How to Play Multi Line Slots Online

What a Multi-Line Slot Is

A multi-line slot pays on more than one pattern of symbols in a single spin. The patterns may run straight across the grid, diagonally, or in shapes that bend between reels, and a spin can produce wins on several of them at once. Providers publish the count on their own game pages: Push Gaming describes Razor Shark as a five-by-four slot with 20 paylines.

Paylines and the Stake

Where a game lets a player select lines, each active line is paid for separately, so the total stake for a spin is the per-line stake multiplied by the number of lines activated. Activating more lines therefore increases the cost of the spin in proportion; it does not change the return to player of the game, which is a property of the game's maths. The number of lines is a stake decision.

In Great Britain the total is capped. The Gambling Commission's guidance on the online slots stake limit states that for customers aged 25 and older the maximum per game cycle is £5, and £2 for customers aged 18 to 24, and that the limit applies to the total amount staked in relation to any game cycle rather than to any one line.

Ways to Win Have Largely Replaced Selectable Lines

Many current games do not offer selectable paylines at all. Big Time Gaming's MEGAWAYS™ mechanic changes the number of symbols on each reel on every spin, which Evolution describes as fitting two to seven symbols per reel and as replacing fixed paylines with a more dynamic model, offering up to 117,649 win ways. Big Time Gaming states the same figure on its own page for Bonanza, the game the mechanic launched with. On a game of that kind the stake is a single amount per spin and the number of ways is an output of the mechanic rather than something a player buys.

Reading the Paytable

The Commission's standards require that an explanation of the applicable rules is easily available before a customer commits to gamble, and that the content is accurate and sufficient to explain all of the applicable rules and how to participate. Its guidance lists the kinds of content that should be considered for inclusion, naming clear descriptions of what constitutes a winning outcome and the rules governing the number and type of tokens that must be collected to qualify for a feature or bonus round. On a multi-line game those are the items that determine what a win on a given line actually pays.

Jackpot Eligibility

Where a multi-line game carries a progressive jackpot, the Commission's standards require the jackpot rules to be clearly available before a customer commits to gamble, and require those rules to describe how the jackpot is funded and what the start-up seed and any ceiling values are. The rest is implementation guidance rather than requirement, and the Commission's own wording is 'should': the jackpot system's return-to-player percentage should be displayed, either as one combined figure or broken down into the base game and the jackpot component; a customer who contributes to a jackpot pool should be eligible to win it while playing that game; the chances of winning should increase in correlation with the amount contributed; and where a player is not eligible for a jackpot prize, that should be made clear along with their respective theoretical return to player. Guidance tells an operator what good practice looks like; it is not the same as a rule a game breaks.

Pace

Remote slots in Great Britain are not played at unlimited speed. A game cycle may not be commenced less than 2.5 seconds after the previous one started, it must always be necessary to release and then depress the start button or take equivalent action, and features such as turbo, quick spin and slam stop are not permitted. Operators are also not permitted to offer functionality designed to allow players to play multiple games at the same time, including split screen or multi-screen functionality.