Respins

Respins and free spins both give you additional reel action without an extra stake, but they operate very differently. Free spins run as a self-contained bonus sequence, usually triggered by scatters and governed by their own modified rules. A respin is more targeted. It holds specific symbols in place and spins only the remaining reels, or spins all reels again from a position set up by what just landed. The distinction matters because respins are typically woven into regular play rather than launching a separate mode.

Respins appear in several forms depending on how a game deploys them. In hold-and-win setups, landing a minimum number of coin or bonus symbols triggers a fixed count of respins with those symbols locked in position, and any new qualifying symbols that land during the respin sequence reset the counter and lock down too. In expanding or sticky wild setups, a wild landing on a reel may trigger a respin of all other reels while the wild holds.

Some games award a single respin when a near-miss condition is detected, spinning only the reels that didn’t contribute to the near combination. Each implementation uses the same core idea, a partial or full re-spin from an advantageous starting position, but the trigger condition and the locked state differ considerably.

Does a respin cost an additional stake?

In the vast majority of cases, no. Respins triggered by game events, such as a landing wild, a coin symbol threshold, or a near-miss condition, are awarded at no additional cost and run as part of the original spin’s resolution. The only exception is a purchased respin option offered by some titles, where the player can elect to pay to respin specific reels after a result they want to improve on. That’s a distinct feature from a triggered respin and will always be clearly presented as a paid option.

Is a hold and Win bonus the same as a respin feature?

Hold and Win is a specific format that uses respins as its delivery system, but the two aren’t interchangeable terms. The respin is the delivery system, reels spinning again from a locked state. Hold and win is a bonus structure that typically awards three starting respins, locks qualifying symbols, resets the counter when new ones land, and continues until the counter reaches zero. Not every respin feature follows that structure, and hold-and-win games sometimes label the phase a bonus round rather than a respin, even though the same underlying process is running.