Slot Fundamentals is a column we’ll be running occasionally to help our players better understand how our games work. The inaugural edition deals with paylines, which determine wins and can be found in many of our games.

Paylines form the backbone of most of the slots at High 5 Casino and Shake the Sky. Put simply, they’re the guiding force behind your big wins. But how exactly do they work? Jeremy, an H5G software engineer, was kind enough to provide a history lesson and an explanation of paylines:

“Many of the very first slot machines, sometimes referred to as ‘fruit machines,’ traditionally had only three reels, each showing one symbol at a time. The object of these old-fashioned slots was to line up three of the same symbol in a row, making a line across the reels. As technology advanced and companies like High 5 Games sought to innovate on these primitive slots, slot machine games began to show larger grids of symbols at once. To keep these games aligned with the tradition of slot machines past, the concept of paylines arose, in which players are able to bet on one or more different ways of drawing ‘lines’ between symbols from left to right across the grid of symbols. Some are horizontal, and some zig-zag up and down, and players have the chance of winning big money by lining up symbols on each one! To see these paylines in action on High 5 Casino and Shake The Sky, try hitting the left and right arrows above the box marked ‘LINES;’ as you do so, you’ll see each payline which you’re betting on overlaid in a different color.”

So, there you have it. In the next edition of this column, we’ll be explaining ‘ways,’ an alternative to paylines that is found in some of our games. Which slot fundamentals would you like to see us explain in the future?

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