Michigan Online Slots – Best Games & Where To Play

Legal online slots are live in Michigan, the result of numerous legislative decisions set into motion by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. That means you now have the chance to play hundreds of slot titles across over a dozen online casino sites on any Internet-ready devices, including smart phones and tablets.

On this page, we’ll run down what you can expect from Michigan online slots, including how to play them and the differences between traditional slots and jackpot slots, which boasts wins that can potentially rise into the seven figures.

Michigan Online Casino Welcome Offers

Who offers online slots in Michigan?

At the moment, there’s a whole slew of providers offering online slots in Michigan, with the possibility for more always down the pipeline as more brands set their gaze on the Wolverine State. The table below gives you an overview of all the options you will have for playing online slots in Michigan.

ONLINE BRAND	CASINO	LAUNCH DATE
BetMGM Casino	MGM Grand Detroit	January 22nd, 2021
DraftKings Casino	Bay Mills Resort & Casino	January 22nd, 2021
Golden Nugget Casino	Ojibwa Casinos	January 22nd, 2021
BetRivers Casino	Little River Casino	January 22nd, 2021

What are online slots?

Slots are a form of gambling which can be played on either physical machines or in virtual form that consists of several reels (usually five) and rows (usually three or four) that are populated with symbols.

With the click of your mouse, you spin the reels, and if the symbols line up to predetermined paylines, you win! Payouts will vary depending on what symbols are included and how they line up. Most slots only pay left to right while others pay out both left to right and right to left.

The specific rules for each individual game’s payouts, paylines and bonus/wild symbols can be accessed via the info button, found on the above image in the bottom left corner.

Slots terms you need to know

To get a better understanding of how to play slots, you should become familiar with some slot specific language. Let’s take a look at the most common terminology associated with slots.

• Reel: Reels are the columns that spin from top to bottom on the screen. Original physical slot machines from the past had rotating metal barrels, called reels, that spun, and the name has carried over from the retail casino setting to the digital slots found online.
• Paylines: Paylines are the various patterns created by the developers that span the width of the reels. If you line up symbols across paylines in a certain way, your spin is considered a winner and you will be paid out.
• Symbols: Symbols are the various illustrations that are used on the reels. They will vary by slot game, but some of the most common used in classic slots are cherries, watermelons, BAR and 7s. The goal when playing slots is to line up several instances of the same symbols across the paylines.
• Scatter Symbols: Scatter symbols are symbols that do not need to line up with a payline in order to be a winner. They also often bring you to a bonus round or trigger coveted free spins.
• Pay Table: The pay table lists what each winning combination will pay and what bonus rounds can be activated by scatter symbols.
• Wild Symbols: Wild symbols are symbols that can be a substitute for any other symbol. For example, if a Plum lands in reel 1, next to a Wild in reel 2 and another Plum in reel 3, the Wild will act as a Plum and you will be paid out as if there were three Plums next to each other.
• Max Bet: This refers to the maximum bet that can be placed on one spin and will pay the maximum payout on all paylines.

Finding the right Michigan slots for you – volatility and RTP

When picking an online slot, there are two major factors to consider, RTP and Volatility.

RTP, or return-to-player, refers to the percentage you should expect to win back on average over time. For example, on a slot that has a 98% RTP, you should expect to win $98 for every $100 you wager, or lose 2 cents on each dollar wager.

This is an estimate based on infinite spins, so your short-term win percentage will vary wildly depending on how many spins you make and how you vary your bet sizing over time.

Volatility is how often you should expect a winning spin. Low volatility slots will have a higher percentage of wins, but usually smaller payouts. High volatility slots don’t produce winning spins as often, but do usually have higher payouts when you hit a winner.

Shorter sessions will usually benefit from a low volatility game and longer sessions would be more ideal if you do choose to play a high volatility machine.

Of course, volatility and RTP aren’t everything. You may simply find a slot that has fun mechanics, like Gonzo’s Quest, with its falling stones, or simply like the look or theme of another game. Eventually, you’ll have hundreds of slot titles to choose from, so the sky is the limit.

Michigan retail vs. Michigan slots

When comparing online slots to their retail counterparts, online slots tend to have a much higher RTP. This will be one of the huge advantages of playing slots online in Michigan versus at a brick-and-mortar casino.

• Retail slots can be as low as 85% RTP and average somewhere around 90% with the rare slot reaching its peak around 95%.
• Online slots bottom out around 90% and go as high as 98% with an average of around 95%.

So why is that? Well, retail casinos understand that when players sit down and settle in at a machine, they usually aren’t going to be switching to another whenever the mood strikes, they’ll simply stay at the same machine.

Online though, the choices are so vast, and it is so easy to switch from slot to slot and even site to site, that operators know they have to kick in a little more in order to keep players entertained and satisfied.

If a player opens up a certain slot and doesn’t win once in the first 20 spins, then they are likely to get fed up and simply move on to another game.

