Nudges and holds are features from British fruit machines that let you move a reel by one position (a nudge) or keep a reel where it is while the others spin again (a hold). They are offered by the machine, often at random, and give the look of a decision within the game.
What nudges and holds are
A hold lets you lock one or more reels before the next spin. If the first two reels show cherries, holding them and spinning the third gives you another chance to line up the third cherry.
A nudge moves a single reel up or down by one symbol after the reels have stopped. If a bar sits just above the win line, one nudge down puts it on the line.
Both are part of the pub and arcade machine tradition. Online, they appear mainly in fruit-machine style games that copy that layout, sometimes with a separate feature board around the reels.
How it works, step by step
Holds:
- After a spin, the machine may light up the hold buttons.
- You choose which reels to hold.
- On the next spin, which is a normal paid spin, the held reels stay put and the others spin.
Nudges:
- After a spin, the machine may award a number of nudges, shown on a counter.
- You choose which reel to nudge and in which direction, if the game allows both.
- Each press moves that reel one position. When the counter reaches zero, the result is final.
Common variations
- Auto nudges: the machine nudges for you, usually towards a win.
- Nudge features in the bonus: some games award nudges as a prize on a feature board or trail.
- Wild nudges: on video slots a stacked wild that partly lands may nudge to cover the whole reel, often triggering a respin.
- xNudge: Nolimit City's version, where each nudge of a wild also increases a multiplier on it.
What it does to the maths and the feel
Nudges and holds feel like skill, and choosing badly can mean missing a win the machine has offered. But the machine decides when to offer them, and how often, as part of its overall return. Making the best choice every time only gets you the return the machine was designed to give; it does not get you an edge. The house edge is still there, and the long-run return is set by the game's RTP.
On online games that use random number generators, there is nothing in past spins that makes a hold more likely to succeed next time. Each spin is independent.
Rules in Great Britain
Online fruit-machine style games with nudges and holds are available on GB-licensed sites, under the same stake limits and game design rules as any other online slot. A held spin is still a new paid game cycle. Physical pub fruit machines are a separate category of gaming machine with their own rules, covered on the fruit machines page.
Questions people ask
Is using nudges and holds a skill?
Choosing well avoids throwing away a win the machine has offered, but it does not change the overall return. The payout over time is set by the machine's maths, not by the player.
Do online slots have nudges?
Some do, mostly fruit-machine style games. Modern video slots tend to use automatic nudges, such as a wild nudging to fill a reel, rather than ones you control.
What is an xNudge?
A Nolimit City mechanic where a stacked wild is nudged to fill its reel and a multiplier on it rises with each nudge. It is automatic, not a player choice.