Play n Go Online Casinos
The online slots and online casino world has got more and more user-friendly in recent years. You really don’t need any technical knowledge to play the game on offer in the modern casino site. And you don’t need to follow online slots news and industry goings-on either. However, knowing a bit about the behind-the-scenes operation of the industry helps to make you a better consumer. And a better consumer is more likely to make good decisions. You wouldn’t buy a car, from say, Volkswagen, without knowing a bit about the company, would you? No, of course not, so it’s helpful to know what’s beneath the metal on the casino sites you use. While there are hundreds and thousands of casino sites available to European players, there are far fewer providers of casino software. That’s why so many sites look the same. In some cases, it’s as simple as car companies buying their parts from the same suppliers and then using them in their own way. In others, it’s a case of big casino provider companies running whole networks of sites on the quiet while the consumer sees a multi-coloured, multi-faceted set of sites. It’s up to you to do a bit of research of this if you want to have the best online casino experience. And that’s why we’re here to help you out with our Play’n GO casino software guide.
Who are Play’n Go?
We’ll get it out of the way first: that name! The punctuation of Play n Go’s name is weird. That’s it. We’ve said it so now we can move on and we promise we’ll never mention it again. The company are pretty sure who they want you to think they are: “We are game!” they proudly proclaim on their excellent website.We want to know a bit more than that though.
Play’n Go are a Swedish company, who are owned by Digital Fish Software AB. You need to go to LinkedIn (the hell site of all hell sites) to find out a bit more. There, Play n GO tell their story to would-be employees. The company was founded according to themselves in “the mid-90s”. We believe it was in 1997. The team who forged Play’n Go were a group of geeks working as consultants. They decided to get together and do what they were doing for other companies for themselves. Simple enough! “Our goal is simply to delight others and inspire them to have fun.” They say.
The company is built from a technology perspective first according to this account, which boasts of the company’s pioneering role in the mobile gaming sector, in which they were the first operators. However, Play’n GO say they don’t want to seem too technical to the final users of their games, which should be simple and entertaining to play. That LinkedIn profile is based in Malta, which is where Play’n GO have their main offices. This is not unusual, even for a Swedish-founded company. Malta is one of the prime jurisdictions for the online casino industry.
It’s in the EU, and it has a decent regulator, but it also has low tax. If you have extremely strong ethics about off-shore companies and tax regulation, then frankly you’re going to have trouble finding a company anywhere in the online gaming industry that you can do business with a clean conscience.
Can you Play Play n Go Games Safely?
Let’s take a look at the most important indicator of safety. Licensing! It’s boring, but we’ll repeat it nonetheless: you should never play at a site that you are not legally entitled to play at according to the terms of their licence. That means you need to meet all the requirements to register and pay to play their games (please don’t try to get around age rules or geographic restrictions). It also means that the site should be legal for you to play in the jurisdiction you are in. It’s your responsibility to make checking this the first step every time you look at a new site. You’ll be pleased to see that the Play n Go page has a long line of licensing icons along the bottom of the page (always check the bottom of the front page of a web casino for this information).
At Play’n Go you’ll find:
Alderney Gambling Control Commission licenses the company;
- The Belgium Gaming Commission licenses the company;
- The Malta Gaming Authority licenses the company;
- The Romanian gambling regulators licenses the company; and
- The UK Gambling Commission licenses the company.
That’s a great set of regulators to have on board.
Can You Trust Play’n’ GO online casino software?
Along with those licensing marques are a couple of other logos. These come from BMM test labs, GLI, and IBAS. Who the hell are they? In BMM test labs’ own words, they are: “the longest established and most experienced private independent testing laboratory in the world.” What companies like this do is carry out testing on games and training on “compliance issues” that basically means that they help Play’n’ Go’s games and software to stay inside the licensing limits set by the regulators. These rules help to ensure that games are fair, within the parameters set up by law and the industry. If you’re very interested in this stuff you can research further and find out just what “fair” means: for example, it doesn’t mean that games can’t be designed to automatically return a profit by making players lose more than they spend over the totality of the game’s life. It does mean you’re getting a genuinely random game though.
GLI is Gaming Laboratories International, and they do a similar job, providing the “gaming industry’s leading testing and certification services”. They do a lot more than that though, including providing forensic services (to stop cheats), and training to providers, and helping to provide information and advice on responsible gaming.
