Find the Best Online Casino to Play Real Money and Free Penny Slots
By John Isaac,Editor at online-gambling.com
John Isaac
Editor at online-gambling.com
Chances are also you’ve had a laugh at these old folks, perhaps because you believe they are wasting their time playing these games. However, this is not usually the case, at least speaking from experience.
Penny slot machines, though their name may suggest otherwise, aren’t as big of a waste of time as you’ve been made to believe. As a matter of fact, as far as risk and reward goes, few games at the casinos require you to risk less in order to win big. These games might not have the best odds or RTPs but they offer you an exceptional opportunity of making a lot of cash within a short period.
If you, like many of the other players who despise penny slot machines, would like to know how you can make such money within this ‘short time’, we’d like to invite you to join us on this page as we take you through everything about penny slots online. We’ve included a brief history of penny slots, included the different types that you can play, how to pick the best game, among many other useful information.
History of Penny Slots – How They’ve Evolved Overtime
Penny slot machines are those that are considered to have 3 reels, and 1 payline. In some cases, others would refer to them as ‘mechanical slot machines’ simply because you’d have to pull a lever to get the reels spinning. However, these types of penny slot machines are nonexistent nowadays and the term penny slot machines has borne a different meaning in itself.
It is a term that has expanded to encompass both offline and online slots that have a single payline and 3 reels. It may, in some other instances, refer to a game with these features in addition to a few bonus rounds and free spins and occasionally allows you to bet anywhere from 1 to 3 coins. This translates to a bet limit of between 5 cents up to a maximum of $1 (a penny).
All the listed characteristics were for the traditional penny slots, which existed during the pre-internet era. With the introduction of the internet, things changed and we saw a new crop of games – the penny slots online.
More Reels, More Pay Lines, More Fun
With the invention of the internet and advancement of technology, the classic penny slot machines were finally introduced online. This gave rise to the penny slots online, which featured more paylines, higher bet limits and more in-game features.
These slots required you to bet one coin per payline such that if you go for the maximum bet, all the paylines are activated. As such, should you land winning combinations on these lines, then you have yourself the jackpot. This led to a more personalized gaming experience as you could either choose to play a single coin on one payline or opt to play multiple paylines in order to improve your chances of winning big.
This type of slots were developed between 1999 and the early-mid 2000s and laid a good foundation for the modern day penny slots online.
Modern Day Penny Slots Online
The only limit to what modern day penny slots online can do is based on imagination of the designer and developer. Thanks to technology, designers can now come up with slots that offer diverse themes, several bonus rounds as well as second screen bonus games for extra jackpots.
As you play these games and manage to land a specific combination of reels, then you trigger bonus rounds. This could be anything from free spins, mystery journeys or a gamble game all designed to increase your base winnings.
Designers have also come up with interactive penny slots online that have a story running from the start to the end. You’ll assume the role of the main character and you’ll determine how this story unfolds by spinning the reels.
Types of Penny Slots Online
Penny slots online are categorized differently, mostly based on the number of features, paylines and reels they offer. In this section, we take a quick look at some of the most common types of penny slots online and what distinguishes them from each other.
3 Reel Penny Slots
These are penny slot games that are also commonly referred to as classic slots. The reason for this is pretty obvious, they mimic the original penny slot games in terms of either design, format or in-game features. Usually, they tend to include fruit symbols, bells, 7s and bars as their symbols. As for their format, they observe the basic 3 reel, 1 payline. And as you’d guess, their bet limits don’t exceed a penny – at least for most of them.
Multipayline Penny Slots
3 reel penny games tend to contain only a single payline. This simply means that if you land three similar symbols on the single line, you automatically win. These days, however, things are slightly different. Five reel penny slots have introduced games with multiple paylines. Initially, it used to be 3, 5, 9, 15, 20 or 25 paylines.
However, technology has made it possible for you to play on up to 243 or 1024 paylines in what is refered to as 243 ways of winning slots or 1024 ways of winning slots. Just recently, Pragmatic Play and Big Time Gaming have introduced the revolutionary 117649 Megaways slots. With these games, you can play with as little as a penny and still win millions thanks to the Megaways™ feature.
3D Penny Slots
To keep you interested in playing penny slots, software developers saw it wise to introduce 3D characters and narratives to their titles. With the advanced level of technology, this has been easier to not only achieve, but it has also introduced stiffer competition among designers. The result is pushing boundaries that nobody ever thought could be pushed before.
With 3D penny slots, you can now discover games that have animated cartoon characters, slot symbols that move and jump around as well as titles that are based off your favourite food salad.
