Synced Reels Explained: When Several Reels Copy the Same Symbols

NetEnt’s own game page for Twin Spin states that every single spin sees at least two of the reels cloned and linked together. That’s the base game, not a bonus round you have to wait for, and it sits alongside a published 96.55% RTP and a 28% hit frequency. Everything below comes from developer specifications, the patent record for synchronised reels, peer-reviewed research and independent testing standards.

We’ll walk through the order the software works in, what the linked reels are copying, how the sync feeds into ways-to-win totals and how to read the feature off any game’s info screen. If you’re in New Zealand, odds are you’ll meet these games on your phone; IDNZ’s 2026 digital report found 94% of Kiwis get online via smartphone, spending over five hours a day connected.

That’s why a mobile-friendly lobby such as spinbet nz is where most of you will actually meet a synced grid, thumb on the spin button rather than eyes on a desktop screen.

The reels you’re watching had finished their work before they started moving.

Decided Before The Spin

Reels are a display. They’re not making the decision.

In a synced game, the software settles the outcome, picks which reels will link, and only then plays the animation. If the basic sequence is new to you, Pokerati’s guide to how a slot resolves each spin sets out the groundwork: the number is drawn the moment you press spin, and the reels slowing down are just the display catching up.

Aristocrat’s granted patent for synchronised spinning reels, US 9,754,459 as published on Justia, lays the sequence out step by step: determine the initial reel stops, evaluate the payout on that combination, check whether the synchronous trigger has occurred, identify which reels will move in unison, then determine the offset.

The patent states that the offset can be a random number, so the shared position between two linked reels is itself drawn rather than designed on the fly.

The sync isn’t one reel copying its neighbour halfway through the spin; it’s one result being shown to you two, three or six times over. Read it that way and the feature stops looking like a visual quirk and starts looking like a deliberate piece of staging.

Both NetEnt and Yggdrasil, the studios behind the best-known synced-reel pokies, sit among the 20-plus providers stocked at SpinBet’s casino, so you can find these mechanics without hunting across half a dozen lobbies. Now for what the sync copies.

Same Symbols With Different Splits

Linked reels share pay symbols, and that doesn’t always mean the columns are identical twins. Think of a synced group as one column wearing several costumes. Your instinct probably says duplicated reels means duplicated luck; the more accurate read is that duplication concentrates the outcome. You get fewer distinct results per spin, but each one carries more weight across the grid.

Here’s how the leading titles handle it:

1. Twin Spin links a minimum of two adjacent reels and can expand to triplet, quadruplet or quintuplet reels across its 243-ways grid.
2. Syncronite syncs between two and six reels on every spin, with ways to win climbing from a floor of 729 up to 21,168 as the sync count rises, as reported by iGaming Business.
3. In Yggdrasil’s design, Splitz symbols only land on synchronised reels, and each of those reels still splits into its own random number of smaller symbols.
4. Twin Spin Megaways layers the link over a variable-height engine, producing between 64 and 117,649 ways per spin.

Matching symbols and identical reels aren’t the same claim, and Yggdrasil’s Splitz mechanic shows why: the pay symbol lines up while the split count underneath varies reel by reel. If Megaways titles are your thing, SpinBet’s lobby lets you filter by provider or category, which beats scrolling through thousands of games to find the handful you want. Which brings us to the numbers.

What The Numbers Say

A sync feature raises how often you connect something, and it’s built into the game’s published return rather than bolted on top. The Aristocrat patent is unusually candid here.

It states that a synchronous spin may typically result in a higher hit frequency than a random spin of the individual reels, and its own worked example adds roughly 1.38 percentage points of return to an 89.235% base game at a trigger probability of 1 in 12. Set that next to Twin Spin’s publisher-stated 28% hit frequency and you can see the pattern: more frequent connections, engineered into the model.

A heavier sync can still carry a strong return. Syncronite comes with a 96% RTP and a 64,800x maximum win, per iGaming Business and Yggdrasil’s own game page.

RTP is a long-run average across millions of spins, not a promise for your session. And the patent describes one specific implementation of synchronised reels, so treat it as evidence of how the mechanic is documented rather than a rule every studio follows identically.

Comparing published RTP figures across titles gets easier when one lobby carries over 5,000 games from 20-plus studios, which is roughly the scale SpinBet operates at for New Zealand players. So if the feature’s contribution already sits inside the published return, does a heavier sync change your odds, or just the shape of how the game delivers them?

Trust Built On Testing

A designed pattern and true randomness can live together, and the reason is testing. GLI-19, the interactive gaming systems standard published by Gaming Laboratories International, requires that RNG outcomes be statistically independent, fairly distributed and cryptographically strong, with each possible selection equally likely to be chosen.

Compliance analysis published in July 2026 notes that certification involves source-code review of the core randomness, scaling and shuffling algorithms, with statistical analysis run at a 99% confidence level using chi-square and independence tests.

Game certification is a separate job again, verifying each feature’s probability against the published math model. And the standard keeps moving forward; GLI released a v4.0 draft on 7 July 2026 that tightens External RNG verification requirements.

Jonas Strandman, senior games strategist at Yggdrasil, described Syncronite to iGaming Business this way: ‘The mechanics are all familiar to players, but the combination of synced reels and Splitz is a killer combo… Syncronite is an impressive production with balanced math and classic gambling excitement. It’s a game that all player types can appreciate and love’.

Balanced mathematics does a lot of work, and it points at something easy to miss: certification is what allows designers to build showy patterns in the first place. Without a verified engine underneath, a synced grid would be a claim on a marketing page. With one, it’s a feature you can check.

The Reveal Was Always The Point

The reel selection, the shared offset, the split count, the ways-to-win total; every piece resolves before the first reel begins to slow. What feels like tension building is staged disclosure, and that’s a craft decision made by the studio rather than a trick played on the maths.

Expect more of it. Sync mechanics are being layered onto other engines, with Twin Spin Megaways showing what happens when two randomised layers resolve on a single spin, while the GLI-19 testing standards keep tightening alongside them.

Open the info screen and check three things: whether the sync runs every spin or only on a trigger, how many reels can join, and what RTP the developer publishes. SpinBet adds new pokies every week from studios including NetEnt, Play’n GO, Pragmatic Play and Yggdrasil, with 24/7 support based in New Zealand if a rules panel leaves you with a question.

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