helping you find the best app for your type of game play. Learning the basics and fundamentals of the various casino offerings will also help you choose the best PA online casino bonus.

Slots Games

Most online casino apps offer hundreds of slots titles. If you’re not an experienced slots player, it can seem impossible to know where to even begin.

Slots Overview

The goal when playing slots is for symbols to line up in a row or in other ways when you spin the reels and they stop spinning. Depending on the game, differnet symbols can mean differnet things and you may have multiple ways of registering a “win.” While you might think of slot machines in a brick-and-mortar casino as a machine where you pull a lever to spin the reels, on an online casino app, you simply push a button to initiate the spin. If you get three or more symbols along a “payline” then typically you’ll win something, depending on the symbols and how much you bet.

Types of Slots Games

As online casino operators invest more in creative and unique slots games, they have gotten more complex. Here is an overall way to categorize the various types of slots games available on most casino apps:

  • Classic slots are the traditional slots games where you are playing a single payline and trying to get multiple symbols in a row on a single row.
  • Multiple Paylines are slots games where you have many paylines available each spin.
  • Progressive slots are games where a portion of every wager is set aside to build a jackpot that gets bigger and bigger until someone wins it.

Paytable and Paylines

The paytable is a reference guide available on most games where you can read the rules of the game as well as what each symbol means in the game.

Paylines refer to paths where you can register winning combinations of symbols. Let’s start with a simple example. A traditional, basic slot machine might have 3 reels with 3 visible rows on them. To win, you need to get 3 symbols in a row along the middle row. This is a single payline slots game. Newer slots, and especially online slots games, can have many more paylines than this. Even hundreds. Since this is digitized, the system can check hundreds of paylines every spin to see if you won.

How wagering works in Slots

Typically when you wager an amount on a single spin, let’s say $1, then this $1 is divided into smaller amounts across every single available payline. So if there are 100 paylines available, you’re wagering $.01 on every payline. If you hit one of the paylines, your winnings will be calculated based on a $.01 wager, not a $1 wager.

The different types of symbols

Face symbols are the normal symbols available in a game and are often themed based on the overall design and theme of the game. You can win by getting 3 or more of these symbols in a row on a particular payline.

Wild symbols typically let you swap out the symbol for another one, helping you hit 3 in a row of a particular type of symbols. Wilds can vary by game, so be sure to read the rules for whatever slots game you are playing.

Scatter symbols are special symbols that typically activate some sort of bonus. A common form of bonus is giving the user free spins.

What is RTP?

You might see published information on the “best RTP slots games available.” Well, what the heck does RTP even mean? RTP refers to Return to Player, and is a way to measure the amount that a particular slots game is programmed to pay back to players over a large sample size of spins. For example, if a slots game has a 97% RTP, it means it will pay out $97 for every $100 put into the game. Now this isn’t always exact, but over a large enough sample, the game will trend towards its pre-determined RTP number.

How much should you pay attention to RTP? Beginner slots players shouldn’t stress too much about it. Focus more on games you enjoy, and learning the fundamentals of slots play. As you get more experienced, you might find yourself trending more towards higher RTP games.