Jackpot Penny Slots
From the sound of it, you already know what these slots are all about – they offer you incredible amounts of cash. There are several types of jackpot penny slots, but they are broadly categorized into flat/fixed and progressive jackpots. Flat jackpots are those that offer a fixed amount of wins, while progressive jackpots are those that have a prize amount that grows everytime someone plays the game.
A good example of a penny slots game with the progressive jackpot is Microgaming’s King Cashalot. It’s one of the oldest progressive slot game that you can play online and offers an excess of $1 million in payouts.
Penny Slots Online With Bonus Rounds and Free Spins
Not all slot games have bonus rounds and free spins, though they are features that the majority of games have. Free spins, as you can tell, are spins that awarded to you as part of a bonus game. They are usually triggered by landing three or more scatter symbols anywhere on an active payline. Bonus rounds are also triggered by landing the required bonus symbols on an active payline.
There are other penny slot machines that feature added characteristics such as shifting wilds, sticky wilds, expanding wilds among others. These in-game features increase your winning chances with every spin.
Big Bet Penny Slots
Suppose you are a high roller, you know, the type of player who wouldn’t mind spending a few extra monies to get the high reward but you still want to play penny slots. Does it mean that you can’t have a fair share of the fun?
Well, software developers such as Scientific Games have the solution for you! They do have their normal penny slots, but to make these games more appealing to the high rollers, they’ve incorporated interesting features such as the ‘Big Bets’ feature. It’s an optional feature that you can activate and deactivate anytime you feel like to increase your bet limit. This way, you can play the high stakes that you wish and consequently increase your winning chances.
So What Type of Penny Slot Machines Is Best Suited For You?
As we’ve already mentioned, there are different categories of penny slots, which results into thousands of games to pick from. Furthermore, each of these categories offers a variety in terms of how often/how much you can win. This means that you can have a totally different experience each time you are playing a game.
Furthermore, it’s worth noting that each slot game has a Random Number Generator software. This software is responsible for determining the game’s outcome and ensuring that it’s totally random and unpredictable. This rules out the possibility of you picking a game based on the fact that it pays out more often or is biased and you are more likely to win at it.
However though, you can analyze other aspects of the game to determine the game that best fits your needs. Here are some of the things you’ll have to consider:
- The game’s volatility: In the most basic definition, the slot’s volatility simply refers to how likely you are to win while playing a game. Penny slots with a high volatility will tend to pay out huge sums of cash once in a while, with medium-low payouts frequently. The opposite is true for the same. Therefore, if you have a high budget and searching for the next big win, this are the games that you should be playing online.
- The game’s RTP: RTP is an acronym for Return To Player Percentage. It’s a figure that’s usually expressed as a percentage in all slot games and used to indicate the expected return to player over a certain number of spins. Usually, this number of spins could be anything between 1 million and 10 million spins. As a rule of the thumb, games with high RTP values indicate that they offer better winning opportunities than those with low RTP values.
Traditionally, penny slot machines tend to have a fairly low RTP percentage and thus reward less as compared to their modern day penny slots online. It therefore means that you are better off playing these games online that playing them at the land based casinos.
- Your bankroll: This is the most important factor to guide you on the type of penny slot game to play. You cannot go for the big get penny slots when you have a constricted bankroll. The best would be to play the classic penny slots, which have a low bet limit
Mobile vs. Desktop Penny Slots
At the start of the new era of penny slots, we used to have the desktop penny slots. These were games that you could play on your PC either by downloading a software or through your PC’s browser (at that time, we only had internet explorer). These games were very popular and laid a foundation for the future development of penny slots.
Around 2010, the first mobile phone was ushered in. This in turn gave rise to the new crop of penny slot machines – those that you could play on your mobile device. Like the PC penny slots, you could play the mobile games either by downloading a mobile application to your device or simply using the available mobile browsers. The latter proved to be more popular mostly because they were less subject to virus attacks as compared to the former. To date, most people prefer playing the browser based mobile penny slots as they are more safe, convenient and easier to use.
Which Of The Two Categories Is The Best For You?
Having looked at these two categories of playing penny slots online, you are perhaps wondering, which one of the two is best for you? Well, if you find yourself wondering, you have a valid reason to.
With mobile phones becoming better in all aspects, more and more players prefer to play on their devices instead of the PC. But it doesn’t mean that they are more superior to the PC. In fact, both of them, as you’ll see below, have advantages and disadvantages.
They Are Different In Terms of How They Appear
When you play penny slots online through your PC and later switch to your mobile device you’ll be surprised. The appearance of the game on your PC is totally different from that of your smartphone. This difference results from the fact that the action has been packaged differently on the PC platform and mobile device. The latter tends to be squeezed in order to fit your device’s resolution. PCs on the other hand offer you a more immersive experience with unlimited graphics and resolution.
