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Clusters, cascades and pay-anywhere
The three often appear together but are different rules: two are ways of counting a win, one is what happens after a win. Here is how they differ and why they are combined.
Cluster pays: touching groups
Cluster pays ignore lines and reel order and count groups of matching symbols touching horizontally or vertically. A group above a set size pays, and paytables usually scale with group size. Whether diagonals count as touching is in the game's rules.
In this site's catalogue, 100 titles mention clusters in their format line: 57 from Pragmatic Play, 19 from NetEnt, 16 from Microgaming, 5 from Hacksaw Gaming and 3 from Nolimit City.
Pay anywhere: a count, wherever they land
Pay anywhere pays when enough matching symbols appear anywhere on screen. They need not touch or start on a given reel. Where clusters count connection, pay anywhere counts only quantity.
In this site's catalogue, 89 titles list pay anywhere in their format, all from Pragmatic Play. Other studios may call a similar rule something else, so the rules text is a better guide than the name.
Cascades: what happens after a win
A cascade — also called tumbling or avalanche — is not a way of counting a win. Winning symbols are removed, symbols drop in from above to fill the gaps, and the new layout is evaluated again, so one paid spin can produce several evaluations.
This site's classifier groups 139 titles into the cascade family: 138 from Pragmatic Play and 1 from Microgaming. Because the classifier gives cascades priority, a cluster-pays game that also tumbles is filed under cascade rather than cluster.
Why they are so often combined
Clusters and pay anywhere have no lines, so when symbols vanish and refill, the basis for re-evaluating stays intact. On a lines game a gap only matters if it sits on a line; when a game counts quantity or connection, the whole screen is what gets evaluated. That is why both pair naturally with cascades.
In this site's catalogue, 36 of the 100 cluster titles and 40 of the 89 pay-anywhere titles also list tumbling. When reading a combined game, separating “what is counted” from “what happens after a win” makes the rules much simpler. How many times a chain continues is an outcome, not a rule, and not something to predict.
Terms used here
- Cluster pays
- A pay rule counting groups of matching symbols touching horizontally or vertically.
- Pay anywhere
- A pay rule counting matching symbols anywhere on screen, regardless of position.
- Cascade
- Winning symbols are removed, gaps refill and the screen is evaluated again. Also tumbling or avalanche.
- Chain
- A run of cascades within one spin. An outcome, not a rule.