Welcome to the Online Slots section, we provide detailed slot reviews with the ability to play for free. There are over 3,000 slots covered with titles from the best slot providers like NetEnt, Play ‘n GO and Big Time Gaming.
With over 15 years’ experience of playing slots online, we bring you the best slot games. There are in-depth reviews where we look at the theme, mechanics/game engine, bonus features, variance, RTP and max potential wins for an honest view.
Online-Slot.co.uk offers independent reviews with no bias – if a slot is bad, we will tell you. Here you’ll find an extensive collection of UK slots. Experienced player? Check out the new slots. Want to play the best games ever made? Then head to the most popular slots section. You’ll also find Megaways slots, branded slots and games by over 50 slot providers.
These are the latest slots to be released. This section is updated daily with dozens of new games to play each and every week. With more than 50 slot providers covered, you’ll always find a new slot game to play. You’ll also find exclusive slots that have gone live at a particular online casino before its general release date.
This is where you’ll find the most popular slots found anywhere online. They include cult favourites like NetEnt’s Starburst and Play ‘N Go’s Book of Dead. This section highlights the best online slots ever released and are go-to games for millions of slot players. If you’re ever stuck on which slot to play, this section is perfect for you.
Since Big Time Gaming released the Bonanza Megaways slot, the popularity of Megaways slots has exploded. As well a full Megaways slots list from various slot providers like Blueprint Gaming, iSoftBet and NetEnt, you’ll find a complete guide to Megaways including how they work, RTP, the best Megaways titles, bonus features they offer and casinos you can play them at.
With so many online slots on offer, playing a game with a familiar theme is sometimes your best choice. You have official branded slots based on the television shows (i.e. Game of Thrones and Narcos), movies/films (i.e. Planet of the Apes, Gladiator and Jurassic World), music (i.e. Guns ‘N Roses and Michael Jackson), superheroes (i.e. Suicide Squad and Justice League) and board games (i.e. Monopoly) amongst others.
New to playing slots online? In this guide, our team of experts explain how slots work including looking at what makes a slot game, how they work and the terminology used.
Before you fire up an online slot game, you should consider whether you can afford to play it. The stakes or bet is important as the minimum bet per spin may be out of your price range. Every slot game offers a minimum and maximum stake.
Whilst most players play using minimum stakes, you need to determine what you can afford to play with. Having £10 in total to play slots with and spinning at £1 per spin is not advisable as your bankroll will disappear pretty quickly. Start small and increase the stake if on a winning streak or you’ve built up substantial winnings.
Playing slots is meant to be fun so don’t increase your stake in order to chase losses. Keeping your stake amount low will also ensure your bankroll lasts as long as possible. Adjusting the minimum stake is simple to do too.
Many online slots have a default bet/stake which will be around the £1 or £2 a spin mark. Make sure you change the stake to suit your pocket before you start spinning. If you don’t, you could realize after a few spins that your bankroll is gone or seriously depleted.
Newer slot games offer a Feature Buy. Known as Bonus Buy, you can enter the main bonus feature (normally the free spins) by paying a certain amount. In most cases, it’s 100 x your total stake. Whilst this can come in handy if the bigger payouts are available in the feature, it’s not permitted in the UK due to regulations set out by the Gambling Commission.
A common function is Autoplay. This allows you to spin the reels automatically. Available on most games nowadays, you can set between 10 and 100 autospins normally. The spins just play out without you having to press the button. You can also customise the Autoplay function in a number of ways. This allows you to play more responsibly. They are:
| Number of Autospins | normally between 10 and 100 |
| Balance increase | autoplay stops if you win a certain amount (so you can withdraw winnings) |
| Balance decrease | autoplay stops if you lose a certain amount (so you don’t lose more) |
| Stop on feature trigger | autoplay ceases when you trigger the bonus feature |
| On any win | autoplay stops on any winning combination |
| On a single win exceeding | if you hit an amount (like 50 x stake), you can stop it |
All slots will have a settings section. This allows you to customise your playing experience further via a number of ways:
| Quick/Turbo Mode | you can speed up the speed of spins |
| Sound Effects | play with or without sound effects |
| Soundtrack | play with or without a backing track/music |
| Spacebar Spin | spin the reels by using the spacebar key on laptop/PC |
| Graphics quality | use the best possible or low quality graphics depending on internet speed |
A reel is a vertical position on the game which spins and contains symbols. A classic slot has 3 reels and 1 payline. Video slots as they are known normally come with 5 reels whilst more complex slots can have a lot more.