Distraction
Penny Slots on PCs are more distracted than when playing on the mobile device. As you play your favourite game on the PC, it’s easy for you to get distracted by other prospective penny slots all found on the same screen. This is because PCs tend to be overloaded with all sorts of games. As for smartphones, this is usually not a problem.
Extra Billing Services
If you choose to play at a mobile-first online casino, you can rest assured that in addition to the conventional payment options such as eWallets, debit/credit cards and others, there’s the unique SMS billing method. This very convenient feature lets you make payment using your airtime, but lacks in the PC platforms
Convenience
There’s no doubt that penny slots are more convenient to play when compared to their PC counterparts. You can quickly launch them on the go, and enjoy the same in-game features as the PC slots.
Special Features
This point has been causing a never ending debate, due to different reasons. However, as an experienced penny slots player, I’ll say that mobile penny slots online win this category. This is because these games come with multiple features that you won’t find on their PC counterparts. For instance, with the mobile penny slots, they can easily change resolution to adapt to your device’s screen size. There are games that even have a left hand feature, to enable left handed players to play and enjoy the game as the right handed people.
Access and Selection
Access and selection are some of the reasons why mobile penny slots have become very popular among players. Many online casinos pack a remarkable variety of penny slots games to keep you engaged for hours without a trace of monotony or boredom. They even have applications that give you access to exclusive games, which you can only access through the mobile application and not the PC.
Free to Play vs. Real Money Penny Slots Online
Free penny slots refer to those that you can play without having to spend any real money. These games are commonly available across all online casinos and they offer the same exact features as the real money penny slots.
Real money slots on the other hand are the exact opposite of the free penny slots. In order to play these games, you’ll have to wager real cash, which you’ll have to deposit to your casino account using the supported payment options at the casino.
What’s the difference between these two gaming modes? Which one is better and why?
The only difference is that you’ll be playing them in free or demo mode and you’ll only be winning virtual currency instead of real money. Otherwise, all the other game’s in-game features, bonus rounds, and other extras remain the same.
Of the two gaming modes, it’s usually advisable that you first go for the free to play mode before switching to real money. It doesn’t matter whether it’s your first time playing or you are an experienced players, as long as you are playing the game for the first time, free penny slots is the way to go. This helps you familiarize yourself with the game’s working mechanics such as volatility, bet limits, RTP and other features. Once you are familiar with everything, you can now plan your bankroll accordingly and start playing for real cash.
Bonuses for Penny Slots Online
The beauty of playing penny slots online is that you have multiple ways of winning. More than just scoping the elusive wins in these games, online casinos offer you a wide variety of bonuses and promotions, which we consider a win.
In this section, we are going to take you through multiple ways in which you can win besides landing the ‘hard to pin down’ wins. We will show you all the bonuses and promotions that you can expect to come across as you play penny slots online.
Welcome Bonus – This Is the First of Several Bonuses
As the name suggests, it’s aimed at welcoming you to the casino. It’s usually awarded as a form of deposit bonus (you deposit to receive it) and you can use it to play the penny slots after meeting the wagering requirements.
Reload Bonuses – Lets You Double Your Account Balance
Awarded once you’ve reloaded your account i.e., after you’ve made the first deposit to your account. It could be part of the welcome bonus or part of an on-going promotion at the casino. Reload bonuses tend to have friendlier wagering requirements and you can use the cash to play penny slots after meeting the wagering requirements.
Cashbacks – Consider This as Your Casino Insurance
We refer to this bonus as the casino insurance because it ensures that you are reimbursed for losing while playing the penny slots. The form of reimbursement can be in the form of cash back to your account or cash back, which you can use to play a selected number of games at the casino.
No Deposit Bonus – This Are A Little Extra On the House
As the name suggests, you don’t have to deposit anything in order to receive the no deposit bonus. All you need to do is sign up at the casino or participate in a given promotion to receive the bonus cash.
Penny Slots Free Spins
The last and most important bonus that directly relates to penny slots are the free spins. Through this, you get to receive a given number of free spins, which you can use to play the specified games listed in the promotion.
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There are hundreds of online casinos that you can visit in order to enjoy these bonuses or participate in these promotions. For you, it can be difficult to get the best offer, especially if you are a busy bee. But, you don’t always have to do the scouring in order to identify the best offers.
Thanks to us, you can get all the latest bonus and promotional offers straight to your inbox. We do the donkey work of scouring the internet, identifying the best penny slots deals and sending them to your inbox. All you need to do to stay up to date with all these offers is subscribe to our newsletter, free of any charges.
