PHFUN on What Is a Payline, and How Ways and Clusters Differ

What is a payline? Think of tic-tac-toe. A win there needs three marks on a line that was fixed before the game began: across, down or corner to corner.

On a slot, the payline plays the role of that tic-tac-toe row: a route over the reels fixed by the studio beforehand, and only matching symbols landing along it pay. Not every slot uses lines, though, and the PHFUN lobby’s game lists include titles from all four win systems below.

What is a payline, and the four ways slots pay

1. Fixed paylines. Symbols pay only on set paths. JILI calls Crazy 777 a classic slot with one payline, and Money Coming also runs a single line; Big Bass Bonanza uses 10, The Dog House 20, Wolf Gold 25, and Boxing King stretches to 88.
2. Ways to win. A win needs the same symbol on neighbouring reels counted from the leftmost one, in any row position. Super Ace and Mahjong Ways use 1024 ways, Mahjong Ways 2 lists 2,000 and Wild Bounty Showdown 3,000.
3. Megaways. The number of symbols per reel changes each spin, so the ways count moves too. Golden Empire lists 32400 megaways.
4. Scatter and cluster pays. Position stops mattering. Gates of Olympus has no fixed lines and pays scatter-style, while Sweet Bonanza needs a cluster of at least 8 matching symbols anywhere on the grid.

PHFUN paylines in the lobby

The PHFUN lobby’s game lists hold an example of each: lines in Boxing King and Crazy777, ways in Mahjong Ways 2 and Super Ace, megaways in Golden Empire, and scatter or cluster pays in the 1000 editions of Gates of Olympus and Sweet Bonanza. The info screen of each says which one it uses.

Features of a paytable worth reading

• Direction. Lines and ways usually count from the leftmost reel; the paytable says so if a game pays both ways.
• Stake shape. A line game may show a stake per line and a total; a ways game charges one stake per spin.
• Feature rules. A bonus round can reprice every win; in Super Ace, JILI doubles the multipliers once Free Game starts.
• Printed ceilings. The max win sits beside the win system, such as Boxing King’s 2000X.

A ways game is not automatically “better” than a line game. The win system tells you how wins are counted, while the studio’s design, shown partly in its volatility and published RTP, decides how often and how much they pay.

Red flags to watch for

1. Someone selling a “hot payline” or winning pattern. Lines are fixed by the studio’s design, and no pattern is published by any studio quoted here.
2. An RTP quoted for a JILI slot. JILI publishes none, so any figure for Super Ace or Boxing King came from somewhere else.
3. A payline number that disagrees with the studio. A Boxing King showing other than 88 paylines may be a copy or a different game.
4. No paytable button at all. A legitimate studio game prints its rules; a missing info screen is a reason to close the tab.

For the words around paylines, see the casino terms glossary for slot screens. How a win system and payout swings fit a budget is in slot volatility explained by budget, and how to choose a slot machine you will enjoy turns all of it into a checklist. More articles are in the PHFUN blog section, and the info screens themselves open after the PHFUN account login. 21+ only.