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It’s no secret that slot machines might be my least-favorite casino games, but with Halloween right around the corner, it seems a shame to not tie the holiday into gambling somehow. You won’t find many Halloween or horror themed casino games that aren’t slot machines, though—the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Zombie Blackjack, and that’s only marginally in that category. Even though I prefer to play other casino games, and even though I’d advise you to play other casino games, I’ll admit that slot machines have an appeal.
My problem with them is 2-fold:
- The house edge and rate of play are so high that they cost more money to play than any other casino game.
- The house edge can’t be calculated for a slot machine game. I find this lack of transparency misleading at best.
But if you’re going to play slot machines, you should do so because you find them entertaining. In fact, I’d suggest that the only criterion to judge a slot machine by is entertainment value. That’s because you’re going to lose a lot of money playing slots no matter what you do. Sure, you’ll see plenty of well-meaning advice about where to find the loose games, but the truth is, even the loose games will cut into your bankroll like a hot knife through butter.
When it comes to entertaining games, though, it’s hard to find games more entertaining than Halloween and horror-themed slots. Here are the 10 best slot machine games related to Halloween that are playable on the internet:
1- The Walking Dead Slot Machine
The Walking Dead slot machine game is a product of Aristocrat Technologies, who are famous for their Australian-style slots games. I love licensed slot machine games, too, and I can’t imagine a license more valuable than The Walking Dead right now—maybe Game of Thrones, but I think The Walking Dead still has the edge.
Like most tv-show-themed slots games, The Walking Dead slots includes clips and sound bites from the show. It’s a penny slot, but keep in mind that, like most penny slots, The Walking Dead makes you play for more than a single penny per spin. The top prize in the game is $500,000.
I like slots with bonus games, especially ones where you get to spin a wheel. The Walking Dead features 2 spinning wheels:
- The Atlanta wheel
- The CDC wheel
If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll understand the significance of these 2 locations. The bonus features become available when you bet 75 credits. The maximum bet is $3.
The spinning wheels in this game are vertical rather than horizontal—I saw something similar when I played The Big Lebowski slots recently. It’s a nice change of pace. One of the best parts of the game is the grenade round, which is available sometimes when you spin the CDC wheel. The grenades unlock prize amounts as they explode. If you love The Walking Dead, you’ll almost certainly love The Walking Dead slots, too.
2- Dracula Slots
It’s hard for me to imagine a more traditional or classic Halloween or horror icon than Count Dracula. Maybe he’s too old-school for a generation that’s been raised on the likes of Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, but he’s just my style. Maybe it’s because I’m a literature guy and love the novel.
Eventually, once he’s fed enough, you get wild bonus symbols and free spins. The best thing about this Dracula slot machine game, though, is the stunning graphics. This version of the game, by the way, isn’t based on any specific film versions of the character. You won’t see Gary Oldman or Bela Lugosi on the screen.
It’s more of an animated amalgamation of previous renditions of the Count. If you’re in the mood for some spooky, classic Universal Monsters fun, you could do a lot worse than trying this Dracula slot machine game.
3- A Nightmare on Elm Street Slots
I’m not just a fan of classic horror characters like Dracula, though. I can move up and down the chronology of horror characters just fine. And one of my favorite more recent characters is Freddy Krueger, although I know some of my younger readers might think even Freddy is old school.
A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 5-reel slot machine game with 30 paylines. The Freddy symbol acts as a wild symbol, and the game uses the expanding wild paradigm that’s become so popular in modern video slots. The other symbols are also characters from the movie:
- Jesse Braun
- Kris Fowles
- Nancy Holbrook
- Quentin Smith
You can win up to $100,000 playing this game, which is a big jackpot by anyone’s standards. I liked the sound effects and music for the game, too—I thought both were remarkably faithful to the spirit of the new movie.
