Fruity Slots
Fruit slots remain one of the most popular slot styles around.
The fruit slots can be categorized in any number of ways, aesthetically, stylistically, and mechanically.
The bonus fruit slot can fit into all of these delineations: they are games with a certain look and set of symbols, but they are also a larger style of game, and they often come in a particular game set-up.
However, fruits are everywhere, in slots with all numbers of reels and in every other genre and style too.
Here we’ll look at how fruits got to be all over our reels and how you can make the most of them when you tuck into these sweet treats.
Best Fruit slots
Why Fruits?
Why do we have fruits?
It’s weird that gambling games are being played with fruit symbols don’t you think?
There are good historical reasons for this, though.
The first slot games were direct attempts to mechanize classic card gambling games, specifically poker. The first attempts at making what became slots were simply drums with cards stuck on them, working in a very simple mechanical way.
Games on reels immediately offered game owners an advantage by removing some of the cards in a standard deck in a way that tipped the odds in their favor.
And so was born the modern gambling industry!
But why fruit in the juicy fruits slots?
The birth of the modern gambling industry was good news to the people who owned those games, and we’ll presume their many, many customers were also pleased. However, the authorities weren’t all that happy, and in parts of the United States, there were laws outlawing all types of gambling.
What does a capitalist faced with disagreeable laws do?
They break them—in a clever way!
And so we have fruits because games that are played for food prizes are not quite real money gambling! And games with pictures of fruit on the reels are not immediately obvious versions of the most notorious card gambling game in history!
The prizes really were fruits in some cases. It took a while before slot games were advanced enough to store money or prizes to reward players, and players had to run to the store or bar owner and collect their prize—money or an apple—from them.
So there is heritage in fruity slots !
Which Fruits are Which?
Fruits are a big category, but in the slots world, there are some fruits that are considered fruitier than others in fruity slots!
The fruit slots that the players really love are the traditional ones: so they’re northern European and North American favorites, like cherries, apples, oranges, grapes, and watermelons.
However, the modern slot world is not so parochial, and the modern fruit can be an awful lot more varied than those original fruits. They may be outer space fruit or alien fruit, and the varieties of fruit in the 21st-century slot go much beyond the classics.
We are yet to find a logic that is consistent with the value of fruits! Read the pay table!
Not Just Fruits!
Fruits do sometimes exist in a world of their own, but rarely.
Fruits, though, do have a stylistic family of symbols that links them to symbols from older games of fruity slots. So, if there are additional symbols, they are likely to come from a limited group of symbols, including bars, bells, gems, cards, and lucky 7s.
Juicy Fruits Slot Games as a Game Style
In the UK, fruit games were once so ubiquitous that they are commonly used as slang for every single slot game. In pubs, clubs, and arcades up and down the UK, people would stand around the “fruit machine” to gamble while they drank.
Now, the slots world is largely online. And it is far, far broader than the world of cabinet games ever was.
And so fruit slots do have a recognized style that can go beyond the mere aesthetics of fruit symbols.
Because of their nostalgic value, fruit symbols are very often used on games described by casino sites as classic slots.
None of these terms are very proscriptive: the boundaries of genres and styles slip and slide all over the place on the slot sites of the world.
But broadly speaking Classic Slots are retro and tend towards simpler design.
The ultimate classic slot fruits would have: three reels, fruit symbols, just a spin control and stake control, and no bonus games.
Most add things to this, including free spins, rounds, respins, extra symbols, and all the other fabulous bonus features that the slots industry can dream up.
A Fruity Slots Game Pay Table
We’re going to have a look at a juicy fruits slot game pay table to give you an example of how such a game might operate.
We’ve picked a modern variant on the theme, simply because we like this game.
Reel Rush is a NetEnt fruit slots game with a 96.96% RTP (in a range), medium variance, and a ways-to-win set up that gives a possible 3,840 ways to win.
- There is a respins feature that can retrigger a free spins round.
- There are five reels and three rows.
- The pay table has beautifully illustrated symbols, but they’re very recognizably from the fruit family and its near relatives.
- The bottom of the pay table is filled with colored ovals.
- All of these symbols pay: 5, 15, and 50 times stake for sets of three, four, or five.
Then we’re into fruits.
- The least valuable fruit is a plum, paying 10, 50, and 100-times stake.
- A raspberry pays 10, 60, and 150-times stake.
- An apple pays 10, 75, and 200-times stake.
- A lemon pays 10, 100, and 250-times stake.
- An orange pays 10, 150, and 500-times stake.
- And a strawberry pays 10, 250, and 1,000-times stake.
Some Popular Bonus Fruits Slots
Fruity slots are widely available. As we’ve said, your best bet to find them is to click on the “classic slots” tab at your favorite casino site.
Here are a few titles you might want to try out. They’re all legitimate, legal, and safe to play, and they’ve all proved popular with players too.