If you take a 5 reel slot game, you will see 5 vertical positions on the game. Each position (or reel), will contain a certain number of symbols.
A payline is the number of ways you can win on a slot game. If you take the example of a 3 reel, 1 payline slot, you can form a winning combination by landing matching symbols across the single payline. With 5 reel slots, there can be 1000s of paylines. It all depends on how many reels appear on each reel.
If that 5 reel game has 10 paylines, it means there are 10 opportunities to land a winning combination. The more matching symbols across the reels, the bigger the payout. Winning combos are normally formed when you get 3 or more matching symbols across a payline, beginning from reel 1.
If you like a classic 6 reel Megaways slot, between 2 and 7 symbols can appear on each reel. Seeing 7 symbols per reel will result in the maximum number of ways to win which is 117,649.
On the reels, you will see a certain number of symbols. Getting a certain combination of symbols will result in a win. In classic slots found in Las Vegas for example, symbols include fruits like cherries, plums and lemons. Modern video slots have various types of symbols to match the slot’s theme and graphics.
Many casino slots do have royals or card fillers. These comprise of A, K, Q, J, 10 and 9 royals or diamonds, spades, clubs and hearts. Whilst they feature in a lot of games, the graphics and themes are more expressive meaning symbols are customised to the particular slot. If you take NetEnt’s Dead or Alive II slot, all symbols have a Wild West feel to them.
There are also wild symbols which can fill in for any other symbol or act like a joker. If you were to get a lemon symbol on reels 1 and 3 with a wild on reel 2, the wild would act like a lemon giving you a 3 of a kind win. This is why wild symbols are very important. However, wilds normally substitute/replace all symbols except scatters or bonus symbols.
How the reels and paylines reward you depends on a lot on the slot’s engine or mechanic. In a classic 5×3 setup with 10 paylines, you will have 5 reels with 3 symbols on each. You will need to land matching symbols from left to right on any of the 10 paylines.
If the slot is an all ways slot, it will have 5 reels and 3 rows but will offer 243 ways to win. This is because matching symbols can land on adjacent reels rather than across paylines. Adjacent reels meaning getting matching symbols on successive reels – i.e. on reels 1, 2 and 3.
Some slots use win both ways pays. This means that winning combinations can start from reel 5 as well as reel 1. The win both ways engine applies in the popular Starburst slot from NetEnt. If you were to get 5 matching symbols across the middle of the screen, you’d benefit from double payouts as you began a win from reel 1 and 5.
Another popular term of scatter pays. This means symbols will pay out even if they don’t land on adjacent reels. Many scatter symbols (the ones that trigger the bonus features usually) will pay in any position across any reel. This means you can land a scatter on reels 1, 3 and 4 and get a 3 of a kind win instead of the usual 1, 2 and 3 reels.
A hugely popular mechanic in the last few years is the Megaways engine from Big Time Gaming. As mentioned above, a Megaways slot typically has 6 reels but every reel can have between 2 and 7 symbols randomly on each spin. The more symbols per reel, the more ways to win.
Touched on briefly above, wild symbols are the most important kind in modern slot games. Wilds are like jokers in a deck of cards. They replace or substitute for normal symbols to help your comprise winning combinations. If you were to get 2 matching symbols on reels 1 and 2 as well as a wild symbol on reel 3, the wild would act as the matching symbols to give you a 3 of a kind winning combination.
Whilst they perform substituting duties, wild symbols have evolved in recent years. With many types of wild symbols now featuring in online slots, they can give you so much more than just a winning combination. Here are the most common types of wilds you can expect:
Another popular type of symbol found in an online slot is the scatter symbol. A scatter is a special symbol that appears along with regular symbols and wilds. A scatter symbol can be referred to as a bonus symbol or a free spins symbol. This clearly indicated what the purpose of the scatter is.
Acting independently normally, 2 or more scatters will result in a winning combination. However, landing 3 scatters or more normally will trigger bonus features. In some online slots, scatters act as both a trigger for a bonus feature as well as a wild symbol. This is the case in Play ‘n GO’s Book of Dead slot where the Book of Dead is both the scatter and wild symbol.
