By Nicholas G. Colon
Classic Slot Games: For the nostalgic veterans who enjoy the traditional casino-style games, we supply over 400 3-reel free slots no download games and two-dimensional machines. They are usually not abundant with bonuses, but they are easy to use as they consist of a few lines and rows.
When you walk onto a casino your senses are assaulted by flashing lights, and the sounds of slot machine bells and beeps indicating payoffs to players. There are several thousands of slot machines on a casino floor and have scores of different themes. The overwhelming majority of slots available at online casinos are also found in land-based casino. Winkslots is a great online slots website that has a wide variety slot games for players to play. These slots machines have various themes to them. Some are inspired by movies and popular TV shows, while others have the subject of famous rock bands and general topics like aliens or monsters. Whatever the topic is these modern games have highly sophisticated graphics and sounds that give the player a real interactive experience with the game.
Most of the newer games seen in casinos (online and land based) are multi-credit and multi-line games that have highly recognizable themes like Wheel of Fortune and Wizard of Oz, while others are more generic themes like fire fighters, space aliens and the standard 3 wheel slot machines. Many of the multi-line, multi-credit machines that dominate the gaming realm have bonus round options where the big jackpots are attainable. Even though the chance of hitting a big payout is rare, it adds excitement to the play experience.
The latest trend for slot games is to have TV show themed games that people are familiar with. It occurred to me that players may want to know the difference between main stream themed machines and generic themes as well as between the multi-line, multi-credit games and the traditional 3 wheel slot games.
First the difference between the multi-line, multi-credit machines and the traditional 3 wheel slot machines. Prior to the 2001 tech crash casinos were making copious amounts of money from the standard 3 wheel slot machines. In an effort to increase their revenue operators and casinos introduced a new type of machine one that would increase the wager amount of the player as well as increasing the hold percentage for the casino.
To illustrate the cost of play difference, consider the effects on a routine player (i.e. one who visits a site twice a week and plays on an average of 2 hours per trip). For the 2 variations of games we will assume an average bet of $.75 for the traditional 3 coin quarter game and $.90 for the new multi-line, multi-credit games (18 lines at $.05 per line).
3 Coin Quarter Player
The average spin rate of a slot is 10 spins a minute, therefore over a 2 hour play period this represents a total number of spins of 1200. With an average bet of $.75 and a 10% hold this represents a player lost of $90 for a single trip. With a routine player coming 2 times a week this represents a total loss for the month of $720
Multi Line, Multi Coin Games
With an average spin rate of a slot is 10 spins a minute over a 2 hour play period this represents a total number of spins of 1200. With an average bet of $.90 and a 10% hold, this represents a player lost of $108 for a single trip. With a routine player coming 2 times a week this represents a total loss for the month of $864. The total effect of this cost of play example is a $144 increase in loss per month. This is a 20% increase in loss rate or a 20% decrease in value to a player.
Traditionally, as casinos shift from higher denominations to lower denomination games the hold % increases. So as players moved from quarter games to nickel games the player is betting more while losing more.
The difference between the multi-line, multi-credit machine and the traditional three wheel machine is an important distinction when evaluating value for slot games. An equally important aspect for players to be aware of is to understand the difference between mainstream branding and the generic branding themes of slot games.
The benefits that name and image recognition bring is that people will be subconsciously be drawn to the machine. Play rates will increase at first but then rapidly fall after a few quarters. These initial benefits are from the casinos perspective. From the players perspective the benefits of playing name brand machines over generic themed machines are exactly none.
Casino game developers are not allowed to name a game whatever they want and put any image on a slot machine they want. They have to pay product licensing fee to the company who holds the rights to the name and images. And the popular culture icons that are used do not come cheap for the game developers. These fees are on top of the initial development cost, and the regulator’s approval cost. The total cost to get a new game into a single market is well over 1 million dollars and take several years to complete.
To recoup those initial funds and pay the licensing fee to the owners of the image rights the casinos have to increase hold percentages of the machines. This burns out players at an accelerated rate. The casinos get the money from the players at a faster rate and this decreases the entertainment value for the player. Simply stated playing a generic machine will prolong the players time on device.
Despite these short comings casinos game developers continue to put out multi-credit, multi-line branded games at the World Global Gaming conference every year. The market has become saturated with these games and the players are the ones that get the short end of the stick.
For the purposes of organizing our detailed reviews of various slots games, we’ve organized this section of our site according to which companies design and manufacture which games. Slot machineproviders like IGT have been around for decades and serve both the land-based and online casino markets. Others, like Realtime Gaming, have been around for less than a decade and only serve theInternet market.
