It’s always great news to trigger a free spins round and it’s very often a key to winning some big prizes. Sometimes the free spins are a good enough reward and will do only good to an account balance. However, a little bit more help is sometimes part of the deal, and this can include the ability to re-trigger free spins in a bonus round and there’s also Expanding Scatters.

A scatter symbol appears in most slot games these days.

They can bring you wins without having to be on the same payline and if appearing in sufficient numbers, usually a minimum of three as in the game ‘Flux’ (ThunderKick), they can trigger bonus games that then bring in big wins.

Just like with the wild symbol, game developers don’t like to be seen to be standing still and they add on different variations such as expanding wilds or sticky wilds. The same is happening to scatter symbols and that’s where the expanding scatters come into play.

The expanding scatter symbol isn’t seen all that often and there are different types of this symbol that behave in differing ways. When a symbol does expand and covers an entire reel it’s going to be good news.

The expanding scatter is most commonly seen in a bonus game, particularly one that offers free spins. When the round starts you’re told that a certain symbol will become an expanding scatter during the length of the free spins round. When it makes an appearance on the reels it will then expand and cover the entire reel.

There’s sometimes good and bad news concerning an expanding scatter. It can take away some winning combinations but it can lead to some very good wins indeed. In the game ‘Book of Ra’ you trigger the free spins bonus round when getting three or more of the book symbols anywhere on the reels. You’re rewarded with ten free spins and an expanding scatter comes into play. The player sees the pages of the Book of Ra turn and it’ll stop on one symbol which becomes the expanding scatter. If that symbol appears during the free spins round two, three, four or five times, the value of the bonus symbol is multiplied by the paylines.

This feature also appears in the ‘Lucky Pirate’ game. Again at the start of the free spins a particular symbol is identified as the expanding scatter, this time being chosen by the spin of a ship’s wheel.

As mentioned previously the expanding scatter isn’t the most commonly seen feature. The usual purpose of a scatter in a free spins round is to appear in such numbers that it can re-trigger the free spins and give you even more chance of earning big wins. The expanding scatter can be a useful addition to a free spins bonus round, though an expanding wild is far more likely to bring in a whole series.