Slots Adventures

well, after my “oh so close” showing in the last tournament, i got an email from English Harbour. apparently they tossed a couple of bonus bucks into my account again. but, when i checked at the casino, there wasn’t anything in there. not that i’m complaining. i took all my bonus money to the video pokers and turned it into real cash a few days ago.

anyway, while i was there i saw the new tourney opening. this one is on the PayDay slot machine.

this slot is also an older one. i thought while i’m here, i should play enough to “qualify” for the tournament, and then maybe come back later and do some playing when i have more time.

while taking my warm up spins, i decided to at least bet $5 because if i hit, i wanted it to count for something. so, that’s what i did, and this happened . . .

i hit a nice winner. i took the screenshot while the credits were racking up!

that put me right into the top spots. i should have been playing $10 a coin!

oh well, gotta run, but just wanted to post a bit before i head out. things are looking up, i’ve been hitting a lot at these tournaments, which makes them even more fun.

we’ll see if my luck holds up, i may have lost my chance to get right into the top spot by “only” playing $5 coins. oh well, live and learn.

just for a little something to do this AM i checked in at English Harbour again. and, sure enough, they have a slot tourney taking place. i was expecting that, to be honest.

the tourney happening at the moment is the “Flamin Sevens Weekend” taking place on the Flaming 777’s Machine. Boy is it an old-time slot game. at least in the online casino world. wait, i have a screenshot of it . . .

it doesn’t seem to take up the whole screen like modern slots do. instead it looks like a slot machine, on your computer screen. this isn’t my favorite type of presentation for a game.

and, you can tell it’s old because there is no autoplay option on it. i’ll admit, sometimes i hit autospin for like 250 spins, and head to the bathroom or something. but, even when i want to sit and watch the wheels closely, i like to autospin for maybe 5 or 10 spins at a time. it cuts down on having to push that button over, and over, and over again.

the reels are all 7’s of one sort or another. red 7’s, White 7’s, Yellow 7’s, blue 7’s, and multi-colored wild 7’s.

the game is a two coin slot, with coins sizes that run from a dime up to $10. if you look at the payout table, the top prize is worth more than twice as much when you play 2 coins, so i’m playing max bet on every spin. the jackpot on one coin is 1,500. on a spin where you wager two coins, it’s 4,000.

even though there is a handle on the right hand side of the machine, pressing it doesn’t spin the reels. i think if it did, that would have been a nice touch.

the game shows how much money you have in it in the form of credits. they’re lit up in a digital clock-like display, along with the number of coins you’re wagering, and both a win and payout total.

when you hit a winner, the machine counts it up for you instead of just putting the whole amount immediately into your credit balance. on a small winner, like 10 credits, it takes maybe a second. on a larger winner, like the 160 i won for landing three red sevens, it takes a bit longer. long enough to notice that something’s happening and you can’t just spin again right away. but, it is a pleasant wait 

after 100 spins, i’m coming to like the old-school feel of this game. it’s a nice change of pace.

as for the tournament . . .
the prizes are $500 in bonus money, and $135 so far in cash. all of it is top-loaded, so you need to be in the top 14 spots to qualify. i’m not, even though i’m ahead of where i started in the morning.

this one ends on the 18th, and in case i forgot to mention, it’s a freeroll. no entry fee to get into the tourney.

wow, i’m losing track of these slot tournaments. i log in tonight, and find out that i’ve placed in another. the bonus money is in my account, so that’s sweet. and, there are a couple of more tournaments running.

there is one running on the Black Gold Rush slot. you start with $1,000 in money, which is up from the $600 the first tournaments started you with. so, it looks like if you’re willing to gamble, there’s a little more padding in your bankroll. it can kind of help you through the swings.

payouts for this tournament include bonus money, ahem, $1,000 in bonus money. and also real money, $235 plus rebuys. that makes this one of the bigger tourneys they’ve held so far.

it’s kindof fun being here at the start of all this. well, that being said, off to describe the slot involved in this tourney.

The Black Gold Rush Slot Machine at English Harbour . . .

It’s a classic slot game. Three reels, one payline that goes right across the middle.

