Wild Symbols Explained

Wild Symbols in Slot Machines

These are a group of special symbols found in video slots and slot machine games. A win requires that you land a combination of three or more wild symbols on an active payline. Each slot game comes with an array of symbols, both special and regular, which makes landing three or more matching wilds on one pay line a challenge.

Nevertheless, wild symbols can replace any other symbol apart from scatters, which are special bonus symbols. Thus allowing punters to land winning combinations with more ease. There are different types of wilds which we’ll shortly give brief explanations on, but they all serve the same purpose of replacing all basic symbols.

Stacked wilds

As already established, the purpose of any wild is to replace basic wilds and can increase a player’s winning chances. They usually come in clusters of either 2, 3, 4 or 5 symbols. Depending on a slot game, they can cover any or only on selected reels. Most of the slots with wilds tend to be of high variance.

In some slots, stacked wilds will only appear exclusively the bonus features such as free spins. When these stacked wilds are combined using multipliers, the odds of a huge win are substantially increased. In some instances, huge wins with stacked wilds have the potential to pay out life-changing amounts of money. Stacked wilds and expanding wilds are mostly similar. The difference is that stacked wilds could have one wild symbol landing on a reel and then only expand to fill the tiles around it.

Stacked wilds can fill out a whole reel or only fill out the entire upper or lower section of a reel. Each slot game will differ in the rules about how stacked wilds are applied. The rules are, in most cases, found on each game’s paytable. To locate the paytable, look into a game’s interface and search for info/menu/paytable or something similar.

Sticky wilds

Sticky wilds only appear in some slots. Except for vintage-themed slot machine games, almost if not all modern titles come with wild symbols. The difference with these wilds is that they do not disappear after reels spin again.

As the name suggests, sticky wilds are symbols that remain on the playing grid for a few spins. Depending on the slot machine, most sticky wilds are often attached to another bonus feature. For instance, in some cases, they will feature for the entire duration of a free-spins session, while they may only stay for a cascading reels feature in other cases. The slot’s paytable menu will have all the details.

Shifting wilds

Shifting wilds are not standard but are favoured by many gamers because of their profitable nature. Some go as far as terming them ‘siblings to sticky wilds’. While sticky wilds stay on reels for sessions, shifting wilds move around the reels in one direction until they are off the reels. This means they can appear on the 5th reel and move to the first, or the other way around.

Expanding wilds

Expanding wilds are a feature of wild symbols that can expand to cover a whole reel or expand in a specific pattern stipulated by the software developer that created the game. More often than not, they are triggered randomly by another wild symbol already present on the reels. This means there isn’t much one can do to affect the feature. Although you are lucky enough to land the feature, it can help you form fantastic winning combinations and significantly increase the winning prize.

The disadvantage of wild symbols barely exists. Here is what players can appreciate about them, and the disadvantages we could find on them.