How Cascading Reels Work in Online Slot Games

Online slot games continue to showcase an ever-growing collection of slot bonus features. From colossal symbols to expanding wilds and pick’em style bonus rounds, slot developers continue to create new gameplay elements that add excitement and variety to each slot experience. 

One of the gameplay elements that has been added to this feature toolbox is cascading reels or tumbling reels in slots online. This is a slot feature with incredible potential, if luck is on the player’s side. 

Read on to learn more about cascading reels slots, including what the cascading reels feature is, how it works, and then take a closer look at some of the games that offer it.

What Are Cascading Reels?

Cascading reels are a slot feature in which winning symbols disappear from the slot reels, causing new symbols to fall into the empty slot positions from corresponding positions above the reels. These falling symbols can potentially trigger extra wins if they, too, form winning combinations when they land in their new slot reel positions. This can occur an unlimited number of times, as long as winning combinations are formed, essentially giving the player extra spins without having to pay. This may be something that budget-conscious slot players would want to keep in mind. The feature ends when no more winning combinations are created by these falling symbols. 

Cascading reels are known by many different names and sometimes have slightly tweaked elements, depending on the game and the game developer. For example, NetEnt has its Avalanche feature, Pragmatic Play has the Tumble feature, and Microgaming has Rolling Reels. 

Regardless of the names of the features, the core elements are similar across all of these slot games. The falling nature of these symbols across all these games is why many players also refer to them as “tumbling reels slots” or simply “cascading reels slot machines”.

How Cascading Reels Work

Here is how cascading reels work in the majority of tumbling reels slot games:

1. The player hits “Spin” and the game checks for winning combinations once the reels stop spinning.
2. The symbols that are part of a win are removed from the reels in a variety of ways — by, for instance, exploding or fading away.
3. New symbols fall into place, either from the rows above or from above the reels.
4. The game checks for another win. If a win is formed, the reels cascade once again.
5. In some games, if another win is formed, the total multiplier for each win is increased. 
6. If a win isn’t formed, the feature ends. If a stacking multiplier is part of this feature, the multiplier value will be applied.

Although the winning potential of this feature has made it popular among many online slots fans, there was one game in particular that helped this feature to become the mainstay it is today.

The Slot That Made Cascading Reels Popular

Swedish slot developer NetEnt has been creating a wide range of experiences for online casinos since 1996. However, the incredible popularity of its 2011 release of Gonzo’s Quest, a historical jungle-adventure-themed title and the studio’s first platinum slot game, pushed the game’s Avalanche feature into the mainstream. 

When players land a win in Gonzo’s Quest, the Avalanche feature triggers, causing the game’s winning symbols to rumble and disappear, which in turn causes new symbols to drop from above. Each consecutive Avalanche win increases a multiplier up to a maximum of 5x in the base game, or a maximum of 15x in the game’s Free Fall feature, dramatically increasing the maximum payout potential of this game of chance.

This game set the standard for cascading reels and started a trend that continues to this day.

A Few Other Examples of Online Slots With Cascading Reels

Here are a few examples of online slots that also feature this game mechanic.

Ancient Fortunes: Poseidon Megways

Ancient Fortunes: Poseidon Megaways is set in a magical undersea world and features the Rolling Reels mechanic. Every win explodes the matching symbols and new ones drop into place, unlocking a potential wave of wins. This title also has a stacking multiplier during the game’s extra spins, further enhancing the potential of Rolling Reels payouts.

Gates of Olympus

Gates of Olympus has a Tumbling Reels feature that could result in multiple wins. Every win in this game causes the matching winning symbols on the 6×5 grid to disappear, allowing new ones to cascade in. As in the previous example, a single win can result in multiple back-to-back payouts. Although they’re not guaranteed during this game, multipliers worth 2–500x can appear during the Tumbling Reels, resulting in a significantly larger payout, especially since these multipliers can combine when they’re applied to the player’s final payout.

Sweet Bonanza

Sweet Bonanza offers players the Tumble Feature mechanic. Once again, every time the player lands a win, the paying symbols disappear from the reels and new ones fall into the empty reel positions, which can lead to a chain of possible prizes. This game also has a special multiplier symbol that can become sticky while the Tumble feature is active. These multipliers are combined to boost the value of the player’s final prize when landing a win in this cascading reels slot machine online.