The theme of the slot is Texas Oil, with oil rigs, cowboy hats, oil barrels, and symbols the shape of the state of texas on the reels. there is a doubling-wild symbol, the drops of oil.

It’s a three coin slot, and the coin size is adjustable. So you can wager quarters, dollars, etc. depending upon your mood and bankroll.

you can see from the screenshot that i started out in roughly 71st place. i’m nearly 1,000 spins into the night, and i’m down $4, putting me in 80th place.

the payout chart awards you 4x as much for the jackpot when playing 3 coins as it does when you’re playing one coin, so i’ve been playing 3 coins at a quarter coin size, hoping to land just a couple winners in a row to get ahead a little tonight.

so far no luck, but the tourney is far from over.

The Island Hopper slot game is another one of the machines you can find at English Harbour, or probably any of the OddsOn/Vegas Technology driven casinos, like SuperSlots, Silver Dollar, or Caribbean Gold.

There are a handful of symbols on the machine, including bars (single, double, and triple), blue 7’s, planes and “gold wings”, like those badges or medals you’d see on a pilot.

There are also a handful of symbols that aren’t involved in any winning combinations. On the first reel you’ll find the “SuperSlots” symbol, the middle reel has “English Harbour” symbols on it, and the far right reel has symbols for the “Silver Dolllar” online casino. While pretty, none of these are worth a thing. Even if you land three “casino” symbols in a row.

Speaking of landing winners, this is a classic slot, in the sense that the only place you can land a winner is right across the middle of the three reels.

You can play up to three coins at a time, and of course vary the size of those coins. i took a good look at the payouts table, and most of the payouts are completely unaffected by the number of coins you are wagering. and, that’s a lot different from most slots.

on most slot games, if you play one coins, the low payout on the game might be one or two coins. let’s say it’s 2 coins. if you wager 2 coins, the low payout would increase to 4 coins. and if you wager 3 coins, the low payout increases to six coins. pretty much the low payout is 2 times the number of coins you wager.

on the island hoppers slot, the payouts are a set number. not a set formula. so on this game, low payout is 5 coins for three “any bars” across the center. if you wager 1 coin and land the “any bars” winner, you get 5 coins as a payout. if you wager 2 coins, and hit the “any bars” winner, you get . . . 5 coins. and if you wager 3 coins and hit the “any bars” winner, you get . . . 5 coins.

that’s a big difference!

the real payoff for wagering more coins is often found in the big winning combinations, the jackpot combos. looking at the payoffs for landing the big winner, 1 coin will get you 1,000. 2 coins will get you 1,500. hmmmm, i’m wagering twice as much, but when i win, i don’t win twice as much? that’s not looking like a good deal for me!

and if you bet max, and hit the jackpot winning combo, you’re wagering 3 coins and win 2,000. that’s betting 3x as much per spin, and only winning 2 times as much when you land the jackpot. ugh!

my piece of advice on this slot game goes against my usual rule of thumb for slot machine play.

Don’t Play Max Bet on the Island Hoppers Machine !

There’s no player advantage to it. in fact, it appears to take away your money more quickly!

i’ll be honest. i’m not liking this machine too much. i’ve gotten in over 500 spins, and i think that’s enough for me. i’m sitting in the top 20 in the tournament, so i may just let this ride and see where i finish in the end. especially since there’s another slot tourney available.

if i get any more playing in today, i’m sure it’ll be in that new tournament on the Malt Shop machine.

i figure since the reels are spinning on autospin, i’d take a bit of time and post up some stuff about the slot machine being used in this tournament. it’s the Luxury Liners Slot game, and it has three reels.

there’s only one payline, going right across the middle row, so that makes it a classic, or traditional slot game by my descriptions. the symbols include cherries, and 7’s, and bars, and you can’t get much more classic than that in the slot machine world.

there are other symbols you can use to land winning combinations, like the cruise ship. but, and this is something i find at English Harbour, but not really at a lot of the other online casinos, there are symbols on the reels that aren’t winners. on the Luxury Liners game, there is a superSlots symbol, and English Harbour symbol, and a SilverDollar symbol. you can land three of these across a payline, and it will get you nothing.

