Top NJ Online Slots Features

Check out our guided tour of 14 features you’re likely to find in various New Jersey online slots. Learn what these features are and how they work to help you choose your next online slot adventure.

Online slots are far more involved and exciting these days than simply lining up matching symbols, with the reel-based games now boasting an incredible array of special features to send that thrill factor through the roof! But what exactly are they all and how do they improve your gaming experience?

Join us for a guided tour of 14 different NJ online slots features, from expanding, sticky, and walking wilds to avalanches, free spins, and progressive jackpots, plus a whole lot more!

Expanding Wilds

One of the most common features found on online slots is the wild symbol. This special symbol, which is often designed to highlight the most prominent theme of the slot, can substitute for any other symbol in the game (usually with the exception of feature-triggering scatter symbols), increasing your chances of getting a winning line.

However, whereas your typical wild symbol tends to occupy a single position on the reel, Expanding Wilds grow to take up the entire reel — that is, all positions on that reel!

Let’s use the awesome Guns N’ Roses slot as an example:

Check out reel two and you’ll see the iconic Guns N’ Roses logo, which is the game’s wild symbol, usually taking up a single position on the reels. Whenever it lands, it will automatically expand, adding a flourish of ribbons, roses, and the silver pistol, both above and below the symbol. That means the entire reel is now one big wild symbol!

Discover Expanding Wilds for yourself by playing Guns N’ Roses at Golden Nugget.

Stacked Symbols

Many online slots add special effects to the symbols themselves as a way of turning up the thrill factor, as is the case with Stacked Symbols. On the reels of a typical slot, symbols are arranged in random positions, and your goal is to line up matching symbols along a payline to win. With Stacked Symbols, the reels can contain several of the same symbol in a row.

Let’s illustrate this with an example from the aptly named Butterfly Staxx:

Take a look at the right-most reel and you’ll see four butterfly symbols stacked, hence the name. This stack benefits your gameplay by increasing your chances of making up not only a winning line, but multiple winning lines!

In this particular game, landing a stack of butterflies triggers the respins feature, in which the stack moves to the first reel and the reels spin again, with any additional butterflies that appear remaining in place and triggering another respin.

Check out the Stacked Symbols of Butterfly Staxx at Virgin Casino.

Megaways

You’re probably familiar with the standard slot layout of three reels that has a set number of paylines, usually one to three. Five reel slots allow for even more paylines, so it’s not uncommon to see as many as 50 paylines or more in these games. However, they all share the same characteristic in that the paylines are set. This is where the trademarked Megaways mechanism varies — not only are the paylines not set, they vary with each spin of the reels!

To help explain this, let’s check out the timeless TV game show-themed Wheel of Fortune Megaways slot:

The first thing to notice in this slot is the different sizes of the symbols. Some reels contain only two symbols, while others are carrying six. In fact, in this slot, each reel can display anything from two to seven symbols at once!

How does this affect paylines? Trying to stick set paylines on reels with variable symbol sizes would be a nightmare, so what the game developer, Big Time Gaming, did is get rid of set paylines altogether. What you have instead is a slot that pays out when you get matching symbols on consecutive reels, an example of which you’ll see in the image with the three highlighted blue Q symbols (can you spot the other one?).

What this means is that every time you spin the reels, a different number of symbols is going to display on each reel, resulting in a different number of possible ways to win (or just Ways). In fact, look above the reels and you’ll see that it says “3456 Megaways,” which means that on that particular spin, there were 3,456 ways to win!

In this Wheel of Fortune Megaways slot, not only do the maximum ways to win come in at a mind-blowing 117,649, that increases to an unbelievable 1,000,000 Ways in the Free Spins feature!

Take the Megaways mechanism for a spin by playing Wheel of Fortune Megaways at SugarHouse.

Progressive Jackpots

Many players love slots that offer big bucks, and the bucks don’t get much bigger than in Progressive Jackpots! But what exactly are they?

A Progressive Jackpot is a jackpot amount that can be won playing a slot game, usually by lining up the maximum number of matching symbols, though sometimes it can be triggered in other ways, such as through a feature. How this differs from a regular jackpot is in the fact that the jackpot amount grows as people play the slot, with a portion of played funds going toward the total.