I didn’t like the new Nightmare on Elm Street as well as I liked the original, but that happens. I’m such an old curmudgeon that I just don’t see the point in remaking a movie when a perfectly good copy of the original movie is still available to watch.
4- 28 Spins Later
You might have figured out already that I’m a big fan of zombie movies. One of the films that resurrected the genre (along with the remake of Dawn of the Dead) was 28 Days Later. I think creating a game called 28 Spins Later is a clever play on words.28 Spins Later slots is a product of PlayPearls, and it’s a great example of spooky, gory Halloween fun in a slot machine game. The symbols include zombies and brains (which are, of course, a zombie’s favorite food.) A zombie game wouldn’t be complete without weapons to fight the zombies with, either, so 28 Spins Later has also included various weapons in their symbols.
The music for his game is legitimately creepy. Even though the game features blood, gore, and zombies, the graphics are a little cartoony and amateurish. 28 Spins Later has no real relationship with the movie 28 Days Later, either. It’s what you might consider a knockoff. It’s a fun little game that I wouldn’t take too seriously.
5- Frankenstein Slots
I already mentioned my love of classic movie monsters like Dracula. I just don’t think you can create a list of horror slots or spooky slots without finding a game about Frankenstein. The version I’m suggesting here is from Net Entertainment.Their Frankenstein slot machine game has 5 reels and 20 paylines. The imagery calls back strongly to Boris Karloff’s portrayal of the monster from the James Whale movies from the 1930s. It has lots of wild symbols, which I know are popular with most of today’s online video slot action junkies. This is also one of the new-style 3-D slot machine games. You can play on almost any device imaginable, too—that’s one of NetEnt’s specialties—making mobile versions of their games available.
The symbols include classic icons from the movie, including the monster himself, but also the windmill and a brain in a jar. One of the things I didn’t enjoy about Frankenstein slots was its reliance on the playing card symbols—and it seemed like they turned up more often than they should. On a game like this, they didn’t seem like a good fit. The sound effects and music are cool and appropriate, though. It’s worth checking out if you’re in a Halloween mood.
6- Ghostbusters Slots
Like I said, I’m a fan of licensed games…The question some people would ask about a Ghostbusters slot machine is which intellectual property is actually being licensed here? Is the game going to be based on the original movie and its sequel? Or will it be based on one of the 2 cartoon series that the films spawned? Or is it based on the remake that came out not long ago?
As luck would have it, the version of the game I’m writing about is based on the original 1980s film. It’s an IGT game, so unless you live in one of the 3 states that have legalized, regulated online gambling, you can’t play it from the United States. I include it here, in part, because I expect the legal situation in the United States is going to change over time. Also, I’m writing for an international audience—players in Australia and the United Kingdom also read articles about these kinds of games, even though they might refer to them as Ghostbusters pokies or Ghostbusters fruit machines.
As you might expect, you get to hear the theme song a lot. If you like Ray Parker, that’s a good thing, but if not…Anyway, this is a more light-hearted entry in my list of top 10 Halloween themed slots.
7- The Mummy Slots
Another licensed property, The Mummy slots is based on the Brendan Fraser vehicle. When I think of The Mummy, I think of the Boris Karloff movie, but I’m old. I’m sure today’s young people think of the Brendan Fraser movie as being an old movie, now. Funny how your perspective changes over time.
But even though I’m an old-timer, I enjoyed The Mummy movies with Fraser. They were great fun. The slot machine game is fun, too, and if you’re looking for something that walks down the middle of the road between the comedy of Ghostbusters and the seriousness of some of the spookier slots, The Mummy is a great place to look.
The game has 5 reels and 25 paylines. Most of the symbols are characters from the movie, and they’re not using cartoon renditions of the characters, either—they’re high quality photos. It’s a penny slot, but if you bet on all 25 paylines, you’re risking 25 cents per spin.