this Luxury Liners slot game has more possible winners than the other two machines i’ve played tournaments on here. here’s a snapshot of the slot, with the paytable built into it on the right:

as the wheels are spinning here, i’m planning on closing my session when i either drop into 50th place, or get to maybe 2,000 spins. tonight i have some things to attend to , so i’m not free to spin the night away!

the tournament is odd, it looks like i’ll be able to play well over a thousand spins, actually lose credits, and still end up in the money. that, you gotta love. of course there’s no guarantee that there won’t be two dozen new players that decide to quit as soon as the start playing, and stay ahead of me in the rankings. but, i just couldn’t see signing up and not getting some time in on the machine!

here’s some info on the game for this tourney. it called the Coral Reef, and it’s a classic slots game. well, for the most part. there are three reels, and for all but the special winning combinations, there is one payline right across the center.

if you happen to land some of the higher paying symbols across the diagonals, they pay as well. although i haven’t hit any of those yet.

there are a handful of symbols on the reels. shells are the sybol you’ll see most often. green shells on the first reel, red shells on the middle reel, and blue shells on the righ-hand reel. and, they’re worth nothing. you can land a screen full of shells, and it’s worthless.

the symbols that bring in the credits are the 7’s (land a 7 on the center payline, and you’re good). landing three 7’s on the center payline is fun, but doesn’t pay anything special. the coral reef symbol is also an automatic winner if it lands on the payline. and, it pays double what a 7 does.

that’s been most of my winners so far, a 7 or a coral reef on the payline.

there are some bars (single bars and double bars) and a squid symbol that you need to land a row of across the center payline to get a winner. hard to land, but they pay really well.

and the jackpot sized winners come when you land either of the “frequent winner” symbols, the 7’s and coral reefs, diagonally. in fact, these are the only diagonal winners, and activating these paylines costs more.

so, i’m playing four coins, and dropped the coins size down to $.25, so if a jackpot comes my way, i’ll have the payline activated and can reap the rewards.

since the tournament i’m playing in is on this machine, and i’ve gotten a thousand spins in, i thought i’d post up a little bit about the game. 

the game is a three reel slot.  there are three paylines on it, but you wouldn’t tell from the looks of it.  it has the look of a classic single payline slot.

the odd thing about it, it’s one of those slots that i’ve only found at OddsOn (or are they vegas-something now?) casinos.  there is a winning symbol, instead of a set of winning symbol combinations. 

one symbol is designated as a winner.  land that symbol, anywhere, on any payline, and you win.  it’s that simple. 

in the case of the Atomic Jackpot slot, the symbol is a beaker with what looks like some electons flying around it.  Atomic-themed stuff, makes sense.

what doesn’t make sense right away, is that you can land three of any other symbol, right across the center payline, and it’s worth nothing.  kindof makes you blink the first time or two that happens and no bells go off, or credits rack up.

i looked at the paylines of the slot, and landing the jackpot (which is three winning symbols in a line) doesn’t pay disproportionately more if you’ve bet the max.  so, this is one of those machines where it doesn’t matter if you play max bet or not.

oh, by the way, now you know the entire payout chart.  land less than three winning symbols on any payline, it a basic win.  land three winning symbols in a row on any payline, it’s a really big win.  ta-da, that’s all there is to it.

the coin sizes range from a dime, to $10 per coin.  i’ve been playing quarters.  habit i guess, no real thought went into that.

the game has Autoplay, woo-hoo!  you can set a couple of different things, like the time to take between spins (.25 for me), when to stop (at every winner, or when you go up or down so much with the bankroll, as two examples), and how many spins to take in an “auto-spin session” (between 5 and 500).  i love this feature.  it let me get 1,000 spins in tonight without having to push the spin button 1,000 times, and that i appreciate!

you can stop the machine when it’s in autospin mode, in case you have, or want to. 

all in all, i think these one-symbols (which is how i describe them to my wife) aren’t the most interesting of machines, but since i’m in a tournament, i’m having some extra fun.