Physical casinos tend to take fewer risks. Whether it’s food choices (how often do you go to a casino that doesn’t have a steakhouse?), entertainment options or the casino floor, you’ll often find most casinos tend to have similar options – predictability can be important, especially when you have limited floor space to house the totality of your offerings to the public.
That tends to mean less frequent risks. Sure, on occasion the odd game will come out that pushes the envelope, but many slot innovations came more from evolution, not revolution, particularly in the past 10 years.
Meanwhile, online has theoretically unlimited space – you can always add another page to the site with a different game. Discoverability can be a challenge, but experimentation can be embraced and uncover healthy niches that couldn’t find a large enough audience elsewhere.
Here are 5 unique game formats you can find and play with online casinos.
Crash Games
Crash Games got their start outside the U.S., and were first popularized in the United States by DraftKings Rocket. Their visualization can take many forms, but the core concept is you place a wager on an object with a growing multiplier.
The longer you wait, the bigger the multiplier can get, but at any point the item can “crash” out, hence the name of the games. The trick is to cash out before the crash happens. Do so and you’ll lock in a win; wait too long and you’ll lose your wager.
Mines Games
This is like a Crash Game without a timer, and evokes memories of the old Windows Minesweeper game that was a staple of computers in the 90s and 2000s. In games like Mines Dare2Win, you generally decide how many bombs are present and (when available) the grid size, along with your wager amount.
Then you pick squares (you must pick at least one), avoiding any mines on the board. Your potential prize grows with each successful pick, but at any time if you pick a mine you lose all progress, along with your wager. Your goal here is to cash out before hitting a mine.
Instant Win Games
This is a bit more straightforward, and has had occasional presence in casinos with games like Lightning Zap. Here, you make a wager and you either win or lose.
It’s faster paced in that way than slots, and the way you win can be visualized in various ways. There can also be bonus rounds that can be triggered in this format, and ultimately they’re adjacent to slots in format and structure, just without the reels.
Slingo
Slingo started as a social game on sites like AOL in the 90s, but has leaned into the formats that birthed it – slots and bingo – being gambling-based. Here, you wager on a round of the game and get a initial number of spins to make Slingos – effectively, lines of five symbols in a row on your Slingo card (12 exist in all). Make more Slingos, and see your reward grow. Getting a full card (called a Full House) awards the top prize for a game.
Once your initial batch of spins are exhausted (including any free spins you accumulate), you are given the ability to buy more spins, one at a time. The cost of them escalate as you get closer to filling your card. Players who keep working to fill the card will invest a lot more than their initial investment, so it’s a good idea to bet lower to start to leave room for this.
There’s a surprising diversity in the formats, with some blending with various other casino formats including slots, wheels, dice rolls (such as Slingo Hot Roll) and so forth. Each has their own rewards structure, offering some fun and different ways to play.
Megaways Slots
While physical casino game makers have tinkered with formats that evoke this structure, Megaways as a format is generally an online experience unlike others.
With it, you start with six reels instead of the normal five. Reels are variable height, most traditionally 2-7 spaces tall, allowing for up to 117,649 ways to win. Four extra spaces appear above reels 2-5 on most versions, meaning those middle reels are actually guaranteed 3 spaces (but the cap per reel is usually still 7 in total).
The free spins in Megaways games often focus on growing multipliers as cascades accumulate. The combination of variable reel heights, growing multipliers and the sixth reel break open the potential. But they are also usually crazy high volatility, so you have to be patient.
That said, many versions have buy a bonus options if you aren’t patient, but the bonus itself can be quite volatile, so that can be risky on its own.
