How to Play Pokies Online

The excitement surrounding pokies among Australian players is massive. These beloved games have won a place in the hearts of millions, making them a staple of entertainment nationwide. Every year, millions of new faces dive into the world of Australian pokies. If you are eager to join them, you have come to the right place. But beware—progressing with a proper plan and strategies is super important for long-term entertainment. 

So, in this piece, we will reveal everything we know about pokies, including how to play pokies online, some epic pokies strategies, understanding the fundamental guidelines, winning tactics, and much more. So keep reading!

How to play pokies online?

This is one of the most hyped questions looming on the Internet. Pokies are the go-to intro to many players who are just starting out with online gambling.

The objective of pokies is to spin the reel and match the symbols. At its core, the game is this simple. However, with modern titles coming from the top software providers, some games come flavoured with bonus features, extra rounds, and so on. But, no matter whether you are playing fancy pokies or classic fruit machines, understanding the basics is super important. Here are the things to look into: 

Choose a game you like: This might sound simple, but it helps a lot to spin something you actually enjoy. Thanks to the online casinos, today we have millions of options. We have walked out of the loop of traditional pokies with software providers coming with innovative and modern titles. There are now different versions of pokies, with different features, themes, and payouts. So, in this crowded market, choosing your favorite pokies games is super crucial. 

Set Your Bet: Before starting the game, the first step is selecting the size of your bet. In simple terms, it’s setting the amount of funds you want to put in a single spin. The minimum you can bet in a spin varies from game to game. While some games let you bet as low as $0.01, in some the bet size can be a bit higher. So, before making a move towards the game, make sure to set a bet size that suits your style and budget. Learning how to play pokies is easy but you need to be extra careful since you will bet with real money.

Spin the Reels: Once you have set the bet, now comes the main job: spin the reels. To start the reels, just click the spin button. Before stopping, the reels will spin for a brief time. Once the reels stop, the course of your game will be decided. A combination of symbols will appear on the payline. In some cases, the combination will directly pay you. However, in some games, the symbols will trigger bonus features or rounds.

Understand the Paytable: Every pokie game has a paytable that highlights the values of all the symbols and the guidelines for making winning combinations. So, to understand the game better and to stack up big winnings, you need to grasp the ins and outs of the paytable. 

Extra Features and Bonuses: Bonus features are the main differentiators between online pokies and land-based pokies. So, if you are curious about how to play pokies online like a pro, the best pokie strategy is to understand these bonus features. At several turns of the game, you may get a chance to trigger the bonus features, which can skyrocket your overall winnings. These can include bonus rounds that offer you the opportunity to win more prizes. Scatter symbols that can result in free spins and wild symbols can replace other symbols to form winning combinations. So, dive into the game and make sure to have a good grip on everything, including the wilds, scatters, multipliers, and other features. Look for the paytable where you’ll find all the features available explained. It also helps to try out free slots pokies.

Ways to Win on Pokies

Just understanding how to play pokies online or crafting a pokies strategy is not enough to catch the big fish. Winning at pokies demands a blend of good fortune and knowledge of the game mechanics. Every pokie game has different ways of winning. That’s their beauty. So, let’s understand the popular ways to win on pokies: 

Paylines 

Just open the description of a pokie, and you will see that every game has different paylines. Well, paylines are the lines on the slot machine on which a winning combination must appear to unlock big wins. If you are playing an old or traditional pokie game, it will most probably have a single payline. However, modern slots come with multiple paylines, pulling up your chances of winning. 

Cluster Pays

The cluster pay mechanism of pokies is a bit different from the traditional paylines. In these, you won’t have to match the symbols to form the winning combinations. Rather true to its name, you need to form clusters, typically in groups of five or more. While this type of game is super popular among the Aussie players, not all the pokies come with a cluster pay mechanism. 

Megaways 

Megaways is a special type of pokie that comes with a random real modifier mechanic. While this is not a very old pokie mechanism, it allows you to choose from 243–117,649 ways to win money. That’s how they are totally different from normal slots. On top of that, these slots come with a lot of additional features and power-packed bonus rounds that make the games more rewarding as well as interesting. 

How do slots payout? 

If you want to know how to play online pokies, understanding how slots payout turns out to be essential. So, when it comes to slot payouts, there are a bunch of terms you need to understand, which are as follows: 

Return to Player or RTP 

When you search for a pokie online, you may have seen it market its RTP as 95%, 96%, or even above that. So, what is this RTP? It stands for Return to Player. It is basically the statistical measure that highlights the percentage of wagered money that the pokie will pay back over time. So, if a slot machine comes with a 96% RTP, that means on average, the slot will pay out $96 for each $100 spent. It doesn’t mean there are 96% chances to win. This is something crucial to know when learning how to play pokies.