More importantly, the scatter is used to activate a bonus feature where a slot’s bigger payouts are up for grabs. The more scatters you land, the more free spins you’ll typically play with in the Free Spins feature.
Every online slot is different in terms of scatter requirements. Some will require you to get 3 or more anywhere on the reels whilst others will require you to land 3 scatters on reels 1, 3 and 5. You can see how many scatters, and where they need to appear, in the slot’s paytable (more on this below).
Most online slots come with bonus features or bonus rounds. These are games within the slot that give you more opportunities to win. With so many variations, the most common feature is free spins whilst you’ll find respins, pick me style games and jackpot rounds.
In order to trigger these bonus features, you will need a certain amount of scatter, bonus or free spins symbols. Other slots require you to get a certain number of consecutive winning spins or to land wilds on specific reels. Find out what you need to unlock a bonus feature is found in a game’s paytable.
They are many bonus feature variations available. Here are the most commonly found in online slots:
Slot providers are always trying to stand out a create a unique experience for players. This is why a free spins feature can incorporate other features like multiplier wilds, respins, avalanche reels and jackpots for example. The possibilities and combinations are endless making online slots an attractive and enticing proposition for players.
To find out all the elements that make an online slot, you’ll find a paytable or rules section. This normally is found by clicking on an ‘i’, ‘Info’, ‘Paytable’ or ‘?’ button on the slot. This will then display all the rules, the number of reels and paylines, the bonus features, symbols, payouts and RTP of a particular slot game.
In the paytable, you can find out exactly what a particular symbol pays or how many free spins you’ll play with when you trigger the Free Spins feature.
Now you’ve learned what a slot game consists of and what you should consider when playing, there are important slot features to take into account when playing slots online. In this section, we look at Return to Player % (RTP) and variance/volatility.
What is the Return to Player rate? Also known as RTP, this is the % given back to players from a certain online slot. All casino games have a house edge or margin. The RTP is what is won back. Here’s an example of how RTP works for an online slot:
You may ask how the RTP rate affects your gameplay. Well, it’s significant. If an online slot has a 97% RTP vs one that has a 90% RTP, on average you will win back 7% more from the 97% RTP slot game. These numbers are generic and don’t necessarily apply to your individual session.
The RTP is calculated on a slot game over millions or billions of spins. This means you may lose on every spin but over the course of a slot’s cycle (normally 1 year), it will pay out the advertised RTP rate. You may be the lucky player who wins but others will lose in order to give out the precalculated RTP rate.
As with all casino games, whether you win or lose is down to luck. If an online slot game paid out all the time, the online casino would lose and the game would be discontinued.
Playing slots online is more advantageous than playing at an actual casino as the RTP % is higher. The RTP for a land-based slot is around the 70% mark on average whilst it’s just below 96% online. That’s a massive margin/house edge in the casino’s favour. So playing IGT’s Cleopatra slot in Las Vegas will on average pay between 20-25% less than playing it online.
Another thing to consider is that the same online slot can have different RTP rates. Providers like Play ‘n GO have 5 different RTP settings for each of their slot games. Make sure you check the RTP for the game you’re playing so you know where you stand. Fortunately, UK slots tend to have the higher RTP rates. As per the UK Gambling Commission, slot machines must make information available about their category, % RTP and whether they are compensated or random.
The RTP needs to be considered for progressive jackpot slots. Part of what you wager will go towards the progressive jackpots meaning the RTP for the actual game (not the jackpot element) is much lower than most online slots. On average between 1 and 8% will go towards the jackpot(s).
Want to find slots with the highest return to player rates? Check out our best RTP slots section which highlights the top 5 and goes into more much details about RTP.
Slots variance is the risk involved from an online slot game. You’ll hear the term ‘high variance slot’ or ‘low variance slot’ for example. Slot variance is also known as slot volatility. The variance of a slot will affect the gameplay as well as your potential payouts as it contributes to the frequency of winning combinations.
If you play a high variance online slot, you shouldn’t expect many winning combinations. The ones you do get will be smaller in nature. One big win though will compensate for your losses and could give you returns that are substantial.
