A payline is a fixed path across the reels that the game checks for matching symbols. A ways-to-win game pays for matching symbols on consecutive reels from the left, wherever they sit on those reels, so the count is the product of the symbol positions per reel. Cluster pays requires a minimum number of touching symbols anywhere on the grid. Pay-anywhere games simply count matching symbols on screen regardless of position. None of these rules tells you what a game returns over time.
On this page
- Payline example
- Wanted Dead or a Wild: 15 paylines, four published RTP versions, 12,500x maximum winSource 1
- Ways arithmetic
- Six reels of four symbols gives 4,096 ways, as published for Danger High VoltageSource 2
- Ways example
- Vampy Party: six reels, 3,600 ways, 96.00% RTP, 5,000x maximumSource 3
- Cluster minimum
- Reactoonz pays for clusters of five or more matching symbolsSource 4
- Pay-anywhere example
- Gates of Olympus 1000: 6x5 grid, eight or more symbols paying anywhere, 96.50% RTPSource 7
Three different answers to one question
Every slot has to answer the same question: what counts as a win? The three common answers are paylines, ways to win and cluster pays, and a fourth, pay-anywhere, is increasingly used alongside them.
They are not grades of quality. They are different rules for reading the same grid, and each one changes what "a win" looks like without saying anything about how much the game returns over time.
Paylines: fixed patterns across the reels
A payline is a defined path across the reels. The game checks only those paths; symbols that land elsewhere are ignored, however promising the screen looks.
Hacksaw Gaming's Wanted Dead or a Wild is a concrete example: the provider lists the game as having 15 paylines, alongside four published return to player versions of 96.38%, 94.55%, 92.33% and 88.42%, a volatility rating of 4 out of 5, and a maximum win of 12,500x1.
Two practical points follow from the payline model.
First, the number of lines is a design choice, not a measure of generosity. A 15-line game is not worse than a 25-line game, because the paytable is calibrated to the line count.
Second, the stake applies across the whole set of lines in modern games rather than per line, so the "cost per line" arithmetic that applied to older machines usually no longer does. The game's rules panel states which model is in use, and in Great Britain the rules and information that help a customer judge the likelihood of winning must be easily available before they commit to gamble6.
Ways to win: adjacency instead of patterns
A ways-to-win game drops the fixed paths. Instead, matching symbols pay when they land on consecutive reels, starting from the leftmost reel, wherever on those reels they appear.
The count is simple multiplication: the number of symbol positions on each reel, multiplied together.
- Five reels of three symbols gives 3 × 3 × 3 × 3 × 3 = 243 ways.
- Six reels of four symbols gives 4 × 4 × 4 × 4 × 4 × 4 = 4,096 ways, the figure Big Time Gaming publishes for Danger High Voltage2.
- Pragmatic Play's Vampy Party is described by its provider as a six-reel, 3,600 ways-to-win slot with a return to player of 96.00% and maximum wins of 5,000x3.
That last example is a useful corrective. A count of 3,600 is not a rounder, tidier version of 4,096; it simply reflects a different arrangement of symbol positions across the six reels.
Cluster pays: groups, not lines
Cluster pays abandons both lines and reel-by-reel adjacency. Wins are formed by groups of touching symbols anywhere on the grid, usually connected horizontally and vertically, and the game states a minimum cluster size.
Play'n GO describes Reactoonz as a grid slot in which you win by collecting a cluster of five or more matching aliens, released on 23 October 20174. NetEnt, which brought the Cluster Pays name to market with Aloha!, describes the mechanic as giving players the chance to increase payouts by growing the size of their cluster of winning symbols5.
Cluster games almost always pair the mechanic with removal and refill: winning symbols disappear, new ones drop in, and a single paid spin can resolve into several successive wins. lists the titles in our database that use the mechanic, and the cascading behaviour that usually accompanies it is covered in the slots explainer linked below.
Pay-anywhere: count the symbols, ignore the position
A fourth model has become common enough to deserve separating from cluster pays, because the two are frequently confused.
In a pay-anywhere or scatter-pays game, symbols do not need to touch at all. The game simply counts how many of a given symbol are on screen. Pragmatic Play's Gates of Olympus 1000 is set on a 6×5 grid and requires at least eight matching symbols, which pay anywhere on the screen, with a published return to player of 96.50% and a tumble feature that removes winning combinations and replaces them with new symbols falling from the top7.
The difference matters when reading a paytable. In a cluster game, eight symbols scattered across the grid in separate pairs pay nothing. In a pay-anywhere game, they pay.
How to read any of them in thirty seconds
The rules panel answers four questions, and they are the same four whatever the mechanic:
- What forms a win? A line, adjacency from the left, a touching group, or a count anywhere on screen.
- What is the minimum? Three on a line, five in a cluster, eight anywhere, and so on.
- Does the grid change? Variable reel heights, extra rows and removal-and-refill all alter the count mid-spin; variable reels explained covers that family.
- Which return to player version is running? Where a provider publishes several, the operator chooses one, and the information screen states which.
In Great Britain, that information is not optional. Operators must make the rules and an explanation of the likelihood of winning easily available before a customer commits to gamble6.
What none of these mechanics tell you
A win rule describes the geometry of a payout. It does not describe:
- The return. Compare the published return to player instead; our RTP guide explains what that figure is and is not.
- The rhythm. How often wins land and how large they can be is volatility, covered in slot volatility explained.
- The ceiling. The maximum win is a separate published figure, such as the 12,500x quoted for Wanted Dead or a Wild1 or the 5,000x quoted for Vampy Party3.
- The cost of a bonus round. Where a feature can be bought, that is a distinct decision with its own arithmetic.
Two games with identical win rules can behave completely differently, and two games with wildly different win rules can share the same designed return. The mechanic is the vocabulary of the game, not its economics.
The way KiraBet records reel counts, line counts and ways figures, and what we leave blank when a provider does not publish a number, is set out in our review methodology.
- Paylines
- Fixed patterns across a slot's reels along which matching symbols must land to form a win. The number of paylines, and whether they can be changed, is set by the game's rules.
- Ways to win
- A slot mechanic in which wins are formed by matching symbols on adjacent reels regardless of their row position. The number of ways is the count of possible symbol paths, such as 243 on a grid of five reels with three rows.
- Scatter
- A slot symbol that pays or triggers a feature wherever it lands, rather than needing to appear on a payline. The game's rules state how many scatters are needed and what they trigger.
- Tumble (cascading reels)
- A slot mechanic in which winning symbols are removed after a win and new symbols drop into their place, allowing further wins from the same paid spin.
Video slot 
Video slot 
Video slot