Popular Online Slot Wild Features With Examples

One of the most popular types of symbols in slots is the wild symbol. It comes filled with potential to reward you when it shows up and often comes with a few exciting other possibilities, making online slots with wilds some of the most exciting games to play.

If you’ve ever played a video slot online, chances are you’ve probably come across a machine that features the wild symbol.

So what is a wild symbol? In its purest form, it can show up like another symbol across the reels and substitutes for all of the other paying symbols, high or low, usually except the bonus symbols and scatters.

A good example of a slot game with a wild is NetEnt’s Twin Spin. Here it’s represented by the word WILD and does exactly what it’s supposed to, help you create more wins.

However, over the years, the simple wild symbol has grown into a symbol that has many guises offering more chances to win, bigger rewards, and even more exciting spins.

And that’s what we’ll cover here, all the different wild symbol variations with a few examples.

You might also like to read our post on The Secret Of How To Win Thanks To Slots With Wilds

Sticky Wilds

Slot machines with sticky wilds often also come with another feature including free spins or respins. Why? Cause for the wilds to stay sticky and remain in place during the next spin you often need to have some sort of other bonus feature to get the most from them.

Take the Sticky Bandits slot from Quickspin, it not only has some mega wilds that can cover most of the screen but during the free spins bonus round any wilds that show up will remain in place for the remainder of the free spins.

The wild remaining in place means that you could see yourself with more 3, 4, and 5 of a kind wins leading to bigger real money rewards.

Read our Sticky Bandits Slot Review

Stacked Wilds

Slot games with stacked wilds once again much like Sticky Wilds offer you more winning potential.

This time though a stacked wild which is a wild symbol that comes 3 or more symbols high often appears at any point during the base game or free spins.

As the wild can usually show up on any reel, it means you could see a whole load more 3 of a kind wins thanks to this type of wild symbol.

Take the Pragmatic Play Wolf Gold slot machine as an example. The Wolf symbol is wild and can show up stacked across all five reels.

Read our Wolf Gold slot review

Wild Reels

Slots with wild reels are similar to slots with stacked wilds except instead of showing up on the just part of, or the whole reel Wild Reels show up to cover a reel in its entirety every time it shows.

Depending on the casino slot in question they can show up in the main game or free spins and often help to create some decent winning combinations.

Take the NextGen Spin Sorceress slot machine for example, randomly the Spin Sorceress could show up enchanting reels 2, 3 or 4 turning them into wild reels. Depending on which high or low-value symbols show up on reel 1 and how many wild reels she enchants, will determine your winning fate.

Read our Spin Sorceress slot review

Expanding Wilds

Expanding Wild slots take the humble wild symbol and transform it into a symbol with more winning potential. When a wild symbol shows up on a reel, the game will make it expand to cover the entire reel it showed upon.

The situation or circumstances in which a wild will expand differs from slot to slot. Some only expand on certain reels; some only expand when it definitely creates a winning combination.

An example slot with expanding wilds is the Thunderkick Tiger Rush game.

Find a wild symbol on reels 2, 3, or 4, and you’ll see it expand to cover the reel it lands on. In this case, it will also reward you with a free re-spin of the reels with the expanded wild locked in place.

Read our Tiger Rush slot review

Wild Multipliers

A typical wild feature, wild multipliers can skyrocket your base game and bonus game winnings.

Often in the base game, a winning payline containing a wild can come with anywhere between 2x and 5x your bet depending on the game.

This multiplier helps keep your casino balance ticking along, while also giving you the chance to get some decent base game wins. When they show up in a pick me or free spin bonus; however, the multipliers can often get ramped up to higher values offering even bigger payout potential.

One game in which the wild offers up to 300x multiplier is the 300 Shields Extreme slot from NextGen. It’s part of a wild level up feature in the free spins, not the base game but can like its title might suggest providing some extreme wins.

If you’re looking for a game with multipliers on the wild symbol in the base game, then the Microgaming Six Acrobats slot comes with 5x multiplier on the wild, making this a popular high variance slot.

Read our Six Acrobats slot review

Mega & Colossal Wilds

Mega Wilds, otherwise known as Colossal Wilds are regular wild symbols that instead of only taking up just one space on the reels, will now appear larger taking up 2×2, 3×3, 4×4 or more spaces.

As you can imagine the more wild symbols, you have on the reels at any one time, the better your odds of creating a winning combination.

A slot with colossal wilds as well as few other is the NetEnt Wild Bazaar slot. With four different wild features including stacked wilds, x2 multiplier wilds, linked wilds and colossal wilds covering 2×2 symbols if you’re after a game with wilds, then this is a good bet.

Read our Wild Bazaar slot review

Nudging Wilds

This type of wild isn’t as popular as say wild multipliers or stacked wilds, but it’s one that still shows up in video slots created by a variety of software providers.

So what is a nudging wild? A nudging wild is a wild symbol that will often nudge up or down on a reel to create a winning payline.

The Ancient Egypt themed Blaze of Ra slot from Push Gaming contains them, triggering when the wild symbol shows up in the top 2 positions of a reel. When it does you get a respin, and the symbols will nudge down.

Take a look at our Blaze of Ra slot review

Random Wilds

As the name might suggest, Random Wilds, are just that, random. They can show up on any spin often during the main game or free spins and will randomly place themselves on the reels.

They don’t guarantee a win, and usually one or more can show up at any one time, offering at least a quick thrill of excitement that a big win might be just around the corner.

A few examples include:

• The Grand By NetEntertainment
• Queen’s Day Tilt by Play’n GO
• Rainforest Dream by WMS

Roaming Wilds

Our list of wild symbol functions continues with Roaming Wilds.

The roaming wild feature is one that as the name suggests lets the wild symbols roam around the reels, moving up, down, left and right on a spin literally roaming around in the hope of creating a win.

It’s similar to Walking Wilds but with less restrictive movement.

The Wild Plunder slot from NextGen is an excellent example with the Roaming Wilds showing up when you find two or more wilds in the base game. When you do, you’ll get respins of the reels with the potential for more wilds able to move around the reels.

Find out more in our Wild Plunder slot review

Walking Wilds

Probably one of the most famous of the slots with Walking Wilds is the Jack and the Beanstalk slot from NetEnt.

A walking wild does pretty much what you think it might. It moves (walks) from one side of the reels to the other moving the potential for creating a win with it.

In the case of the Jack and the Beanstalk slot, the wilds also come with 3x multipliers and help you get your hands on the giants’ pot of gold.

Scatter Wilds

The wild acts like a scatter symbol as well as a wild, offering a win for finding it anywhere across the game’s reels.

A prime example of this is the popular Rich Wilde and the Book of Dead slot machine from Play’n GO, where the wild is also the scatter and during the free spins can also expand to help create more wins.

Find out more in our Book of Dead slot review.

No doubt the creators of our favourite slot games will come up with new and innovative ways to turn the humble wild symbol into a feature that can hold its own against another slot feature.

When they do, we’ll be adding them to our list of slots with wilds and see how they stack up against the rest.

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