The variance you prefer depends on your personal preferences as you might opt for a high risk, high reward strategy in the hope of winning big. If you want to maximise your bankroll, a low or medium variance game might be better suited. Here are definitions of a low, medium and high variance slot:
Now you’ve learned about how an online slot works and what you need to consider, you then need to decide on the type of slot game you want to play. There are various slot types to choose from with the following the most commonly found:
The online slots you see are made by slot providers or developers. These are companies who produce slot games basically. With thousands of online slots to choose from, there are over 100 slot developers that are well-known with more launching all the time.
At Online-Slot.co.uk, we provide reviews of slots from over 50 providers. With new slots available daily, the big providers release new titles on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. The most popular providers include:
We at Online-Slot.co.uk provide detailed slot reviews. Our aim is to provide an in-depth look at all aspects of a slot game so you can play the game that’s right for you. Here’s what we look for:
Playing slots online is what we all love. However, would you buy a car without taking it for a test drive? At Online-Slot.co.uk, we give users the ability to play slots for free. This allows users to sample the slots before playing for real money and get a feel for how the game works.
You can see the graphics and animations, try the bonus features and make your mind up before you play at an online casino of your choice. Just spin away until you’re happy to go and play at our recommended casinos.
In the UK, the Gambling Commission requires that players verify their age before playing a slot for free or for real money. This means that portals like Online-Slot.co.uk add age verification to all slots.
Being responsible, Online-Slot.co.uk was the first site to implement age verification in the UK. We teamed up with VeriMe to do this and the process couldn’t be simpler:
| Step 1 | Enter your mobile number on the screen |
| Step 2 | Reply to the text message with ‘VERIFY’ |
| Step 3 | Wait a few seconds + the free play version will load |
This process is free and only needs to be done once. If you are prompted to enter your mobile number again, enter it and the slot demo will load automatically.
Online slots nowadays are available to play across multiple devices including laptops, PCs, smartphones and tablets. With the rise of the use of mobile phones, all slot games are mobile slots meaning they can be played on a range of handheld devices that use iOS, Android or Windows operating systems.
Some slot providers like ELK Studios are mobile-first meaning they create slot games with mobile users as their priority. Developer 4theplayer has taken things further with the creation of Portrait Mode. This allows players to view the slot in portrait mode on their mobile and occupy 60% of the screen rather than the average 20%.
All slots found here at Online-Slot.co.uk can be played on mobiles and tablets. The demo versions are also multi-device.
With online slots being the most popular to play at online casinos, the latter offer promotions and offers for their players. The rise of no deposit slots in the UK has been evident in recent years.
Casinos such as LeoVegas and Betfair give away no deposit bonuses or free spins to use on popular online slots. In most casinos, no deposit slots include NetEnt’s Starburst or Play ‘n GO’s Book of Dead.
Online casinos offer bonuses to new and existing players. They are technically slots bonuses because wagering from slot games contribute 100%. Other casino games like blackjack and roulette don’t count towards the wagering or contribute just 5% or 10%.
As slots are the most popular casino games and have a low RTP than the likes of blackjack, they are permitted for online casino bonuses. Slots with high RTP rates are normally excluded from wagering – such as Thunderkick’s 1429 Uncharted Seas that has 98.5% RTP. Always read the Terms & Conditions of a welcome bonus prior to playing. Our detailed casino reviews has all this information by the way.
Can you win money playing online slots?
Yes. Slot games are down to pure luck as they use random number generators. You can land a win by seeing matching symbols across a payline. Whether you win or not is down to chance at this given spin. Check out our How to Play Slots Online section which explains how slots work in detail.
What are the best online slots to play?
The best slots to play is down to your personal preferences. Slots have different number of reels, paylines, themes, bonus features, variance and other factors. You can check out the most popular slots available here at Online-Slot.co.uk.
Can I play free online slots?
Here at Online-Slot.co.uk, there are free slots demos available meaning you can play the games before playing for real money at a chosen casino. With over 3,000 slots to play free available, check out the latest slots you can try for free.
Are online slots rigged?
The short answer is no. That’s if you play slots that are regulated and licensed. We only list online slots from reputable providers that have various operating licenses and deploy random number generators. This ensures fairness and transparency. Online slots have an RTP rate which is normally 95%. This means the casino has a house edge or margin of 5%. To find out more, check out the slots RTP section.
