TRACKING THE TRENDS
What’s trending on the slot floor in 2025?
By Frank Legato
Ever since slot machines became the central draw for casino visitors some 40 years ago, game developers have consistently delivered ideas that grew into trends in slot development. Eventually, many of those trends have evolved into permanent fixtures on the slot floor.
It’s easy to spot those with the most staying power. Take the bonus wheel. A spinning wheel to award something extra beyond a slot’s paytable can be traced as far back as the 1970s, with a mechanical Bally slot displaying a dial-like wheel that awarded an extra prize. But the idea really took off in the mid 1990s, when then-Anchor Gaming patented a roulette-style bonus wheel on a slot machine. Bally licensed the technology for a game called Wheel of Gold, but in 1996, IGT licensed it for a game that would cause the first major bonus trend—Wheel of Fortune.
IGT eventually acquired Anchor Gaming, along with the wheel patent. While it was active, any supplier creating a wheel game would license the technology from IGT. And they did. But when the patent expired, the flood gates opened, with just about every slot manufacturer launching games featuring bonus wheels.
Today, the bonus wheel is a permanent part of the slot floor. Not all slot games have them, but one would be hard-pressed to identify a slot manufacturer that does not count slots with spinning wheels as part of its game library.
Over the years since the wheel appeared, many other trends have grown into permanent features of the slot floor. Take the multi-line video slot, for instance. Before the mid ’90s, pretty much all slots in dominant U.S. markets had from three to five spinning reels and a single payline. There were a few five-reel games that would include diagonal paylines, but for the most part, even the primitive video slots of those days followed the traditional format.
Then, suddenly, Australian slot manufacturer Aristocrat introduced what were known Down Under as “pokies” to the Atlantic City market. The moniker referred to the inclusion of poker symbols as reel symbols, but what also distinguished these games was the inclusion of multiple paylines crisscrossing a video screen. Employing both three-reel and five-reel grids, these games employed anywhere from nine to 45 paylines.
They had one other distinguishing feature: a certain combination of symbols would trigger an entirely new animated screen for a game within the game—a bonus round, usually employing animation.
Players in Atlantic City were confused at first, but caught on in relatively short time, and the games were a hit. Enter WMS Gaming. Aristocrat, as it happened, was not licensed in Nevada in the mid-’90s, but WMS—the offshoot of the old Williams pinball brand—was, and scored its biggest hit with Reel ’Em In, a game with the Australian-style format, including a hilarious animated fishing bonus. Before you knew it, IGT, Bally and all the other slot-makers were pumping out what is now the primary format of video slots, both in casinos and online.
Other major trends have appeared only recently—some in the last decade and others only in the past couple of years. Here are five trends that dominate the slot floor of 2025, along with some games that employ them to great effect.
TREND 1
Hold and Spin
The hold-and-spin bonus feature was pioneered by Aristocrat on the game Lightning Link. Created by legendary game designer Scott Olive and launched in 2015, Lightning Link featured what Aristocrat branded as “Hold & Spin.” Six coins, carrying cash-on-reels symbols, triggered a feature in which the cash symbols would lock in place, and the player would get three spins in which to land another coin. Every new coin returned the spin meter to three.
The feature continued until three spins without a coin, after which all the locked cash-on-reels credits were awarded, or until all 15 reel spots carried coins, which triggered the top Grand Jackpot.
Aristocrat followed up Lightning Link with Dragon Link and similar games, but all of them were centered on the Hold & Spin feature. Before long, player demand for this kind of bonus led to other suppliers matching the trend with their own games.
Each manufacturer has released its own version of the hold-and-spin bonus, and each adds its own twist to the feature.
The new crop of games from the slot companies this year shows that the hold-and-spin trend is not going anywhere. The feature now plays out on various games with ever-increasing enhancements, from adding lower-level jackpots and progressives to the coins that lock in place to special features where the reels expand to offer more chances to land cash symbols.
