Slot Machine

Slot Machine is the third mini-game in Plants vs. Zombies, Plants vs. Zombies: Journey to the West, and Plants vs. Zombies: Great Wall Edition. It is available once the Mini-games are unlocked. The gimmick of this levels is that instead of placing plants in a normal fashion, a slot machine deploys the player's artillery. The machine can dispatch seed packets for Peashooters, Snow Peas, Sunflowers, and Wall-nuts. Thus, this mini-game is a form of gambling as luck is heavily involved. It costs 25 sun to spin the slot machine. If the player survives four large waves of zombies, an endless barrage of zombies will infiltrate the lawn. This will continue until the player fulfills the goal of the level, and that is to collect 2,000 sun.

Objective
As mentioned before, to complete the level, 2,000 sun must be collected. However, the sun must be spent eventually to activate the slot machine. Postponing its activity is futile, as a horde of zombies will approach, while the player hoards sun. Matching two of a plant on the slots awards one seed packet and three of a kind produces three packets. Matching diamonds can either create one or three diamonds and matching sun icons will either produce 100 or 500 sun.

Strategies
This mini-game has a relatively simple strategy: simply plant Peashooters, Snow Peas, and Sunflowers mixed together in the back, and create a barricade of Wall-nuts in front. The player may have trouble to begin with, depending on their luck, but it gets easier the further they get, as there are only a couple of zombie types to contend with. Eventually, there will be more and more zombies approaching at one time, so if the player is trying to earn money by preventing themselves from winning and attempting to get diamonds, they may have to win so that hordes of zombies getting past their defenses will not make them lose. Note that any used seed packets will disappear if not planted after a certain amount of time. The seed packet will flash to a darker tint when it is about to do so, signaling that it should be used quickly. Also, Wall-nut First Aid, which is available in Crazy Dave's shop for $2000 after completing Adventure Mode, will both buy time and save the other plant. It is recommended that the player does not use this strategy, until a Wall-nut has reached its second and final stage of damage. This is not always possible, as the seed packet will eventually disappear if not used. If so, you can always plant it in front of another Wall-nut.

Trivia

 * A Peashooter with the back leaves of a Repeater can be seen on the Slot Machine.
 * Slot Machine, Vasebreaker, It's Raining Seeds, and Heat Wave are the only mini-games in which seed packets will vanish if unused.
 * There is a glitch in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Plants vs. Zombies where if the player leaves the game without completing it, he or she will be unable to pull the handle to get more plants upon returning. Thus, it will be difficult to complete the level if the player has less than five Sunflowers. The glitch ends upon ending the level.
 * Slot Machine and Seeing Stars are the only mini-games in Day that only have the normal zombie, Conehead Zombie, Buckethead Zombie, and Flag Zombie.
 * This is the only time in Plants vs. Zombies that the player can use Sunflower for free. This may be because there is no need for sun on other levels or mini-games because the player gets plants for free.
 * The zombie on the Slot Machine has silver coins for eyes in all versions except the iPad version.
 * Lucky Spin is the only achievement related to money besides Penny Pincher.
 * The icon for diamonds on the slot machine is different in the iPad version.
 * In the iPad version, Slot Machine is the first mini-game.