Volatility 

Volatility, or we can call it variance. It defines how risky the pokie is. While low-volatility slots give smaller and more frequent payouts, giving a sense of stability, high-volatility slots offer big but less frequent winnings, being super risky. So, when picking a pokie, you must check its volatility and align it with your risk appetite and budget. 

Hit Frequency 

The frequency at which a slot machine generates winning combinations is known as the hit frequency. No need to go into the depths; just understand that a high-frequency slot will give you small wins often. On the other hand, a low-frequency slot will reward you with larger wins less frequently.

Pokies strategy

Search online and you will find hundreds of websites promoting “the best pokies strategy to win,”  “100% working pokies strategy to win the jackpot,”  and whatnot. But in reality, none of them may work for you. Why do we say that? Because you cannot manipulate the results of pokie sessions with skills, tips, or tricks. No matter where you learn how to play pokies from, they are entirely random. All the pokies use random number generators, provably fair technology, and many more such mechanisms to ensure the results are 100% random and fair. So, predicting the way to handsome wins in a pokie session is impossible. 

So, why are we giving you a pokies strategy? No doubt pokies strategy cannot guarantee you wins. However, playing with a proper strategy can ensure a premium gaming experience. It will help you understand the core of the game and stay a million miles away from big losses. Here are the key strategies you must follow to manage your gameplay: 

Learn how to play pokies online Australia

No matter whether it’s pokies online or any other game, blindly diving into it without knowing the basic rules is not a smart move. So, before you jump into a pokie game, make sure to know the basics of the game. Each pokie game brings its own unique set of rules, paytable, and bonus features. Understanding the paytable—mainly the symbols that contribute to the winning combinations, wilds, scatters, and other special components—is super important. Getting a grip on the game’s mechanism will help you strike big winnings. The reason is simple: you will know when which feature comes into play and how to use it for maximum benefits. 

Choose games that match your budget & risk appetite

Head to any online gaming platform, and you will find thousands of pokies. Divided into different categories, there are countless numbers of games looming around the Internet. So, hand-picking the ones that your gaming style, budget, and gambling preferences align with is important. 

Briefly, we can divide pokies into two segments: low-volatile pokies and highly volatile pokies. The low-volatility games are the ones with more frequent payouts, lower rewards, and lower risk. The risk-to-reward ratio in these games is medium. On the other hand, the highly volatile games are the ones that can give you life-changing rewards. However, they are highly risky. You may take home a jackpot or zero. These are the best for people with high-risk appetites. So, while choosing a game, you need to check its RTP and volatility and verify it with your risk appetite. It’s one of the key-elements when learning how to play pokies online.

Manage Your Bankroll & Gamble Responsibly 

What’s the secret pokies strategy to ensure long-term success? Responsible gambling. Under this umbrella comes the art of managing your bankroll wisely. Chasing losses and showering all the money you have over a single bet is definitely a foolish move. The most effective pokies strategy is to tailor a strict gambling budget and stick to it. You must decide how much money you are willing to spend on a single bet and be ready to lose it all. If you are getting into the trap of gambling addiction, you need to use features like self-exclusion, loss limiter, deposit limiter, and so on. 

Best time to play online pokies

Now that you know how to play online slots and have a grip on slot strategy, let us tell you that the time you play can also be a game-changer. Yes! We are not kidding. Time is an important factor when it comes to winnings in Australian pokies. Some people can benefit from playing pokies at particular times, while others may not. You may ask why. This is because of the different decision-making processes and perspectives among individuals. Some people feel that gaming luck is better on some days or hours than others, so for them, timing is of the essence.

Now, the question that pops out is, which is the best time to play pokies? Well, to be clear, determining the perfect time to play online pokies is literally impossible thanks to the random nature of these games. Unlike other casino games that rely on specific strategies, pokies are fully dependent on random number generators. Due to this randomness, it’s next to impossible to predict when a pokie might pay out. Some players claim they had more luck when playing at peak times with tons of other players (e.g. in the morning when people commute to work or in the evening when they wrap up the day). However, some claim they had more luck when playing at times when less players are online (e.g. between 1am and 6am or in the middle of the day). Again, truth is you can’t predict the winning spins.

Summary

If you are here, we hope now you have your answer on how to play pokies online and also an efficient pokies strategy in your pocket. Playing pokies can be super fun and an ultimately rewarding experience. However, using the perfect blend of strategies can change you from a normal player to a smart player. While there’s no foolproof way to guarantee big wins, to enjoy the true essence of the game and play it like a pro, understanding the basics about how to play pokies and win, managing your bankroll, and playing responsibly are important. So, are you ready to spin the reels? Have a look at pokiesonline.io and try out some slots!