Prime Example: Hold & Spin
Bao Zhu Zhao Fu Ignite, Aristocrat Gaming
This game features a microcosm of today’s hold-and-spin bonus. There are four firecracker collection pots (another 2025 trend) that, when triggered, can double the field of play for the Aristocrat Hold & Spin feature, add more spins to extend it, add multipliers to the screen, and boost cash-on-reels values. The lower-level jackpots are added to the symbols in the feature, and filling the entire 15-symbol screen triggers the top jackpot.
TREND 2
Pot Collection Bonuses
These days, the hold-and-spin features are likely to be triggered by one or more collection “pots.” This year, the big new game trend is the pot- collection bonus or metamorphic feature—in particular, the “three-pot bonus.” This is where “perceived persistence” is deployed to show you three pots of coins, three pigs, three panda bears or three of any of a number of other icons. The “pots” are of different colors, and each time a matching symbol lands on the reels, it travels up to the corresponding pot, making it seem to bulge as the award gets closer.
At any given point, one of those coins or icons can burst the corresponding pot, triggering a bonus with a particular enhancement. It’s normally a hold-and-spin bonus, with burst pots awarding enhancements to the spins like multipliers for coin awards, an extra spin when three have expired, a “collection” feature awarding all coins, expanding reels that unlock new rows, or, popular lately, a “double” pot that triggers a second reel set; the hold-and-respin bonus then accumulates coins on 30 spots instead of 15.
There are many more simple versions of the mechanic, such as the game hosting one of the first appearances, if not the first—Light & Wonder’s 88 Fortunes. Early games like this typically feature a single pot, triggering a free-spin bonus. Multiple pots are now featured.
Prime Example: Pot Collection Bonus
Merging Fu Pots, Zitro
Quite possibly the most innovative example of the pot-collection bonus was introduced this year by Zitro USA, the American subsidiary of the highly regarded Spain-based slot supplier. Merging Fu Pots features three pots enhancing a hold-and-spin bonus, but adds an optional ante wager—for an extra 25-credit wager, the three pots merge into one bonus including all three enhancements— a Multiplier feature in which several frames on the boxes include multipliers of 2X, 3X or 4X, multiplying any cash-on-reels awards; an Extra Spin feature that extends the bonus beyond the three-spin limit; and the Double feature, which doubles the play grid into two independent reel sets that spin simultaneously.
TREND 3
Giant Cabinets
Oversized slot cabinets were always around, but this year, they’re everywhere. Aristocrat was among the first to popularize grand-sized cabinets for the main slot floor with its 2015 Big Bang Theory game on the Behemoth cabinet, featuring an 84-inch monitor. That same year, the supplier released its first large-format curved-screen cabinet, the Arc Double, with stacked 43-inch portrait monitors.
Nowadays, each of the major suppliers has its version of the giant cabinet, and more are introduced every year—this year included. Light & Wonder has the giant Mural, Cosmic and Horizon cabinets— each elegantly designed, and each presenting a huge screen in a different way.
Konami has the Dimension 75C; AGS has the Spectra SL75+; Everi has the Dynasty Dynamic; Ainsworth has the ASTAR Curve XL.
Many of these big cabinets were designed along with a dedicated game launch. This year, Light & Wonder rolled out amazing new branded games on its largest cabinets, including Dracula, Kong Skull Island and The Wizard of Oz—I’ll Get You My Pretty.
IGT launched its Wheel of Fortune Trio, a massive 12-foot display including three large cabinets and a giant version of the famous wheel. Konami offered the game-show theme BUZZR and the unique Bingo Frenzy Stampede on its jumbo Dimension 75C. Novomatic displayed its Piggy Prizes game on the V.I.P. Galaxy, which is basically a leather recliner in front of a game played out on a flat-screen TV.
Like hold-and-spin and the other trends, giant slots aren’t going anywhere.
