Paytable (Slots)

A paytable is a guide within a slot game that shows the payout amounts for matching different symbols and landing winning combinations. It can also provide information about the slot's features, special symbols and rules.

What is a Paytable in Slots?

A paytable shows how much can be won when different winning combinations land during a slot spin. It acts as a guide to the game's payouts, allowing players to understand how they can match symbols, how to form winning combinations and how much they can subsequently win.

Paytables all essentially do the same thing, but the figures can vary significantly between online slots. A traditional slot like Da Vinci's Diamonds might have a relatively simple paytable showing a handful of symbols and their payouts, while a more modern slot with several features and special symbols can include information on wilds, scatters, multipliers, bonus rounds and other features.

The payouts shown may also change depending on the stake and the rules of the game.

How Does a Slot Paytable Work?

A paytable is a simple list of all the symbols that can land on slot games, alongside the corresponding payouts if each symbol is included in a winning combination. Typically, three matching symbols are required to trigger a win, while higher payouts are often awarded when more matching symbols are included in the payline.

For example, a basic paytable could look like this:

This shows that if a player landed five diamond symbols in a winning combination, they would receive a payout of 50x the applicable stake. So if $1 is staked, five diamonds in the necessary order would trigger a $50 payout.

Exactly how symbols need to land depends on the game. Some slots use traditional paylines, while others use different dynamics such as megaways or cluster pays.

What Information Does a Slot Paytable Show?

Ultimately, the exact information a paytable shows varies from slot to slot, but it might include: 

• Symbol Values: How much each standard symbol can pay.
• Winning Combinations: The number of matching symbols required to produce different payouts.
• Wild Symbols: How wilds work and which symbols they can substitute for.
• Scatter Symbols: Any payouts or bonus features associated with scatter symbols.
• Bonus Features: Information about free spins, bonus rounds, respins or other features, including how to trigger them.
• Multipliers: Details of any multipliers that can increase a payout.
• Game Rules: How winning combinations are formed and paid.

It's therefore important to read the paytable of a slot before a session, so you can fully understand how the game works and how you can win.

Paytable vs. Payline - What's the Difference?

Paytables and paylines in slots are both closely related, but are two different things.

The paytable tells you information on symbols and how much each winning combination is worth, while a payline only shows the exact paths or patterns on which symbols must land to count as a win. 

Slot Paytable FAQs