Scatter Symbol Slots
Scatter symbols pay or trigger features by total count from any position on the reels, and they sit outside every line and ways system.
How scatter symbols work
A scatter symbol counts wherever it lands. It does not need a payline, a way or an adjacent partner, because the game simply counts scatters across the reels and acts on the total. The two common roles are paying a multiple of the stake and triggering a feature, and many games give their scatter both jobs at once.
The trigger role is the better known one. A stated count of scatters, most often 3, opens Free Spins or another bonus, and higher counts usually award a larger entry. The paying role settles immediately, with the paytable listing a stake multiple for each scatter count.
Scatters sit outside the win systems that govern ordinary symbols. In a Paylines game the scatter is the one symbol that ignores the lines, and in a ways game it ignores the reel order requirement. One consequence is a rule found in most paytables, which is that Wild Symbols substitute for everything except the scatter.
Some games extend the idea with a heavier variant, covered on the Super Scatter page, and others build their whole win system on scatter style counting. The rules of each game state the counts, the payments and the trigger thresholds, and those lines are the whole feature in writing.
A scatter is easy to evaluate because everything about it is a stated number. The counts it needs and the amounts it pays either appear in the rules or the game has failed to disclose its own trigger, and a player can check that in the paytable before staking.