Many pokies go out of their way to advertise all of the different ways players can win. That’s what led to games that had 10, 20, 50 and even more paylines: the more ways players had to win, the more fun they had and the more money they would put in on every spin.
But there’s a limit to how far this idea could go with poker machines. At a certain point, players just wouldn’t be willing to continue to pay for more and more lines, especially on games that were fairly expensive to play to begin with.
That’s why pokies creators started to produce “all ways” machines. These games gave players more ways to win than ever, offering up hundreds of paylines for one low price.
On most poker machines, players are forced to pay for each payline they want to play. This can quickly get expensive: paying for 50 lines every spin adds up in a hurry.
The all ways format offers a way around this problem. Pokies that use this format allow players access to every possible winning combination for one set price. Most of these machines do offer a variety of bet sizes, but that will normally just change the size of the prizes offered (in some cases, there is a minimum bet to activate the all ways feature, and smaller bets only activate a limited number of paylines).
Once you’ve paid for the spin, you can win with any left-to-right combination that earns a prize, regardless of exactly where the symbols appear on each reel. These games are usually referred to by the number of possible winning combinations this gives the player.
The most common type of all ways machine is a 243 Ways game. These machines are five-reel pokies that display three symbols on each reel. That makes the number of possible winning combinations 3x3x3x3x3, or 243.
Many 243 Ways poker machines are among the most popular online casino games on the Internet today. Several manufacturers make such games, making them available at a large number of online pokies sites.
Examples of 243 Ways pokies include the Microgaming poker machine Immortal Romance, a game that successfully emulated the look and feel of Twilight by using a cast of characters to tell a story through the game (not to mention an original musical score). Many licensed slots like Jurassic Park and Terminator 2 also use the 243 Ways format.
While they’re not unheard of, 1,024 Ways games are much less common than the 243 Ways pokies. In order to get that many potential winning paylines on screen at once, a pokie requires five reels and four symbols showing on each reel, which adds to the complexity of any machine.
Still, there are a few games out there that offer this type of gameplay. For instance, both the Jekyll and Hyde machine and the Arctic Fortune game (both created by Microgaming) offer 1,024 ways for players to win.
Yes, pokies can go even further than 1,024 Ways! For proof, you only need to look at the fact that there are at least a couple online poker machines that offer more than triple that many ways to win.
Dolphin Coast is a 3,125 Ways poker machine, one that uses five symbol positions on each reel to exponentially increase the number of possible winning combinations. This sea-themed pokie was the first ever machine to offer so many ways to win, though more are slowly making their way to the market; Reel Rush by NetEnt is another game that has this format, and surely more will come in the future.
If the idea of playing with so many ways to win sounds like fun, there are now hundreds of “all ways” games out there to choose from. These pokies are a great alternative for those who don’t enjoy paying by the payline, and with so many different games available, getting on the all ways bandwagon is as easy as finding a machine that looks fun and starting to play.