Online Slots Tips and Strategies | Playing Slot Machines on VPbet South Africa 2025

Slot Terminology

Before we go any further with how to play slots, we need to get some basic but common slot terminology out of the way.

RNG

Random Number Generator is how slots are operated. RNG ensures that each spin on a slot game is completely random and independent and therefore cannot be predetermined or fixed. Slot developers incorporate it into the game software and it is tested rigorously before a game is launched.

RTP

RTP Stands for Return to Player and gives a percentage return of what a player can expect to receive when they wager £100 on a slot game. The number is taken over a huge sample, and is not a guaranteed return for every player, but an overall average. The majority of slot games have an RTP of between 90% - 97%. The higher the RTP the higher the return, in theory.

Volatility

Volatility refers to how volatile a slot game can be in terms of how frequently it pays out. Low volatility slots provide regular steady payouts while high volatility slots can have long periods of little or no wins, but when they hit, they can drop a big valuable pay out.

Variance

Variance refers to the deviation of payouts from a slot machine. Low variance slots will pay within a small pay range, so you know what you’ll roughly get from bonus features and line hits. High variance slots have a much wider range of payouts where you could win as little as a few pounds to as high as thousands of pounds depending on the game.

Types Of Slots

Traditional Reel Slots

These types of slot games are the more old-school style of game that usually have three reels and one to three pay lines.

If you think of a retro one-arm bandit type of casino slot, with a glass window that reveals a small number of symbols on every spin.

Traditionally symbols include fruit, particularly cherries, (hence the name fruit machines), bells and the lucky number 7. In order to win, you have to line up the winning symbols on one of the paylines.

These slots are fixed in terms of their format. There are no video screens, extra graphics, varying features etc, they are static. Although sometimes they can involve one extra feature such as a physical wheel, which spins when triggered.

Modern Video Slots

Video slots are vastly different from the original versions. Using video technology, slots can be as dynamic, colourful, stimulating and varied as possible.

Many video slots work off 3 x 5 reels, but this can vary depending on the game. Plus paylines are usually anything from five to fifty lines, although some have many more.

Modern video slots come in every type of theme you can think of. Animals, dragons, mythology, sports, movies, superheroes, countries, and fishing are just a few examples.

Where video slots really stand out is in the audio/visual presentation and the huge range of different bonus features they offer. There is no limit to the number of features that games can have or what format they come in. Examples of bonus features can include hold and spins, wheel spins, expanding wilds, free games, sticky wilds, multiple screens etc.