Pay Line

Line on a slot machine screen used to determine a winner..

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If the reel symbols stop in the positions crossed by the line, the player win a set amount of money.

The original slot machine had three reels and 1 pay line. This payline was a straight line horizontal across the center of the visible reel positions. If three of the same reel symbols lined up on the payline, the player would win money. If three Liberty Bell reel symbols lined up on the pay line, the player would win the grand prize ($5 in the days of the original Liberty Bell slot machine).

In the succeeding generations, the jackpots on slot machines have grown, as have the number of pay lines. Classic 3-reel slot machines still exist (and flourish) in both brick-and-mortar casinos and online casinos, but video slots are among the most popular games on the market due to their many added features. Multiple pay lines is one of the key features in the rise of video slots.

This started with 3 payline video slot machines. Instead of the player winning if the right symbols landed on the singular payline, there were three horizontal lines on the pay screen. These proved popular and video slots designers began to add more and more paylines with time. The 9 payline slot machine proved quite popular, and remains a favorite to this day. Eventually, 50 paylines and even 100 paylines were not unheard of.

To achieve these number of paylines, slot machines had to expand their number of reels from 3 to 5 and sometimes even more. Also, the horizontal payline was no longer enough. Diagonal paylines were included in the 9 pay line slot machine. These days, pay lines on the multiple payline slots twist and turn across the pay screen. It's sometimes hard to figure out how you won a particular spin, but these video slots give the player a lot of action, whether it pays off much or not.

One thing to remember about video slots and multiple paylines; to activate the maximum jackpot, players generally need to pay all the paylines on a video slots game. This means that on a 50 payline slot machine, the player needs to bet all 50 pay lines to activate the jackpot feature. On the positive side, video slots players don't have to deposit 5 coins to activate the maximum jackpot, but only 1 coin.