In the past articles, I introduced line slots and their mathematical model. Besides, there is another slot type that is also very popular among players. This slot is a Way Game/Way Slot
The Limitation of Paylines in Line Slots
The biggest difference between line slots and way slots are way slot break the limitation of paylines
There is a very important component in line slots called Paylines. Whether symbols on paylines match the combinations decides what payouts players can get in each spin
At the very beginning, there is only one payline in the slot, which is a 3-1 or 5-1 slot. Then, some designers combine more than three slots together, which is the original 3-3 and 5-3 slots. In those slots, there are only 3 paylines which represent three combined slots. However, the 3-3 and 5-3 windows structure allow the designer to set more paylines
During the design of paylines, you just need to make sure you follow a few simple rules. Once the payline goes through all reels and only occupies one place on each reel, it is OK to use. Besides, there should not be two same paylines in one slot
Some designers prefer all paylines to go through the center point of the window, but it is more like a style, rather than a rules
However, along with the increase in paylines number, the game rule would be more and more complicated. However, for 5-3 slots, there could be 3^5 = 243 paylines, You can find that most line slots have 15 to 30 paylines
On the one hand, too many paylines make the rule book of slots seem to be complicated. On the other hand, too many paylines would limit the hit frequency of big wins. when payline numbers exceed 3^3 = 27, some combinations would have the same first three positions, and this will increase the payouts of small prizes. Meanwhile, the RTP remains the same, the big prize would be rarer than slots with fewer paylines
The Mechanism of Way Slots
In way slots, there are no paylines. Once there are targeted symbols on corresponding reels, they can match the combination
If there is more than one symbol on those matched reels, it can double or triple the payouts
When multiple combinations of one symbol are matched at the same time, only the highest payouts would be count
Also, considering there are no paylines in way slots, the payouts of way slots do not divide by the amounts of paylines but are a constant. Normally, it would be 100, but you can use other numbers too
Let us use some examples to show you how to calculate the payouts of way slots
e.g.1. We assume that combination {A,A,A,X_A,X_A}'s payout is 30, and the constant is 100. The payout of picture below is 30/100 = 0.3 BET
e.g.2. Same Paytable in e.g.1. The payout of picture below is 30/100 * 2 = 0.6 BET, because there are two symbols A on reel 2
e.g.3. Same paytable. The payout of picture below is 30/100 *2*3*2 = 3.6 BET, because there are two symbol A on reel 1 and reel 3, and there are three symbol A on reel 2
The Difference between Lines and Ways
The biggest difference between lines and ways is the paylines. There is one thing that is easy to confuse which is the difference between 243 paylines and 243 ways
Both of them allow players to win for consecutive symbols starting from the first column, regardless of where in the column the symbols appear, but they work in totally different ways
For example, there is a 5-3 243 paylines line slot and a 5-3 way slot. The constant of the way slot is 243. So, they divide the same numbers during payout calculation
If combination {A,A,A,A,X_A}'s payout is 100, When they get results like the picture below:
Way slot can get 100/243 Bet
Line slot can get 100/243 * 3 Bet because it matches 3 paylines
The difference could be bigger when the matched combination is {A,A,A,X_A,X_A}. The payout of line slots is 9 times bigger than the counterpart of way slots
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