IBAS is the Independent Betting Adjudication Service and it’s a dispute resolution service. This is an alternative means of deciding disputes. It is licensed in the UK by the UK Gambling Commission. IBAS comes into play after a company has taken a customer through their own dispute mechanisms and failed to resolve a complaint. Using IBAS doesn’t mean that you can’t still go to the law or to regulators after a decision has been made. Companies – like Play’n’ GO – must obey IBAS rulings though, up to a value of £10,000. These are extras on top of licensing, but extras are great, and these organisations show that Play’n’ Go is committed to doing much more than just ticking the boxes and following the legal minimum when it comes to fairness and safety for players.
What Does Play’n Go do?
Play’n Go makes games and it makes a gaming platform. The two exist independently of each other and are massively interlinked. It is very unlikely you will encounter a Play n Go platform without encountering some games from the company. This sort of thing is vertical integration and it’s not a great thing for players in some ways. There are a lot of classic examples of this in various sectors of the capitalist economy, and the mechanism is almost always a way for a business to sell more of its product – not by having a better product – but by placing it more often in front of consumers. That’s not to say that there aren’t legitimate reasons for vertical integration. For example, Play’n’ Go’s expertise in making casino games is a natural match with making software to host games and present them and deliver accounts and so on.
One of the most classic examples if the vertical integration (along the supply chain) of beer makers owning their own bars. Guess whose beers get the best place in the displays in those bars. It’s good to be aware of this sort of stuff.
Let’s have a look at this business.
Play n GO Games
Play’n Go make six types of games. They are:
- Slots,
- Table games,
- Video Poker,
- Scratch cards, and
- Video bingo.
Slots are the big deal for most players and by far the most popular part of the online casino business. Play’n GO games are characterized by very smart design at the front end and a lot of innovation. Their games cover every area of the slot universe, from very classic retro slots to completely indulgent sophisticated games with character rounds and arcade-style bonus rounds. There’s a lot of diversity to the look and feel of their games, and few people would doubt the fact that they do have a lot of quality in their look, sound, and feel.
Play’n GO Slots
Play’n Go have a huge number of titles, so we’ll look briefly at the most popular. Here are the most popular Play n Go slots:
- Rich Wilde and the Book of Dead is a history-themed game with an Indiana Jones-style hero.
- Mission Cash is a tribute to the Mission Impossible films.
- Fire Joker is part of a popular series of retro-themed, classic or fruit games.
- Rich Wilde and the Tome of Madness is another in the Rich Wilde series.
- Rise of Dead is a zombie-themed game.
- The Sword and the Grail is based on medieval grail legends.
- As is Rise of Merlin.
- Inferno Joker is another classic game in the Joker series.
- Rise of Olympus is an ancient Greek mythology game.
- Wild Rails is a retro/steampunk/Agatha Christie murder mystery style game.
Table Games
Table Games are what the industry calls traditional casino games. In a casino, this means roulette, blackjack and more. Typically, they would be played at a table (or around a wheel or pit) with a dealer (or team of dealers) representing the casino against whom the players bet. Play’n Go offer a small but very high-quality selection of table games. They include casino hold ’em, roulette, a wheel of fortune game, casino stud poker, various blackjack variations, and mini-baccarat. Again, the quality of graphics, sound, and animation is really high quality. The games we looked at, tended to have a bird’s eye view of the game.
Video Poker
Video Poker is a precursor to and also a variant on the slot game. The first slots were straight forward rip-offs of poker. Poker is the world’s favourite gambling game, but it’s highly complex to deliver online. In fact, it’s only now with social poker rooms that poker is really starting to work as a casino game online. Video poker is closer to a slot than the actual experience of playing poker, which is mostly about head-to-head betting.
Play’n Go offers four variants on the game.
Scratch
Scratch. In gambling terms, nothing is simpler than scratch cards or instant wins. You can but these games in many newsagents as an off-shoot of lottery games. Basically, you click and either win or not.
Keno
Fixed Odds games for Play’n Go means a single version of Keno. Keno is an east Asian game that is going global thanks to the internet. The game is something like a lottery, with 80 numbered balls dropping into a frame. Players bet on numbers, or select randomly, to try to match the 20 numbers that are actually drawn. It’s a bit like a cross between lotteries and bingo. Play’n Go’s version is a good version of this simple game.
