News and Analysis
Gambling States Continue to Smash iGaming Gambling Revenue Records
The American Gaming Association (AGA) has announced that US Gross Gambling Revenue (GGR) has hit its lowest point since 2003, but it's not across the board, as the online sectors report booming figures, beginning with Michigan.
Online gambling in MI is off to a flying start as the market records GGR of $42m accrued in just ten days of legal gambling ($4.3m of that goes straight to the state in taxes). Online casinos Michigan launched on January 22nd, leading the way thus far is BetMGM Michigan, as the highest-grossing casino.
Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, January continues a seven-month streak of record-breaking iGaming revenue for the state, with January alone up 476.1% on 2020’s records. In the PA market, DraftKings and BetRivers Casinos are leading the way.
New Jersey is no exception to the record-breaking trend, and in January, they became the first US state to see monthly online casino revenue surpass $100m, according to figures from the NJDGE. Although, with the pace set by Michigan Players, it might not be long until MI smashes through this record.
Playtech Expands US Presence with Greenwood Racing
Playtech software is currently offered at Bet365 and BetMGM in New Jersey. But, this week brings the exciting news that this award-winning casino games developer is expanding its US presence after hashing out a deal with Parx Casino operator Greenwood Racing. Under the agreement, Playtech replaced GAN as Greenwood’s platform provider of choice, bringing Playtech’s hit games to MI, NJ, and PA.
Slots of the Week
That’s it for this week’s serious news stories; without further ado, let’s jump in and take a look at the top 3 slots to spin this week.
Rome The Golden Age Slot: NetEnt. RTP 96.06% (variable).
Travel back to the Golden Age of the Roman Empire for promised prizes up to 100,000x your bet this week in NetEnt’s newest release. Set in an affluent Roman household, the reels look stunning: adorned with marble columns and statues, following a 3x4x5x4x3 formation and bets start from just $0.01 in this high volatility slot.
The main feature is the progressive multipliers (applied to free spins) that can reach as high as 1,000x, but first, you’ll have to collect coins in the base game: hence for once, you won’t want free spins to trigger too early. Whenever the Golden Age symbol appears on the reels, 4 points are added to the gold metre (top-left of the reel screen); when this reaches 200 coins, the bonus multiplier count (top-right of the reel screen) begins to increase. This multiplier is applied to free spin wins, triggered by collecting 3 scatter symbols.
During the free spins round (which begins with 3 spins), only golden Rome scatter symbols are present, and each new symbol sticks, renewing the number of spins to 3, plus the value of the symbol is added to the total coin win. When the round ends (either with no new symbols or a filled reel screen) the multiplier you earned before triggering the round is applied for bountiful payouts!
Ready to see if the Roman Gods favor you? Then take this brand new NetEnt slot for a spin at any of these top-rated NetEnt online casinos.
Spartacus: Super Colossal Reels: WMS. RTP 96.76%.
Sticking with the historical theme is our next slot of the week from WMS, Spartacus: Super Colossal Reels. As you may have guessed from the name, this slot is all about dual reels (the main set,5x4 with 25 lines, and the Super Colossal Reels 5x12 with 75 lines), which deliver 100 lines, stacked symbols, and multiple wilds.
Both sets of reels spin in unison with 4 different wild features (which can transfer reels, be stacked, stick, grant re-spins, and trigger colossal multiplier wins), making for juicy base wins. But keep your eyes peeled for colosseum Scatters, which trigger the free spins round where multiplier wilds can grow as high as 100x, plus finding more scatters can retrigger the round up to 220 spins!
The max prize for this slot is up to $250,000, but it’s a very volatile game and rather complicated slot to start spinning, so we recommend playing demo mode before staking real money at any of these WMS online casinos.
Sorcerer's Guild of Magic: Playtech. RTP 96.06%.
Our last game of the week comes from Playtech and hits magical notes with beautiful graphics and feature-filled gameplay. Set on 5x3 reels with 10 base-game lines, this game’s main feature is the elemental re-spins.
5 different types of elemental re-spins are available (each is triggered by the appearance of the corresponding Sorcerer on the reels), and each delivers an excellent feature such as extra wilds, multipliers up to 10x, increasing the paylines to 20, re-spin or removing lower-paying symbols to increase the win potential.
Score multiple Sorcerer symbols at a time (or even all 5), and you’re in for a treat as the bonus functions are combined or improved for even better results and bigger wins! There are no free spins, but with this many bonus re-spins making the base game action non-stop, you don’t need them: rather, enjoy the juicy base game of this brand new Playtech Casino release!
Alright folks, that's it from us for this week. We'll see you next Friday with more new and games, till then have a great gambling week!
