The online slots industry is buzzing. It’s not just the range of games that are now on offer, but the quality of those games has definitely taken a step up over the last few years too.
Another area that has seen notable change is the range of features that each of the slots seem to be including these days. We’ve spoken several times on site about what these features are and how they work, but you can see – from the number of articles we have written as much as anything else – that they are expansive to say the least.
One of the latest trends has come from slot developing veterans, Barcrest. The company have developed what they call, Big Bet, which is an additional function that has successfully been included on a number of slots. The most notable is probably Monopoly Big Event, which we will be using as our example throughout this article.
What is Big Bet?
To put it simply, Big Bet is a feature within the game which allows the player to automatically trigger bonus rounds. That’s right, instead of playing the regular game you can jump into games that include multipliers, free spins, and wilds throughout to help you win more.
What’s the catch?
Well, the catch is that these rounds come at a cost and are usually much more than your standard bet amount. For this feature, you are paying a premium to get into the most lucrative rounds within that game.
How does it work?
The easiest way for us to explain the process is to simply work through the Monopoly Big Event game that is one of Barcrest’s flagships that includes this feature.
The standard layout of the game will be very familiar to most. You get 5 reels, 3 symbols per reel, and play up to 20 paylines per spin. The max coin for this is 25 per stake/line, meaning that max bet comes to 500 coins per spin.
On the slot you can see that there is a button on the right-hand side that says “Play Big Bet”. Obviously, this is the button we are looking to play.
Once you select that button you then get a choice of two bonus features. For this game, that is a progressive multiplier or a bonus wheel. On the bonus wheel you basically get to spin the wheel and the bonus you get is whatever it lands on. In this game the bonuses are persistent wilds, free spins and a progressive multiplier.
You then get 5 free spins with each of the games and it works through from there. The cost per spin is fixed on both games. The progressive multiplier is 20 coins per spin and the bonus wheel is 30 coins per spin. You get 5 spins with each game, so you are playing for either a fixed 100-coin game or a 150-coin game.
Pros and cons of Big Bet features
One of the most notable aspects of the Big Bet slots is the fact that you can jump straight into the bonus rounds. Not only are these games much more engaging than most standard spins, but they often offer the highest rewards as well. With Big Bet you get a fixed cost that is higher than most regular spins, but with the guarantee you get into these specialist rounds and all that they entail.
These games often come with very high RTP (Return To Player) percentages as well. The Monopoly slot that we featured above comes with a 99% RTP, which is as high as you will find anywhere. For those that aren’t aware of what this means, in its simplest terms, it’s the amount you will get paid for your investment over a large sample of spins. So, a 99% RTP would mean that you get 99p back for every £1 bet on average. Obviously, the aim is to try and hit a good streak and then get out while you are ahead, but that’s a different article.
The high RTP’s can be a negative as well though. We found that with these games you do win quite often, especially within the Big Bet feature games, but these wins are often quite small and a lot of the time might not even match your stake. It can be frustrating for players and even though you are seeing wins you aren’t actually making anything.
Finally, we are seeing that more and more companies are starting to bring out their own versions of Big Bet these games. SG Gaming is one such company, and with this expansion we expect to see a more diverse range of games and rules in action, which is often a good thing for players.