A popular example is the Cleopatra MegaJackpots slot:

The progressive jackpot amount tends to be displayed somewhere prominent. In this case, it’s usually shown in the right part of the gold bar at the top.

Not only do these big money jackpots start at a healthy base value, they can also grow to astonishing amounts in a short space of time!

Try your luck with a few spins of the Cleopatra MegaJackpots slot at Unibet Casino.

Avalanches

Also known as Cascades, Tumbles, Tumbling Reels, or Tumbling Wins, Avalanches describe an effect that takes place after you land a winning line. Let’s look at this effect in more detail using the hugely popular slot Gonzo’s Quest as an example:

Your first hint that something is different here compared to other slots is how the symbols appear. Rather than spinning into view on reels, the symbols here fall into place from above as large stone blocks.

When you get a winning line, you’ll get your payout, as usual, but what happens then is the symbols that were part of that winning line disappear, which is what’s happening in the image above.

Rather than leaving holes, the symbol blocks above fall into place and new ones fall from the top to complete the wall again. This results in the possibility of creating another winning line!

In Gonzo’s Quest, each time you trigger an Avalanche, you win a multiplier, indicated when the number in the small panel at the top right of the “reels” goes up, resulting in much bigger win potential!

See the Avalanche feature in action by playing Gonzo’s Quest at Pala Casino.

Free Spins

Many slots are much more than just matching symbols to create winning lines, with today’s games boasting several special features that can be unlocked by doing certain things, or even at random. One such special feature is the Free Spins round, which can be found in many NJ online slots.

The popular game Raging Rhino features a Free Spins round, which in this case is triggered by finding three or more diamond symbols anywhere on the reels.

Depending on the number of scatter symbols (in this case the diamond symbol) that triggered the feature, you’ll be awarded a set number of free spins, which, as the name suggests, you don’t pay for the same way you would normal spins — they’re actually free!

As you quite often find during free spins features, landing additional scatter symbols on the reels, as in the image above, adds free spins to your total, which you can see in the box at the bottom left.

In Raging Rhino, the free spins feature also comes with added wild multipliers of 2x and 3x, further boosting your win potential!

Trigger the free spins feature in Raging Rhino at Harrah’s Casino.

Fixed Jackpots

Jackpot slots are indeed very popular, but it’s not just the progressive jackpot games that attract attention. Many slots carry Fixed Jackpots, which can be unlocked in different ways.

One such example is the trending 88 Fortunes slot shown here.

In the top right corner, you’ll see that this slot has four different fixed jackpots: Mini, Minor, Major, and Grand. The amounts of these jackpots vary with your bet size, which you can change to anything from 0.01x to 1x your stake at the bottom left, but the multiple of each jackpot stays the same, which is why it’s referred to as a fixed jackpot.

In 88 Fortunes, you can actually choose how many of these jackpots you want to play for by selecting from one to five Gold symbols at the left. For a chance at one of those jackpots, trigger the feature by finding two or more Fu Bat symbols, then see if you can match three jackpot amounts by choosing from the 12 coins.

Discover the fixed jackpots of 88 Fortunes at Caesars Casino.

Bonus Pick

Another feature that’s quite common in NJ online slots is the Bonus Pick. These are often given a really fun design based on the slot’s theme, as is nicely illustrated by the Bonus Game feature in Blood Suckers:

Triggered by finding three or more Bonus symbols on consecutive reels, Blood Suckers’ Bonus Game feature gives you 12 vampire coffins to choose from, each of which carries a prize if there’s a vampire inside. Here, you can carry on picking as long as you find vampires, giving you the potential to stack up quite a few prizes!

See if you can find the vampires in the Bonus Pick feature of Blood Suckers at Tropicana.

Win Both Ways

While the paylines of most online slots pay out in only one direction, usually left to right, there are actually slots that pay out in both directions: These are called Win Both Ways slots.

One fine example of a Win Both Ways slot is the ever-popular Starburst:

Take a look at the win that’s highlighted along payline 2. In a standard online slot that pays only from left to right, this would not be a winning line. It’s a winning line from right to left only in slots that have the Win Both Ways feature.

Win Both Ways slots increase your chances of winning by eliminating this directional requirement, making them even more exciting to play.

Try the Win Both Ways feature for yourself by playing Starburst at Borgata.