8- Zombies vs. Cheerleaders
There’s nothing I love better than a mash-up of 2 great concepts. Zombie movies are cool. Cheerleader movies are also awesome. So why not a slot machine game that combines them? (I’m also a fan of Plants vs. Zombies.)Zombies vs. Cheerleaders is a colorful, high-energy slot machine game with a kind of pop art feel to the graphics. It has 5 reels and 25 paylines. You can set the denomination, too. The game is available for as little as a penny per line per spin or as much as $5 per line per spin.
I love that the wild symbol is a bloody axe. I also love that the bonus game is a battle between the zombies and the cheerleaders. Remember how I suggested that you play slot machines for their entertainment value? Zombies vs. Cheerleaders is a perfect example of an entertaining slot machine game. Apparently I’m not the only person who thinks so, either, because they released a sequel to the game called Zombies vs Cheerleaders 2.
9- Spooky Family Slots
The best way to describe Spooky Family slots is as a parody of The Addams Family or maybe The Munsters. Let me describe the characters, and you can tell me which sounds more familiar:
- The head of the family is an urbane gentleman with a mustache.
- His wife has long black hair and looks vaguely like Vampira.
- Their daughter has black hair and pig tails. She frowns a lot.
- The little boy is had a round, boyish face.
- Then there’s a Frankenstein monster looking guy who’s also related to everyone.
Yeah, that sounds like a mash-up of The Addams Family and The Munsters, all right, although I think it might be more of a case of being a send-up of the former with a little of the latter sprinkled in for flavor.The game has 5 reels and 20 paylines. The designer is iSoftbet. You get to choose both the denomination for which you play and how many lines to bet on. The top prize is 5000 coins, but the 2nd and 3rd prizes are impressive, too—2000 coins and 1000 coins, respectively.
The bonus game has entirely different and new symbols, too, along the lines of what you might expect from a witch’s cauldron. There’s a tentacle and an eye belonging to a frog or something. The game does feature the playing card symbols that I’m always complaining about, but you don’t see them as often as you do in other slot machine games, which is a point in Spooky Family slots’ favor.
10- Trick or Treat Slots
No slot machine game on this list has a more overt Halloween theme than this one. The symbols include a lot of the iconography you might associate randomly with the holiday:
- A broomstick
- Candy
- Eggs (for throwing at houses—that’s a trick, see.)
- Fake blood
- Pitchforks
- Vampire teeth
- A witch hat
The game even features a character named Jasaon, but he’s dressed like Freddy Krueger in a hockey mask. The background is in keeping with the theme—a scary house and trees in the background, with plenty of greenish fog. I wish I had more greenish fog during Halloween here.
Trick or Treat slots is optimized for all kinds of devices, desktop, latop, and mobile. The game includes free spins and a scatter symbol. The music is scary but playful at the same time, like you’d expect to hear from a children’s animated Halloween special on television. The game has 5 reels and 30 paylines. I love that it doesn’t seem to use those playing card symbols I see on almost every other slot machine game on the internet these days.
Conclusion
As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, slot machines are my least favorite casino game for various reasons. But Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year, and the only casino games that take full advantage of Halloween are slot machines.
I’ve listed 10 of the most entertaining horror-themed and Halloween-themed slots games above. Not all of them are available online for real money to everyone in the world. Some of these casinos only offer real money casino games to players outside the United States, for example. But even some of those casinos will allow players from the USA to play the free money versions of their games.
If you’re going to play any of these Halloween slots for real money, allow me to offer you the following advice:
- Don’t play slots with money you can’t afford to lose. (You probably will lose. That’s how slot machines work.)
- Play as slowly as you can while still enjoying the game. (The faster you play, the sooner you’ll get into the long run. The long run is where the house edge kicks in.)
- Try to find an online casino that’s reputable and trustworthy. (The list of recommended casinos on this site is a good place to start.)
Also, and this is a more general tip, if you ONLY play slots, try branching out into video poker or table games like blackjack or craps. They’re probably easier to play than you think, and the house’s mathematical advantage is much lower on those games.
