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Free Spins vs Mini Games in Online Slots

Everyone loves an in-game slot bonus feature. They can help to bring a slot to life, and it’s fair to say that there are a lot of reel slots games out there where the bonus feature is easily the best part of the game.

Two of the most popular forms of the classic in-game bonus are free spins and mini-games. You’ll find free spins in the majority of slots, and mini-games in quite a few of them too. But what exactly are free spins and mini-games, and which is the best of the two?

Overview of free spins

Free spins are one of the oldest and most classic forms of slot game bonus features and as such, they are the most widely used unless you count the wild symbol as a bonus. Free spins have been around for many years, and you can even pick up extra spins in land-based casino video slots.

In a slot game, it is likely that you will have a scatter symbol. In a lot of cases, landing three of these on the reels will earn you a handful of free spins. During these free spins, you may be able to get your hands on other bonus features such as multipliers and additional wilds.

The free spins bonus round can be triggered in other ways than landing scatter symbols, but this is the most popular and most conventional way to get them.

A brief look at mini games

Mini-games weren’t added to slots quite as early as free spins areas they are a little more complicated and require better graphics processing from the developers. However, that doesn’t mean they’re not as good.

If you unlock access to a mini-game within a slot, you will be taken to a new screen which could be a new set of reels, or even a completely different game such as snakes and ladders or another board game where you need to roll a dice to collect prizes.

Further to this, there exists the pick-me bonus round whereby players will need to choose from a number of options on screen in the hope of revealing an extra prize.

The battle of the two

It’s hard to say once and for all which is better of the free spins bonus round vs mini-games, as it really comes down to personal preference. A lot can be said for the quality of each, and it also depends on how that free spins or mini-games bonus has been executed by the developer who put it out there. Mini-games can provide more variety to a slot which can be very exciting, whereas free spins provide consistency which can be very satisfying. Both can be equally as lucrative as the other, and again this comes down to how the bonuses are set up within the slot. Our opinion is that slot games should have both! Then we don’t even need to decide.

Photo by Brooke Cagle