Sticky Wilds

Those symbol-substituting wilds come in many forms these days. One such interesting variant of the typical wild is the Sticky Wild, which, as the name suggests, remains on the screen during one or more respins or free spins.

Let’s take a look at the comic style Jack Hammer slot to see an example of Sticky Wilds:

This image illustrates the slot’s Sticky Wins feature, which means that when you get a win, the winning symbols are held in place while all other symbols spin again. Each time a new winning line is made, the new symbols also stick and another respin is triggered.

What makes this feature a Sticky Wild one, too, is when a wild is involved in the winning line, it is also held in place for the respin.

Other games feature sticky wilds in their free spins features, for example, where they can be held in place for the whole round.

Explore the Sticky Wilds in Jack Hammer at Betfair Casino.

Buy Feature

Special features such as free spins rounds can usually be triggered only by landing certain symbols on the reels, which means you have to wait for that to happen. However, in games that offer the Buy Feature option, you can actually access the special feature whenever you like!

Extra Chilli Megaways is a great example of an online slot with the Buy Feature option:

Take a look to the right of the reels of this vibrant slot and you’ll notice a section that’s labeled Feature Drop, with a green Buy button underneath. That is the Buy Feature option, which, when activated, gives you direct access to the Free Spins feature. As you can see, it carries a cost, but this can be reduced by finding gold BTG coins anywhere on the reels.

The Buy Feature option doesn’t affect your ability to play your way into the feature as usual, it just adds another route that you can opt for at your leisure!

Try the Buy Feature option in Extra Chilli Megaways at DraftKings Casino.

Multipliers

You don’t necessarily need to play a jackpot game for the chance to win big. Enlarged winnings can also be had by playing online slots with Multipliers.

Multipliers can be found in the base game, feature rounds, or both, and are used to increase your payline wins by the specified multiple.

In the following slot, Dragon Ways Multiplier, the multipliers appear in the free spins feature, Re-Life Spins, which is triggered by landing three gold Bonus symbols anywhere on the reels:

In this slot, you get three lives to start with, as indicated by the three golden coins to the left of the reels, with each free spin costing one life. If you manage to get a win after your free spin, your lives will be replenished and your win multiplier, as indicated to the right of the reels, will be increased by one.

As you can see, the multipliers in this game can go right up to 100x, giving you a lot of win potential!

Explore the multipliers in Dragon Ways Multiplier at 888 Casino.

Walking Wilds

So we’ve looked at Expanding Wilds and Sticky Wilds, but have you ever heard of Walking Wilds? As you may have gathered from the name, these wilds actually move across the reels, giving you additional chances to make up winning lines.

A good example of Walking Wilds can be found in Wilderland:

In the image above, you can see that the center row of symbols is highlighted. This is the Activation Zone. Land two wilds next to each other in this zone and they’ll turn into one of four Walking Wilds: the standard Walking Wild (W in the image), the Scatter Walking Wild (S in the image), x2 Walking Wild, which carries a 2x multiplier, and the Expanding Walking Wild, which expands to cover the entire reel.

What makes them “walking” wilds? At the start of each spin, the walking wilds will move one reel to the left until they “walk” off the reels altogether.

See if you can trigger all four walking wilds in Wilderland at Resorts Online Casino.

Respins

Another common feature of NJ online slots are the Respins, which are one or more additional (and free!) spins of the reels, often triggered by landing specific symbols.

Let’s take a look at the Respins feature in the Respin Rhino slot as an example:

Triggered by landing the same symbol in all positions on reels 1 and 5, the Respins feature turns all symbols on those reels into the gold rhino symbols, which are the highest paying symbols in the game, and locks them in place. You’ll start with three lives, with each respin costing you one life. Land a wild and it will expand to cover the entire reel, replenish your lives, and stay in place for all remaining respins!

Respins can also appear individually in the base game of slots, triggering when certain symbols appear, often in specific positions or orders.

Check out the Respins feature of Respin Rhino at Mohegan Sun Casino.

Feature Fabulous!

So you see, New Jersey online slots extend way beyond the classic “match symbols along paylines” format of yesteryear. These days, they’re bursting at the seams with an array of exciting features that have been designed to turn up not just the thrill factor but also your chances of winning.

See how many of these top NJ online slots features you come across in your next online gaming session!