Hold & Win & 4 Other Awesome Features Explained

Open any casino site. Look through their game collection. Most likely, 90% of it will be slots, the rest — everything else. But what’s the point in offering thousands of slot titles? Aren’t they all more or less the same? Not really. Today’s slots have many cool features that enrich the gameplay. Below are five popular ones. 

To get a better idea of how these work, you can use the demo mode at Spinbetter casino, which is completely free. Or, you can use their welcome free spins (if you are after real money wins).

1. Hold & Win

In some slots, you hit a special combination that triggers the Hold & Win feature. Certain symbols lock into place, and you get a series of respins.

Here’s how it works:

• A specific number of bonus or money symbols activates the Hold & Win feature.
• These symbols remain in place (they “hold”) while the rest of the reels respin.
• You typically start with a set number of respins, often three.
• If you land additional bonus symbols, they also lock in place (the respin count resets).
• The goal is to fill as many positions as possible with bonus symbols.
• If you fill the entire grid, you’ll win jackpot prizes.
• At the end of the feature, the values on the locked symbols are added up.

Hold & Win is one of the best features slots have. Here are some examples of titles where you find it:

• Wolf Power: Hold and Win (Playson)
• Dragon Pearls: Hold and Win (Booongo)
• Sun of Egypt 2 (Booongo)
• Buffalo Power: Hold and Win (Playson)
• Fortune Cash (Lightning Box).

2. Free Spins

In practically every casino, they give you free spins as a bonus. But they can also be in-built in some games. That is,

• You land Scatter symbols (typically more than three) and activate free spins (it’s always like this but, most commonly, it is).
• During it, the game can introduce multipliers, extra Wilds, or expanding symbols.
• In some slots, you retrigger free spins by landing more Scatter symbols.

Free spins are cool because they let you play for longer. You find them in

• Gonzo’s Quest (NetEnt)
• Immortal Romance (Microgaming)
• Mega Moolah (Microgaming).

3. Bonus Rounds

These are super popular. In fact, they are mini-games inside the regular game. Here’s what happens:

• Most commonly, you trigger bonus rounds by landing specific bonus symbols or a certain combination on the reels.
• When it starts, you might be prompted to pick from hidden prizes, spin a bonus wheel, or navigate through a mini-game.
• Very often, you’ll find higher payouts, multipliers, or special features not available in the base game.
• Some bonus rounds tie into the game’s theme, too.

Bonus rounds make the gameplay richer for sure. And, of course, they let you win more, too. Here are some cool titles that have this feature:

• Thunderstruck II (Microgaming)
• Jack and the Beanstalk (NetEnt)
• Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Megaways (Big Time Gaming).

4. Multipliers

These ones are about bigger wins, in the first place. Here’s the mechanics:

• Sometimes, multipliers are part of the base game, applied randomly or under certain conditions.
• More commonly, multipliers appear during free spins or bonus rounds.
• In some games, multipliers can stack.

And here are a few cool titles, where your win can be multiplied:

• Great Rhino Megaways (Pragmatic Play)
• Extra Chilli Megaways (Big Time Gaming)
• Legacy of Dead (Play’n GO).

5. Cascading Reels

In slot reviews, you may sometimes read about Avalanche or Tumbling Reels features. Don’t be confused, that’s the same thing. Cascading Reels replace winning symbols with new ones. In this manner, they can create multiple wins from a single spin. Here are the details:

• When you hit a win, the winning symbols disappear.
• New symbols fall into the empty spaces.
• This process can repeat multiple times if new winning combinations are formed.
• Some games increase a multiplier with each consecutive cascade.

The best thing about cascading reels is that a single spin can, in fact, lead to a series of wins. Here are titles where this is possible:

• Jammin’ Jars (Push Gaming)
• Reactoonz (Play’n GO)
• Temple Tumble Megaways (Relax Gaming).

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Very often, one game has several features. If so, you can play for quite a long with just one spin and can account for good wins, too.