Video Bingo
Video Bingo is a one-player version of bingo. Bingo is an odd game in gambling terms. It has a separate market that is very female-friendly. We don’t like stereotypes, but it is a historical truth that bingo has been more played by women, and the theming and marketing of the game online have followed that line. The social side of bingo is a massive part of its appeal, but Play’n Go’s video bingo games skip all that to deliver something like an instant win. They’ve only produced two titles, and we think that’s probably because this version of bingo has relatively limited appeal.
Play’n GO Platform
Play’n GO offers a GAT Casino Platform. If you’re a slots player and a casino customer it can be eye-opening to look at how platforms are delivered and marketed to casino operators. That’s because in this scenario – you are the product! When a platform provider talks about delivering “value” from customers they mean that they’re going to get you to spend more money. When they talk about revenue, it’s your money they’re talking about. Where you fit into this is slightly complex. Providing a customer with a great experience is a good way to get them to stay at your site and getting players to stay at your site is the best way to get a player to spend money. In this model, spending money on slots means losing money.
Please remember this as you engage with casino sites. Their profits are your losses. If you play and break-even, they lose. They have to pay for a website and all that lovely software, so if you come along, put in €100 and walk away with €100 then the casino site loses. Remember this as you interact with casino sites and with casino games. Your loss is their profit. There is no casino business without losses. And the business is massively profitable and expanding like mad at the moment. There is a safe and healthy way to gamble, and the best way is to consider gambling as an entertainment activity and try to divorce money from it. You pay for entertainment, so you should expect to pay (i.e. lose) for gambling. The operation of Play n Go’s platform software is of limited interest to casino players. They will interact with it and have either a good or bad experience.
What we can tell you is that the GAT system from Play’n GO offers what is called a “single wallet solution” that gives the operators a single interface with players. It offers a number of payment processing “integrations” which cover an enormous number of payment providers. The same is true with game providers. These include Play n GO, of course; NetEnt, Microgaming, NYX, Evolution Gaming, Spigo, Quickspin, Yggdrasil and more.
The Company Moving Forward
The online slots world is very exciting. It’s exciting because it’s dynamic. Play’n GO if they want to continue to thrive as they have done needs to keep on moving and changing. Let’s have a look at what they have been up to most recently. The company’s most recent release is very innovative, as it’s a tie-in with a real-life heavy metal band, Demon. Demon are one of the pioneers of Heavy Metal, having broken through as part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the late 1970s. The game has one of the heaviest soundtracks in gaming history, and this sort of 360-degree tie-in is the way ahead for game developers.
Play’n GO have also recently announced a tie-in with a Spanish company called Codere. This partnership – which is marked with many pictures of men in slightly too tight suites – opens up markets in Latin America, with game launches in Mexico and Colombia, and also in Europe. Most of the rest of the company’s news place is filled with more game launches and announcements of new clients for the company’s GAT system, including Royal Panda casino, and the Danish company, Royal Casino. Unsurprisingly, the company also makes a good deal of fuss about their nomination for seven awards at the EGR B2B (business to business) awards. There is also news of a trade show run by the company. The Play n Show London is a marker of how rich, powerful and connected Play’n Go has become. The venue is among London’s top luxury hotels, The Ritz, and is something between a trade show and a company awards night.
Play’n GO Casino Software Guide – in Conclusion
You can play Play n Go casino games completely securely. We’ve seen more than enough to recommend that the company takes its regulatory, safety, and fairness obligations much more than seriously. The company cares about its consumers. The suite of games on offer is also very impressive. New games keep coming. And they remain very impressive. Because the company is massive and powerful you will no doubt see most of their new releases as they come out. Play’n Go games are guaranteed for safety and fairness and offer a great experience. If you see them, you can play them knowing you’re getting a fair deal. Play’n GO casino sites are also trustworthy, and if you see lists of Play n GO online casinos it’s a good bet that the sites you see are worth looking at.
Where Play’n GO goes next who knows? They innovated into the mobile market, but they do not yet have any live casino games on the market so that might change. And as the company hasn’t yet produced any social or virtual games, those avenues are also ripe for exploitation by Play’n Go. Whatever their direction it is going to be worth following.