One of the articles that got a bit of attention in recent weeks was my piece defining a tell, and a couple of examples of them.
Players were asking for other tells, and some shared with me examples of ones they’ve noticed. So, here are a couple more examples of slot machine tells, and if you know of others or would like to see more installments of this, let me know!
The Vault
One of the aspects of The Vault that gets people excited is when the claw appears above the reels. If it opens, it will shower down coins, signifying some sort of special scenario like a big win or a bonus.
However, it sometimes likes to “fakey shakey” by sending out the claw and then not opening up. And you can immediately tell based on what happens with the reels whether the claw will open up or not.
If the claw is going to open, the reels will keep spinning while the claw animation completes. But if the reels come to a stop while the claw is appearing, it will not open – the reels have already resolved the outcome of the spin so there is nothing to “tell” is coming at all!
Watch and Learn
Here is a video from King Jason Slots where the claw comes out multiple times; can you follow along with the tell to see if he gets it or not?
Fu Dai Lian Lian
The Aristocrat game is one that has a unique bonus triggering element. On the reels are red, green and purple coins. Each time one appears, it flies up into the bag, which then may do nothing, grow in size (just like the many pot games, which don’t give an indication of when a game is “due” to bonus), or the bag will spin around, indicating a bonus has been triggered.
Even more exciting, if multiple color coins appear, and the bags turn around, you can get a combined bonus which is stronger/more potentially lucrative than if only one bag turns around for a bonus.
The game has a subtle tell when the bag will do… something. The game’s monitors are surrounded by a light border which sits behind the monitor and projects down onto a surface. When a coin flies up to the bag, if the light border has a streak of white lights that flow from the bottom to the top in that light border behind the monitors, the bag will grow in size. But when a streak of gold lights behind the monitors appears, it will turn at least one of the bags. No light border, nothing to see here.
What’s your favorite slot machine tell? Share in the comments!
If you get all three coins the green red and purple are they supposed to give you the mega free spins
Hi Audrey! Getting all three coins can trigger the mega free spins, but it’s not a guaranteed trigger. Sometimes the bags won’t spin at all, and sometimes only some of the bags spin. But if you don’t get all three coins, you can’t get the Mega, so you do need them to show up.