Re-spin in slots
A re-spin is a follow-up spin of some or all of a slot’s reels, triggered by a game event rather than a new stake, usually with certain symbols or reels held in place while the rest spin again. It sits inside the round that set it off, so any win it produces belongs to that same paid spin. Most re-spins are automatic and cost nothing extra, although some older and land-based designs let the player buy one, reel by reel, after seeing the result.
How a re-spin works on the reels
The mechanic always has the same two parts: a trigger and a hold. Something lands that the game rules name as the trigger, the reels or symbols tied to it lock, and the remaining positions spin once more at the stake of the original round.
NetEnt’s Starburst is the textbook case. Its wild lands only on reels 2, 3 and 4, expands to cover the whole reel and holds there while the other reels re-spin. Each new wild during a re-spin expands, locks and earns one more, up to a ceiling of three re-spins with three wild reels. The game sheet states that re-spins are played at the same bet as the round that activated them, and the feature ends the moment a re-spin brings no new wild.
That ceiling matters.
Common variants
Studios build the same idea in several shapes, and the names are not standardised between them. Sticky-symbol re-spins hold winning or special symbols while the rest of the grid spins again. Hold-and-win, sometimes sold as hold-and-collect, gives a set number of re-spins that resets each time a new coin or prize symbol lands. Reel-hold versions lock full reels, as Starburst does, and a few games award a single re-spin when two of the three scatters needed for a bonus have already landed.
The paid version is a separate design. A patent filed in the United States describes a game in which the player picks a reel, sees which lines could still pay, and then chooses whether to buy the re-spin for credits or start a fresh game.
Re-spins and the slot's RTP
A free re-spin is not a gift on top of the game’s maths. Its expected value is already built into the published RTP, because the studio calculates return over every outcome of the paid spin, including every re-spin chain it can lead to.
Take Starburst, which NetEnt lists at 96.08% RTP. That figure covers the base spins and the wild re-spins together, as a long-run average over millions of rounds. Over €500 of play it implies roughly €480 returned on average across a very large number of players, not a forecast for one session, and the re-spins are part of how that €480 is distributed rather than an extra layer above it.
Where a re-spin is paid, the question changes, and the honest answer is that the price varies by game. The cost of each optional re-spin is usually set from the chance of improving the current screen, so a re-spin offered with four matching symbols showing will cost more than one offered on a dead board. Whether such a purchase carries the same return as the base game, a higher one or a lower one depends on the individual game’s rules, and those are only confirmed in the paytable or the studio’s game sheet.
The myth to discard is that a near miss makes the next re-spin more likely to land.
Each re-spin is drawn by the RNG independently, with the held symbols fixed but the spinning positions as random as on any other spin. A slot is never due.
Re-spin versus free spins
The two terms are confused more than any others in slot help pages, and the difference is one of scale. A re-spin replays part of the current screen inside the same round, while free spins are a separate bonus round of several full spins, usually triggered by scatters.
Starburst shows the line clearly. It has no free spins feature at all, so every prize is decided in the base game, on the spin itself or on the re-spins that follow it.
The distinction matters most for bonuses. Casino free spins offers are a promotion, credited as a fixed number of spins at a set stake, and their wagering terms refer to those spins. In-game re-spins are part of the game design and are not counted separately, so a re-spin chain triggered during a promotional free spin simply adds to that spin’s result. How an operator then treats the winnings, including any cap or wagering requirement, is set in its own bonus terms and differs from one site to the next.
What we check first, when a reader asks about a feature, is whether the paytable calls it a re-spin or a free spin, since the label tells you which rules apply.