Prime Example: Giant Cabinets
The Mural, Light & Wonder
Introduced in 2021, the Mural features dual stacked 55-inch 4K curved monitors—that’s 110 inches of game real estate—in a sleek, elegant package. Among the games featured on the Mural are Dragon, which uses the large display to expand the reel to 10 rows high in a beautiful display; Ultimate Fire Link Explosion, which fills the screen with that brand’s trademark fireballs; and Huff N’ Puff Money Mansion, which fills the screen with a multi-level mansion and a hold-and-spin bonus.
TREND 4
Multi-Level Progressives
For most of the past decade, the libraries of all the major slot manufacturers have been replete with multiple progressive jackpots. First offered in the 1970s and gaining big popularity with the 1986 launch of IGT’s Megabucks, progressives have taken on increasing importance in modern slot design. The idea of a progressive, if you don’t know, is that a portion of each wager goes to augment the progressive jackpot on top.
These days, the progressives come in bunches. Typically, you’ll see two or three static jackpots of $10, $50 or $100 (“Mini,” “Minor,” etc.) offered beneath two larger incrementing linked progressive prizes (typically “Major” and “Grand”). And unlike the past where progressives were always tied to a line combination on the reels (like three Megabucks symbols), these days you’re likely to find the progressives awarded as part a bonus feature— a pick bonus, a wheel spin, or, as noted above, for filling up all reel spots in a hold-and-spin feature. Also, many games you’ll see this year offer bonus rounds in which more than one of the progressive prizes can be won.
Prime Example: Multi-Level Progressive
Mystery of the Lamp, IGT
Featured on IGT’s PeakCurve49 cabinet, with a 49-inch portrait monitor, Mystery of the Lamp has been one of IGT’s most popular multi-level progressive slots. It features a pot-style collection bonus and a hold-and-spin bonus. Three lamps sit above the three-by-five reel array for a pot-style collection feature. The hold-and-spin bonus event unfolds on a field of 15 individual reels—30 if the Jackpot pot feature is activated. When the Jackpot Lamp is triggered, gems are added to the hold-and-spin event, which awards collection icons for all five jackpots, including the top $10,000 progressive.
TREND 5
Reels Still Spinning
Even as the hold-and-respin mechanic and the penny denomination feed consistent expansion in the video slot genre, mechanical reel- spinners show no signs of fading away. Look for new versions of this most traditional style of game from a variety of manufacturers, most notably IGT, Light & Wonder and Everi.
These three reel-spinning stalwarts continue to launch new games in the classic style. From Light & Wonder this year, look for the reel- spinning classic Double Black & White on the great Landmark 7000 cabinet.
From IGT, watch for 5X3X2X Hot Tamales, a three-reel, 27-line game that supercharges IGT’s time-tested multiplying wild symbols, with a pay table of awards for stacking 7s on the first two reels with stacked multipliers on the third reel.
From Everi comes Smokin’ Hot Diamonds and Smokin’ Hot Rubies, on the new Player Classic Signature cabinet. Both are classic three-reel, nine-line mechanical- reel-spinners with multiplying wild symbols and multipliers on some of the bar symbols as well— 2X, 3X and 5X, applied to winning combinations.
The new crop of games from the slot companies this year shows that the hold-and-spin trend is not going anywhere. The feature now plays out on various games with ever-increasing enhancements, from adding lower-level jackpots and progressives to the coins that lock in place to special features where the reels expand to offer more chances to land cash symbols. “
Prime Example: Spinning Reels
Blazing 7s 2X3X5X
Light & Wonder Launched in 2022, this game combines all that is to be loved from a traditional reel-spinning slot into a single package. It brings back one of the most beloved reel-spinning brands of all time in a game that adds an array of multiplying wild symbols to the multiple “7” combinations that made the original game famous. It is featured on the Landmark 7000 cabinet, which features a 19-inch bonus-game wedge wheel on top of a package that brings together some of the most important creature comforts of any high-denomination reel- spinning presentation.
