Slots are every online casino’s most popular attraction. Even though in physical locations they’re mostly there as a relic of the past, mostly placed there because players expect them to be as they bet the vast majority of their chips on table games, on the Internet slots have absolutely and completely thrived. A lot of people register in online casinos specifically to play slots (sometimes even just to play one slot in particular), to the point where in some places slots outnumber all other games dozens or ever hundreds to one. It’s downright insane! I don’t know exactly what makes online slots so appealing – maybe it’s the fact that they’re so pretty, with animations, licensed characters and bonus games (in fairness, while physical slots have those too, most people still think of them as the classic 3-roll mechanical machines that were popular 20-30 years ago), or perhaps it’s because people say to themselves “Hey, everything’s random in online casinos anyway, so I might as well go with the most random game out of all of them” (which isn’t really the case, but unfortunately the misconception that online casinos are somehow “cheating” is a relatively prevalent one). Okay, I admit, maybe I don’t really know the reason, but I can’t argue with the facts – there’s a whole lot of people playing online slots, and most of them are doing it with real money. But how does that work? Isn’t it expensive? What’s the risk/reward? Let’s dive a bit deeper into it and find out!

Making Your First Deposit

If you’re reading this, then I assume you’ve already picked your casino and slot. If not, then there’s plenty of sites that can give you recommendations if you’re interested in playing slots with real money. When you’ve made your choice, it’s time to make your first deposit. Keep in mind that, while it’s called “deposit”, you should, for all intents and purposes, treat it as an expense – of course, you’re likely to win a pretty big sum (that’s what jackpots are for, after all), but you’re just as likely to lose everything. As such, I wouldn’t advise you to deposit a gigantic sum until you’re more comfortable with playing with real money, but at the same time your sum should be big enough to take advantage of the first deposit bonus that every casino offers – it’s pointless to waste it on a fiver. Ultimately, you’re the one who has to decide what amount you’d like to play with, based on your budget.

The deposit itself can be made in a variety of ways – most commonly and conveniently via a debit or credit card, PayPal and other e-wallet sites, as well as several kinds of pre-paid cards. The complete list of payment methods available on the casino of your choice should be listed on the page where you make your deposit (depending on the casino, it might also be in the Help section), so feel free to take a good look and pick the option that works best for you. Personally, I would recommend that you use a credit or debit card, simply because that way your winnings can be easily withdrawn into the same card. True, you could always request a withdrawal via bank transfer, but honestly, I’ve found it to be most convenient when you’re just using a card for everything. And if you’re worried about your credit card information being stolen, honestly, I wouldn’t be – the casinos have invested hundreds of thousands in protection, so it’d take an online heist worthy of “Ocean’s Eleven” to steal your information from them!

Playing With Real Money

Alright, partner, you’re all set! You’ve got money in the bank, and now it’s time to play slots! What should you be looking out for? First and foremost, it’s important to know that while a lot of slots seem pretty much the same when you’re playing for free, there are a lot of noticeable differences when you’re playing with real money. A good example are the paylines, which you might know as the various lines running through the reels that give you prizes if you land symbols on them in a specific order. Some slots have 25 paylines, others have 40, and some have a different number entirely (classic slots have only one, for example). The more paylines there are, the higher your chance of winning, but you also need to pay for each payline, so bets on a 40-payline slot are gonna hit your wallet hard. Keep in mind that on 99% of all slots you can change the number of paylines to suit your needs, decreasing your chance of winning, but also the price of each bet. Do keep in mind that some slots with jackpots only make you eligible for it if you’re betting the maximum amount, so that can (and should) influence your decision.

Another thing that you should be looking out for is the so-called RTP, also known as Return to Player. In layman’s terms, RTP is a number (a percentage) that shows how much of the money invested in a slot is expected to be returned to players. For example, if $100 are deposited in a slot, on average, the players who played on it will receive about $90, while the casino will keep the other $10 (and thus make profit). However, not all $90 will be spread equally – if 10 players each invested $10 each into a slot, one player might get $10, two might get $15 and one might get $50, with the other six not getting anything. So ultimately whether you make your money back, win 5 times your investment or just lose everything all depends on chance. However, if you want to further give yourself a little bit of an edge, you should look for slots with a high RTP. Some casinos list the RTPs for each slot separately, others just have a certificate with the verified RTP value of all slots somewhere on the site (usually, but not necessarily, in the footer), and some sites don’t display it at all. I advise you to seek out that information and use it to your advantage!

Is There Any Advice You Can Give me?

Experiment! Unless you’re dead-set on playing one particular slot, try out everything that catches your eye, even if it is in demo mode. RTPs don’t change between demo mode and real money mode, so you can generally expect the frequency of your winnings to transfer over when you replace the virtual coins with real ones. Try to find a slot that you really like – a perfect combination between price of spin, RTP and frequency of winnings, and then just go nuts with it! We’ll keep our fingers crossed for you!