How to play
Nebula Wilds is a five-reel, three-row slot with only 10 lines, and each of them pays in both directions: from the left reel rightward, and from the right reel leftward. The Nebula wild is printed on reels 2, 3 and 4 only. The two outer reels never show one.
You choose a coin from 1, 2, 5, 10 or 20. Because there are 10 lines, a spin costs ten coins, so the smallest stake is 10 credits and your starting balance of 1,000 gives a hundred spins at that level. Press Spin and wait for the reels; wins are added automatically.
When a wild lands, it stretches to cover its whole reel. The main button turns into Respin. Press it and the other reels spin again while the wild reel stays put, at no cost. If the respin brings a wild on another middle reel, that one stretches as well and you get one more respin, with both wild reels held. The chain ends on the first respin with no new wild, and the held reels are released.
Paying both ways
A line can pay twice on a single spin: once for a run starting on reel 1 and once for a run starting on reel 5. If one direction makes five of a kind, the line is paid only once, at the higher value. The wild has no pay of its own; it only fills in for the planets, comets, stars, moons and royals.
This rule is what makes the expanding wilds strong. With all three middle reels wild, every line has a wild run of three in its middle, so the symbol on reel 1 makes four of a kind leftward and the symbol on reel 5 makes four of a kind rightward, on all ten lines at once. Even with the cheapest symbols that’s 40 coins, four times the stake.
Pay table
Coins per line:
| Symbol | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ringed planet | 9 | 36 | 148 |
| Blue comet | 7 | 23 | 88 |
| Gold star | 5 | 15 | 59 |
| Violet moon | 3 | 12 | 45 |
| A | 2 | 6 | 23 |
| K | 2 | 5 | 17 |
| Q | 2 | 3 | 15 |
| J | 1 | 3 | 12 |
| 10 | 1 | 2 | 9 |
There are no scatters, no free spins and no bonus games. The respin chain is the entire feature.
The odds
Each middle reel has 33 stops with one wild, so it shows the wild about one time in eleven. The chance that at least one of the three middle reels shows one on a paid spin is 1 − (10/11)³, a little under 25%: roughly one spin in four opens a respin.
The return is 95.87%, calculated exactly from the reels, the respin chain and the pay table rather than simulated. A sampling run of 2,000,000 rounds found that about 41.8% of rounds (a round being the paid spin plus any respins) paid something; that hit rate is a measured, approximate figure. Because the feature is frequent and pays steadily, this machine swings less than the free-spin slots in the same family.
Strategy
No input changes the outcome of a respin; the held reels are fixed and the rest are random. What’s worth knowing:
- One wild reel is common, three are not. Most respins pay a little or nothing. The large results come from a second and third wild reel joining the chain.
- Look at reels 1 and 5 on a big chain. Once the middle is wild, those two reels decide everything. A ringed planet on the same row at both ends of a line gives five of a kind, 148 coins, on that line.
- Low coin, long session. With wins this frequent, the 10-credit spin stretches a balance a long way.
The both-ways rule also appears on Twin Way Stars, which adds free spins in place of expanding wilds. For wilds that travel across the reels, see Walking Wilds.
If you enjoy Nebula Wilds, try No Commission Baccarat or No-Zero Roulette next.