Clicking on the links to the providers’ pages will take you to the information page on that company. That page will include a list of the games that company provides. On this page, we providebrief overviews of each company, including a couple of examples of well-known games that each company produces.
We’ve done our best to make this section as comprehensive as possible, but there are literally thousands of slots games available. If we’ve left out a provider or a game that you feel is worthyof conclusion here, please use the information on our “contact us” page to let us know.
Ainsworth Game Technology is an Australian company that’s been in business for 20+ years. The company is named after its founder, Len Ainsworth. The company is publicly listed under the codeAGI on the Australian stock market. They have headquarters in Newington, Sydney, Australia. We offer detailed reviews of their most famous games, including Dragon Lines, Eaglebucks, and GrandDragon.
Amatic Industries
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Amatic Industries is an international designer and manufacturer of slot machines games found in casinos all over the world. They’ve been in business since 1993. They offer more than just slots,though—they’re also one of the leading designers of electronic roulette games. The company has won multiple industry awards, including “Most Stylish Gaming Machine” at the Irish Gaming Show andthe Golden Dice Award at ICE. We offer comprehensive reviews of some of their best-love titles, including Admiral Nelson, Cool Diamonds, Eye of Ra, Lucky Coin and Wolf Moon.
Amaya Gaming
Amaya Gaming is best-known as the Internet juggernaut which bought PokerStars, making them the largest online poker provider in the world. It also catapulted them into the leading position oflargest publicly traded gambling company in the world. They do work in partnership with other companies—for example, their partnership with Aristocrat enables players to play some of the mostfamous Australian poker machines (pokies) online. Some of their more popular slot machine games include Casinomeister, Forrest Gump, Jenga, Superman, and The Flash.
Aristocrat Gaming Technology
Aristocrat Gaming Technology is another publicly traded company based out of Australia. (What can we say? Slot machines are really popular in that country, even if they call them “pokies”instead of “slots”.) The company was founded in 1953. They have licenses to operate in 240 different jurisdictions in 90 different countries throughout the world. Some of their better-knowngames include 50 Lions, Zorro, Sons of Anarchy, The Walking Dead, and Dumb and Dumber, among many others.
Ash Gaming
Ash Gaming has been in business since 2002 and focuses on providing specific games to specific clients, especially those in the sports betting industry who want to expand their offerings totheir player base. They also focus primarily on the Internet market. They don’t have the most extensive list of games in the industry, but some of their games are popular, including Alice inWonderland, Life of Brian, Nostradamus, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
Bally Technologies
Bally Technologies is one of the oldest and best-known companies on this list. They’ve been in business since 1968, and they offer a huge range of games. If the name sounds familiar, it’sbecause the company is large enough to be involved in multiple aspects of the business. At one time, they were also popular providers of regular video games and pinball machines. They also havea casino in Las Vegas. They have a number of lucrative licensing deals, and they design and manufacture some of the following slot machines: Betty Boop, Double Dragon, Ducky Dynasty, Grease,Pawn Stars, Titanic, and ZZ Top.
Barcrest Gaming
Barcrest Gaming is a UK company that’s been providing gambling machines to businesses since 1968. They were acquired by IGT in the late 1990s but were then sold to Scientific Games in 2011.Both IGT and Scientific Games saw the wisdom in letting the brand continue under its own name, which it still does. You’ll find pages on our site providing complete game details for thefollowing games: Crown Gems, Rainbow Riches, Thai Flower, and Wipeout.
What's A Branded Slot Machine Machines
Betsoft Gaming
Betsoft Gaming is famous for their innovative and impressive 3D gaming products available on the Internet. We try to be as objective as possible when writing about any company on this site.Spend some time here, and you’ll see that we rarely “toot a company’s horn”, as it were. But the games from this provider are so much more impressive than anything else on the market that it’shard to not brag on them at least a little bit. They focus more on Internet gaming than land-based casino games. Some of the games from Betsoft Gaming that we especially enjoy include: AfterNight Falls, A Night in Paris, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Good Girl Bad Girl, and Greedy Goblins. You’ll find more of their games listed on our page devoted exclusively to their company.
Picture Of A Slot Machine
Blueprint Gaming
Blueprint Gaming is a provider of gaming machines to the UK market, but they’re actually owned by a German company, the Gauselmann Group. They focus on creating games for Internet and mobilegamblers. They have multiple unusual licenses, including slots with the following themes: Austin Powers, Bejeweled, Chuzzle, Peggle, Plants vs Zombies, and Zuma. You can read about any of thoseindividual games here on our site, as well as find more details about Blueprint Gaming on their corporate profile page here.