Game play

Once you find a game you want to play, it’s now time to set your bets and start playing. Using the above image of King of Slots from NetEnt Studios, lets describe the slots user interface.

• Use the wrench in the bottom right corner to customize your play with options for quicker spins and using the space bar to spin.
• Sounds can be adjusted with the speaker symbol directly next to the wrench.
• Auto spins can be activated using the Auto button next to the audio settings, or with the big AUTO PLAY button. Auto spins can be set as low as 10 and the max spins varies per game. When set to Auto Play, the reels will keep spinning until you manually stop them or they reach the pre-set amount of spins.
• To find paylines, bonus round activations and symbols, us the i button.
• To set your bet amount, use the Level and Coin Value sliders. Levels will adjust the amount wagered per spin and coin value will adjust how much one unit is worth. For example, in the above image, level 1 would be a 25 unit bet and moving the level to level 2 brings the bet to 50 units. Coin value is set at 0.02 meaning that we multiply the bet of 50 by 0.02, bringing the total 50 unit bet to $1. Play around with the level and coin value to get the bet sizing you prefer.
• MAX BET button will bring the level adjuster to the max level, but will keep the coin value the same.
• Once you set your bet amount, you can choose to manually spin with the big button in the middle, or set auto spins to the amount you desire. Auto spins can be stopped at any time by opening the auto spin option on the bottom left corner of the screen.

What are Michigan Jackpot Slots?

Progressive jackpots slots differ from traditional slots in that they pull a small amount from each bet and add it to one or more central jackpots that progressively grow over time. This jackpot is shared among all users playing this particular game until someone wins the jackpot.

When the jackpot is won, the jackpot resets to a base amount and restarts its climb as bettors start adding money to the jackpot again.

How progressive slots work

The most popular jackpot slot in the regulated U.S. market is undoubtedly Divine Fortune, created by NetEnt. To describe how progressive slots work, we’ll use this popular slot as an example.

Divine Fortune’s popularity is no coincidence as it features a 96.6% RTP and medium volatility, which makes it more player friendly than even most non-progressive slots and gives players a chance to win a massive jackpot, which has grown to over $500,000 in other US markets, on a bets as low as $0.20.

The five-reel, three-row progressive slot features multiplying wilds, several free spin scenarios, and a jackpot bonus game that guarantees at least a win of 10x your bet.

Jackpot Bonus Game

The jackpot bonus game is activated when three or more coins are collected during either a single spin or during a falling wild free spin round.

The collected coin bonus symbols are randomly placed on the reels after which players are awarded three spins. The spins are reset back to three every time a new coin lands on the reels.

Prizes are awarded for every coin anywhere from 1x-200x your bet. Here are the three tiers of jackpots:

• Minor Jackpot: To win the Minor jackpot (20x your bet), five coins must appear across a single row.
• Major Jackpot: The Major will earn you 100x your bet and is awarded when two rows are filled
• Mega (the progressive): When all three rows are filled with coins, you’ll trigger the Mega Progressive Jackpot and be in store for a potentially life-changing jackpot.

The above example only applies for that particular slot title. Other games may have completely different ways to trigger their Progressive Jackpots. For example, you may not need to activate any special bonus round it all, and could be awarded a jackpot after a simple spin in the base game.

Slot developers are very creative when it comes to designing exciting and fun mechanics, especially before a massive jackpot is awarded.

Why slots are a great choice when clearing bonuses

When signing up a new account at a Michigan online gambling site, players are treated to some very generous online casino bonus offers. These are one-time deals offered during registration, which can range from a modest no deposit award to deposit bonuses worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

But nothing in life is free. Before you can cash out that bonus money, you’ll need to put in a little action to satisfy a wager requirement. For example, if you received a $200 deposit bonus, you might be required to turn over that total amount 20X before the money becomes free and clear to withdraw. So first, you’d have to wager through at least $4000 to fully unlock the bonus cash.

However, operators sometimes treat games differently when it comes to clearing bonuses. An operator may stipulate that only 50% of blackjack or video poker wagers count towards the requirement, meaning you’d be required to bet even more before getting your hands on the bonus money.

But in nearly all cases, slots contribute at a rate of 100% to the wager requirement, meaning that all of your play will go towards unlocking the money.

While this is somewhat of an advantage, and will greatly reduce the amount of gambling you need to do to clear your bonus, keep in mind that, in general table games offer players better odds than slots. Playing blackjack with perfect strategy could bring the house edge down to around 1%. The highest returning slots usually don’t go that high, although some NetEnt titles come close.

If you are interested in getting the most for your money, be sure and check the return to player percentage (RTP) offered by each slot by either opening up the games info panel in settings or finding the information on the online casino’s website.

But not everyone is looking to squeak out the highest return rate from every online casino game they play — some games may offer a worse RTP, but are simply more fun to play than others.

Michigan Casino Slots FAQs