Popular Penny Slots Software Providers
The foundation of all the best penny slots online is their software and the quality of technology used in designing these games. Even though the popularity of any decent penny slot game would be the player and the online casinos that play it, the most important aspect of any penny slot game is its software and design team behind it.
Every software developer features a unique game portfolio, with others having games posted online as well as at the land based casinos. However, the majority of these providers put their exceptional, modern twists on the classic penny slots not forgetting to mention that they also develop totally new games. Top of the line security and cutting edge innovation have always been the driving forces behind these new changes.
And while we have more than 200 penny slots developers working round the clock to ensure that we have new titles popping up often, the following stand out in terms of innovation and product delivery.
NetEnt
Formerly known as Net Entertainment, this company is best known for its modern re-interpretation on movies, books, fairytales and even music bands beloved by slots players. The company offers a range of different-themed penny slots online for you to play across hundreds of online casinos. Worth mentioning also is the fact that NetEnt was the first software provider to have fully mobile optimized its penny slots online. Using the NetEnt One-Touch feature, you can easily enjoy all their offering on the go, from your device.
NetEnt has hundreds of games to offer you, but there are a few titles that stand out from the pack. Grab that elusive life-changing amount by playing Dazzle Me penny slot, boost your bankroll with Starburst slot and find your way through the Amazonian forest by playing titles such as Jungle Spirit: Call of the Wild, Gonzo’s Quest among many others.
Play’n Go
They may not be as old as NetEnt and other heavyweight in the industry but Play’n Go pack a punch. The software developer as earned its reputation over the years for consistently designing and developing titles that are memorable and feature their own kick in graphics and in-game features.
Play’n Go has over the years managed to develop penny slots such as Ace of Spades, Cats and Cash, Easter Eggs and Multifruit 81. And while they hardly recreate films, they do have titles that offer you diverse gameplay. Some of our favourite titles include Hugo, Hugo 2 and Hugo Goal.
Yggdrasil Gaming
Like Play’n Go, Yggdrasil Gaming is fairly new contender in the industry but has surpassed plenty of expectations since their invention in 2013. Staying ahead of the game and maintaining the high standards they’d set was a difficult task. However, Yggdrasil Gaming managed to retain a good reputation for itself in the market by developing slots with unmatched visuals, cinematic sound effects and interesting gameplay. This managed to captivate even the choosiest of players.
Their titles such as Doubles, Gem Rocks, Pumpkin Smash, and Sunny Shores are some of the penny slots that we highly recommend. There are other games such as Lucha Maniacs, Vikings go Berzerk Vikings Go to Hell and Vikings Go Wild that we can’t also shy off to recommend.
Microgaming
Microgaming is perhaps considered as the founding father of the online casino industry. At the start, the company focused mostly on powering online casinos. Gradually, they shifted their attention to developing penny slots and other casino games.
Like NetEnt, they have a mix and match of about everything. They do have penny slots as well as state of the art 3D slots adapted from books, films and various cultures. Some of the Microgaming free penny slots that we recommend include Age of Discovery, 5 Reel Drive, Bust the Bank and Cashapillar.
Microgaming also has several penny slots with progressive jackpots. Games that we recommend include Break da Bank, Break da Bank Again, and Wheel of Plenty.
Red Tiger Gaming
Red Tiger Gaming made a grand entrance to the already saturated just the other year. They launched in 2014 and in the 6 years that they’ve been in the industry, they’ve managed to change so much especially in the Asian and European casino industry. They are the company behind slots that feature mostly Asian themes, though it doesn’t mean they don’t have any penny slots. Om the contrary, they do offer a handful of titles, which include the likes of Arcade Bomb, Five Star Power Reels, and Spin Town.
What Are the Advantages of Playing Games From Different Providers
So why exactly is it recommended that you play games from multiple software providers? Here are some of the reasons.
Game Variety
Playing games from a different software provider once in a while will ensure that you have a wide variety to play. Whether it’s penny slots, modern slots or any other game for that matter, playing games developed by different software providers will undoubtedly open your eyes to different aesthetic schemes and features, which may pique your interest.
Payouts
Penny slots developed by different software companies have different payouts. If you take your time and weed through the huge selection of games at the casinos, you’ll be shocked to discover how some other games offer rewarding, high payouts accompanied by lucrative bonuses and features.
Game Design
Penny slots are a treasure trove of captivating designs. There are providers that offer their games in pure 3D format, while others – such as NetEnt – have designed virtual reality games.