1 – Reel Rush
It’s our example because we love it, and we’re not alone. Reel Rush has shown it has longevity that is built on beautiful graphics, soundtracking, and game design. It’s also very generous and can reward players with very big prizes.
2 – Burning Wins Classic 5 Lines
This big prize game is a fantastic example of the classic bonus fruits slot game. It has five reels and very simple controls, but Playson has given the design a lot of thought, and it looks fabulous. This is cut-down slots play at its best, and in true fruity style, it opens with fruits (cherries, oranges, lemons, plums, grapes, and watermelons) on its pay table and tops it off with bars, bells, and 7s, which can pay 6,000 coins at the top stakes. Like a lot of fruit games, it’s a real gambler's game.
3 – Mystery Reels
Red Tiger is one of the most exciting developers in the world right now, and they’re behind this 5-reel game that has a load of classic fruit stylings. It has highish volatility, two simple bonus features, including the mystery wheel, and a pay table packed with juicy cherries, lemons, oranges, plums, grapes, and watermelons, topped off with bells and 7s.
4 – 7s Deluxe
With three reels, 5 pay-lines, high variants, a big top prize, and not much more than a spin button on the screen, 7s Deluxe couldn’t be any more of a classic slot if it tried. And the pay table is super simple, opening on fruits (cherries, lemons, oranges, watermelons, and plums) and climbing up to bars, bells, stars, and the 7s of the titles.
5 – Fruit Shop Megaways
Very classic again, NetEnt’s Megaways game is a super modern take on the fruits game, with all the extra features that come from Megaways (weird reels, non-standard sized symbols, respins), but a very classic fruit pay table (cherries at the top, then plums, lemons, oranges, and watermelons) over a set of card symbols. The big top prize of 10,000-times stake is a big draw in this new game.
6 – Joker King
Six reels is the standout feature of Joker King, and it makes it very clearly out of the “classic” genre. It’s a fruity slots game, though, despite the 24-slot playing area. There’s a big set of bonus features in this game, including loads of sorts of wilds, multipliers, and free spins. It’s a highly volatile game with a 5,000-times stake top prize. It’s a lovely looking game, with just three fruits—cherries, plums, and oranges—and the big news is its release in February 2021.
7 – Sweet Bonanza
This game from Pragmatic Play is a lovely example of a tumble-in game, with blocks, unlinked pay-outs, and respins on wins. The fruits (with bananas making a rare appearance in the fruit bowl, below grapes, melons, plums, and apples) are topped off with a fruity set of sweet symbols.
8 – Hyper Strike
This one is pushing it a little, as it’s only cherries on the cake when you open up the pay table. It’s a nice version of a slot fruits game, though, from Gameburger Studios in partnership with Microgaming, and it looks and sounds great. The rest of the pay table is very classic, with 7s, bars, bells, and dollar signs that will grant you 7,500-times your stake if they align correctly.
9 – 7s Deluxe Jackpot King
Jackpot King is a progressive jackpot network from Reel Time Gaming that takes in a load of titles. This version of their popular 7s Deluxe game chucks huge prizes at players on top of the attractions of the original game, which is currently more popular than this iteration of the theme.
10 – Disco Diamonds
Again, this title from Play’n Go isn’t fully fruity, with just cherries and lemons sitting at the bottom of the pay table. This game was released in October 2020 and is one of the top titles of that year. It’s got a lot of classic symbols from the lexicon, including bars and 7s. The high variance and big top prize of 10,000-times stake give it a big-prize attraction, though the start of the RTP range isn’t as generous as some titles on the market.
New fruit titles are hitting the market at all times—it is a theme that will never go rotten or fall from the tree, as far as we can see!
Fruit games are a broad church, with a whole load of variables for you to explore while still enjoying a dip into the fruit bowl.
Most slot games are completely legitimate and deliver exactly what they say they will. However, you need to make sure they’re also being hosted on legal and legitimate sites (in your jurisdiction) and that you’re legally entitled to play them. Do yourself a favor and do some research on safe gambling behavior too, as your own personal health and finances are also worth protecting.
Free games can generally be found in two places generally: dedicated demo or review sites and casino sites. Unlicensed sites may offer free games as a service, with no option to play for cash. Casino sites can host games that can be played in demo mode. Both are good options for beginners.
To get staking you’ll need some cash, and you’ll need a way of getting that cash around the internet -that can be an internet-linked bank account, a debit or credit card, an e-wallet (PayPal is the best-known example), a mobile payment app, or perhaps a Bitcoin wallet.
Fruit slots are the same as any other slot in most ways, but most importantly, they are governed by random numbers. There is no way to predict the result of a spin on a slot, and so there is no strategy that will help you win. The best “gambling strategies” are in fact simply common sense ways of reducing your spending. That’s no bad thing, but that’s not how these documents are always advertised.