Have you ever traveled to a nearby land based casino to do a little gambling on their slot games and wondered if your luck would have been better if you had just stayed home and gambled online? Besides saving yourself the travel time and gas and then the <!--more-->long ride back home and all the extra money you may have spent on food, drinks or hotel stay you may have felt that it just wasn’t worth the trip. Now you may have thought about taking your gaming entertainment online but are nervous about the games, depositing and the overall trust worthiness of online gaming, so I am here to describe to you how exciting and enjoyable online gaming is and how much I love the slot games offered and the easiness of playing without leaving my home. So let this article be your guide to how online slot play compares to land based slots. I will discuss the slot machines and their mechanics, tabs and symbols as well as how to bet and the difference between classic slots and video slots. Enjoy and hopefully you will find yourself more at ease with gambling from your home and enjoy all the benefits of doing so!

<em>How online slot machines work</em>
The following information is true for online slots and land based casino slots regardless of where you play slot machines run the same. 3 and 5 reel slots are your classic or traditional slots which have symbols on each reel that are assigned random numbers. The way these machines work is they are controlled by a Random Numerator Generator [RNG] which chooses numbers randomly for each reel on every spin, these numbered symbols on each reel are the symbols that will land on the paylines of the slot game when the spinning stops. Totally random and under knows control, making each and every spin fair and random. Some symbols on these reels are “weighted” heavier than other symbols which make them more likely to appear on the reels more often than others, included in these weighted symbols are your common cherry symbols which you see often on any slot machine. The reason for this extra weight on some symbols is to distinguish the frequency in which they appear, for example, a jackpot symbol is not weighted because if it was then the jackpots would get won too often which would put a casino out of business very quickly, so in regards to fairness and longevity of a casino, the bigger prized symbols weigh less than the common symbols giving the player and casino equal random odds.

<em>Tabs on a slot machine</em>
All online slot machines are missing one thing that a land based casino slot has and that’s the “arm” in which many gamblers love to pull for each spin. Because these are virtual machines and not tangible everything has to be “clickable” with a mouse or keyboard. You will find on all online slot machines the following tabs or buttons
<strong>Spin</strong> – the button that allows you to spin the reels of the slot machine
<strong>Lines</strong> - This button has a “higher & lower” button so you can choose how many paylines you wish to play on each and every spin. 
<strong>Coin Size</strong> – This button allows the gambler to choose how much they wish to bet per spin per line. This also has up and down buttons to make choosing your coin size easy and convenient.
Gamble button – Proceed with Caution! This button is found on some multi payline slot machines and it gives you the option to double your winnings from you latest spin. Usually a card game of higher or lower, where you pick one of four cards and try to beat the house card which is face up.  If you win you double your winnings and can keep going or quit, but if you lose you lose everything you just won on your last spin. Play with caution.
Pay table – All classic slots  or 3  reel slot machines will display the pay table right on the slot screen itself, but the 5 reel or multi payline slot games will have a pay table button which you can click to  see all symbols and what they pay.

<em>Differences between online slots and land based casino slots</em>
There are a few differences between each of these venues for slot games, with online slots having the better options in my opinion.

Difference #1 – Coin Size
When playing slots at a land based casino you usually have to get up from your machine and hunt around for another machine with a higher or lower coin value then the one you were play. Example, say you’re playing  the  slot machine  “double  diamonds” for 25  cents  per pull and you’re doing pretty good on it and have  decided you would like  to start playing it  for a  dollar a  pull. Well you would have to hunt the casino floor to find a $1 double diamond machine. If you were playing this game online, all you would have to do is up the coin value by clicking the up button on the machine! No walking around aimlessly and only finding the machine you want being played by someone else, with playing online you are home and the entire casino is yours!

Difference #2 – Cash outs – Definitely much better at land based casinos. No contest  here, at  land based  casinos  you hit the cash  out button  and your  winnings are in your hands  instantly, at online casinos you have to wait for your winnings for hours, even days  to hit your banking methods.

There are more plus and minuses but I will leave them up to you to determine because each of us have our own preferences and my opinion may not be yours. So with the above information I hope I have helped to make your education in online slots a little more helpful to your gaming experiences and give you the knowledge you need to become the next jackpot winner! Happy Gaming!