Top Three Penny Slots That Will Tantalize You
Online casinos are thrilled to offer you a varied and entertaining penny slots selection at the comfort of your home. The superb range of games is powered by some of the best software developers, ensuring that everyone has something to pick from. And while there are thousands of such titles, we have tested and recommend the following games.
777 Slot
You are a few seconds away from one of the best classic themed penny slots from Real Time Gaming, a software developer that has been in the game for as long as designing and developing slots is concerned. 777 penny slot is a game with 3 reels, and features the classical Hold feature. This is accompanied by mind blowing payours that promise to award high win multipliers to the high bets placed.
Like most of the classic penny slots, 777 slot features 1 fixed payline. However, unlike these classic slots, it does come with a jackpot, which you can only activate after satisfying some rules. These rules include activating the Super Bet feature and winning 3 wild card symbols.
The Cards symbol plays the role of a wild symbol and substitutes for all the other symbols. For each symbol it substitutes, it subjects the payout for that win with a 3x multiplier. The highest multiplier you can get from this is set at 9x, which in turn awards you the jackpot.
Bonus Bingo Slot For The Old-Skol Player
Don’t mistaken this for your grandpa’s favourite bingo game. Bonus bingo penny slots online tweaks out and speeds out the traditional bingo game with a new, more exciting way to play and bonuses galore. This means that you’ll never have to wait for the other players and with the speed play feature in place, the action is as wild or mild as you fantasize it to be.
Bonus bingo penny slot has adopted the name for a reason – it has plenty of joker balls, bonus multipliers and an outstanding roll-of-the-dice bonus game that promises to award you up to 150x the bonus multiplier. At first glance, you’ll mistaken it for your typical bingo game, but once you’ve started playing it, you’ll surely agree with us that it’s not like your ordinary bingo game.
Sweet 16 Penny Slot
The team behind Sweet 16 slot didn’t quite expect that a candy-filled game could become so popular. However, its brave attempt has seen it experience unprecedented success. This is evident from the results that show players have been spinning the game’s reels on repeat since its launch.
Why? Sweet 16 penny slot has a unique system where any winning symbol(s) is morphed after it’s done awarding the pay. New symbols will also appear in morphed positions and can result into extra wins. This morphing will continue as long as winning combinations are formed. During this time, prize multiplier will accumulate for each successive win.
It’s a unique game that you can only experience its full features only after trying it out and you can do so by playing at some of the recommended online casinos.
Conclusion
Penny slots are similar to any other type of slot game that you’d find at an online casino. The only significant difference is that you can play these games for less cash on each spin. This makes these games suitable for players with a tight budget looking to have as much fun as possible. At the recommended online casinos, you can play free penny slots for as long as you want, sampling as many games in the process.
However, the only way that you can win real cash is by staking real money. So, once you are familiar with all the working mechanisms of the game, you can always switch from playing free penny slots to real money gaming.
Penny Slot Machines FAQs
1. Can You Win With Penny Slot Machines?
Yes, it’s possible to win as you play penny slots online. However, like the majority of the other online casino games, the odds are usually tipped in favour of the house. With a proper bankroll management plan, you can easily lower the house edge and increase your winning chances.
2. How Much Can One Win Playing Penny Slots?
There are a number of factors that affect how much you can win while playing penny slots online. These factors include but not limited to the penny slot machine that you pick, the amount of money that you stake, the number of paylines that you choose to activate as well as the game’s in-game bonus rounds.
3. How Often Can I Win As I Play Penny Slots Online?
This also depends on a number of factors but most importantly, the hit frequency of the slot game as well as the game’s volatility. Slots with a high hit frequency tend to pay out more than those with a low hit frequency. Most online slots developing companies will never disclose this information to their players, but NetEnt penny slots tend to have the information public.
As for the slot volatility, penny slots with high volatility won’t pay out more often than those with a low volatility. However, when they pay out, the winnings are usually worth the wait.
4. Is Playing Penny Slots Online The Best Way To Learn How To Play The High Stakes Online Slots?
Yes, this is the case. If you are interested in learning how to play real money slots, without spending much cash, then penny slot games are the best to start with. After all, you’ll only be sacrificing a few pennies at a go.
5. How Common Are Penny Slot Machines Online?
Because penny slot machines were very popular at the brick and mortar casinos, they tend to have a huge following. This in return has seen or forced online casinos to include all sorts of penny slot games online.
6. How Do I Play Free Penny Slots?
Playing free penny slots isn’t any different from playing the real money games. You just have to identify the game you’d like to play, fire it up and start spinning the reels.
7. How Do I Tell The Game’s Payouts?
All the information regarding payouts is usually located in the game’s ‘Paytable’, which you can either access by clicking on the settings button or the I button on the screen.