These 5 Slot Machine Games Are the Most Fun (According to Players)

This post isn’t just about my opinion, but also those of players I’ve spoken with all over the United States.

Below I’ll help you decide on your next fun slot machine game journey by describing my own experience with each of these games. All of them are real-money slot machines and are popular and accessible to most Americans.

Are there other awesome licensed slots and penny slots? Of course. If you want to nominate your favorite for one of my categories, I’d love to hear about it. Drop me a comment.

Without further ado …

5 Fun Slot Machine Games – Have You Tried Them All?

So, you want to have more fun playing slots? Here, in no order, are the five slot machines players say are a blast.

The Most Fun Online Slot – 5 Wishes (Realtime Gaming)

I did a quick poll of my half-dozen or so buddies who play slots games online and they all said, “Something by RTG … maybe 5 Wishes.” That’s why it earned this spot. I hadn’t played the game myself until they recommended it. I understand where they’re coming from.

These guys don’t play one slot very long, but I think they wanted to show me the kind of game they enjoy playing. “More like this,” they’re saying.

Here’s what we like about the game:

5 Wishes plays fast. It has 50 pay lines, so the prizes come in decent ranges and with at least average volatility. Every spin is eligible for a free spin or a progressive tier prize, something you can’t say for every popular online slot game. It has an obvious theme that the creators spent some care forming into something palatable. It isn’t licensed, but it hits at a well-known property, making it familiar.

The 2,500-credit top prize (for a game with a $0.10 max credit size) seems achievable and desirable at the same time. 5 Wishes is also mobile-compatible, which is becoming an increasingly big deal as people ditch laptops and desktops altogether in favor of larger phone investments.

The Most Fun Licensed Slot – The Walking Dead (Aristocrat)

The show’s been on forever and still has a rabid following. But, even if you don’t still watch the show every week the way you used to, you may still be familiar enough with the property to enjoy playing Aristocrat’s game based on the franchise.

I haven’t been able to try the game yet myself, partly a testament to its popularity. The last time I saw it was in Connecticut at Foxwoods Resort, and there was a slot contest going on, hogging up all the Walking Dead machines. I’ll get to it eventually.

The max bet is $3 per spin, which puts it out of the reach of a lot of slots players, including myself. Having said that, I may not mind spending fifteen or twenty minutes playing at $3 a spin just to experience the game. I’m not much of a progressive chaser, but I always bet maximums.

The Most Fun Penny Slot – Rich Little Piggies (WMS)

Penny slot players are as particular as fans of any other denomination. They like frequent bonuses, lots of small wins, and a fun theme. I’ve known penny slots fans who picked a particular game because they liked a character the game featured. They’re a strange group, and I love them.

After talking to a few penny slot fans, the only slot that came up more than a couple of times was WMS Rich Little Piggies. It apparently also has a sequel that is gaining in popularity.

Rich Little Piggies wins the most fun penny slot because of its frequent bonus round. That’s really the only reason it kept coming up when I talked to slots fans. Rich Little Piggies is a 20-pay line game, with 5 reels and three rows of symbols.

You’re looking to line up five bonus symbols, which act as wild symbols and also trigger one of three possible bonuses – a 3x multiplier, more random wild symbols, or a combination of the two. This seems to happen about once every play session, or about twice an hour of heavy play, which is probably why penny slot fans enjoy playing it.

My biggest-ever win playing Rich Little Piggies was 8300 credits, or $83. The biggest-possible prizes, including multipliers, is 48,000 credits, or $480.

The Most Fun Progressive Slot – Megabucks (IGT)

Progressive slots are only fun because people enjoy chasing life-changing payouts. The millions (and tens of millions) sometimes on offer from the top box of a progressive slot’s jackpot monitor are extremely appealing to the type of people preconditioned to enjoy slot machines. Like any slots player, I myself enjoy pushing a few bucks in search of a progressive payout every now and then.

If the best and most popular feature of a slot machine is its progressive top prize, then the most fun progressive slot must by IGT’s Megabucks. Along with other big progressive slot brands, like Microgaming’s online Mega Moolah slot, Megabucks makes up a new generation of slots offering prizes that look a lot more like big multi-state lottery jackpots.

The top prize resets to $10 million, one of the largest minimum progressive jackpots in the U.S. industry.

You won’t find any bonus rounds, free spins rounds, or any other trappings of modern slots. This game is all about chasing the ever-growing top prize, with (hopefully) a few small and boring sustaining wins along the way to give you more chances at the millions.

Megabucks best-known payout was $39.7 million dollars for a single pull, paid out in a lump sum, minus state and federal taxes. After the tax man’s take, that player probably took home about $26.5 million, all from playing Megabucks at $100 per spin.

At the time of his win, the odds of spinning the right combo to trigger the progressive top prize were 1 in 16.7 million. Considering a person’s odds of being eaten by a shark in any given year are 1 in 7 million, it’s fair to say this slot player had a lucky pull.

The Most Fun Classic Slot – Sigma Derby (Sigma Game, Inc.)

It isn’t really a slot machine, not in the traditional sense. But it is a classic game. In fact, Sigma Derby is one of the last true classic games. Found in at least two places in Vegas, Sigma Derby is an old-fashioned mechanical game designed to attract slots players but with gameplay and payouts based on the rules of horse racing and a unique board featuring little plastic horses and trees and such.

If you’re interested in playing a classic 3-reel single pay line slot, you can find those all over the place. They’re all imitations. Gone are the days when Vegas casinos hosted actual vintage games, even just as a lark. Now, if you find a real classic slot, it’s behind plexiglass on display at some museum.

Sigma Derby pits five horses against each other on a track. Their progress along that trick is randomized, mechanically. Players make their bets by pushing specific buttons linked to different bet combos. Up to

Prizes are paid out according to the paytable on the machine, which I don’t have a picture of, and I can’t remember, but I think the top prize is 80 quarters. I do remember that the max bet is 20 quarters, or $5.

Wikipedia says the house edge is 10-20%, but I can’t confirm that.

On your next trip to Vegas, check out the Sigma Derby machine in the bar at D Las Vegas downtown. Playing a few rounds of Sigma Derby over drinks with friends is a unique and genuine old-school Vegas experience. I think there’s also a game on the Strip at the Bellagio, but it may have moved. If you know the game I’m talking about, let me know in the comments where it’s at.

Don’t Forget the Most Fun Slot Machine Apps!

Now more than ever, there are practically endless options available for playing slots on mobile. We’ve even rated the best slots apps here for your convenience.

It’s never been easier to pick and choose top games from top providers (and from the safety of your own home).

Want to Get Serious About Winning at Slots?

The slot you’ll have the most fun playing depends heavily on the kind of slot you want to play. If you’re a penny slot player, you may not appreciate the higher per-spin costs of a progressive slot game. On the other extreme, people look for frequent bonuses and big flashy themes and animations are probably not going to enjoy games available for small bet amounts.

Tailor your slot experience to the kind of games you enjoy and try the games on my list.

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