If you want to try out the newest slots products and not risk a penny, mark Wednesday, November 18, on your calendar. That’s when the CasinoBeats Slots Festival will invite the gaming industry to sample the latest igaming titles by developers including SG Digital, BGaming, Kalamba Games, and Yggdrasil. The new games might not be destined for casino floors, but could soon be fixtures on cellphones, tablets and laptops.
“We are replicating a real-money online casino environment but with free-play games for the industry to try out, and have some fun along the way,” says Stewart Darkin, managing director of CasinoBeats at SBC. “This means that industry executives will be able to experience the games as players, and that is really important. So many operators spend a disproportionate amount of time addressing issues of regulation and compliance that we wanted to give them the opportunity to take some time out and dip into a selection of around 100 of the latest online slots.”
The festival is the first time that the business-to-business igaming community will be able to play a variety of new or unreleased online slots all in one place, for free.
Darkin notes that the European online casino market is “highly evolved” and sophisticated, especially in comparison to the United States. But there is value in attending the festival for US gaming interests.
“The benefit to US operators is that although many will feel they are just setting out on their online casino journeys, there is a mature and capable supply chain of excellent products ready to go,” Darkin says. “The operators just need to educate themselves and their players as to what’s out there. The Slots Festival is therefore perfect for the nascent US markets.
“This is a very important market for gaming operators and suppliers worldwide. We talk of the European sector but reaching the US player in regulated markets is very important for these companies. After all, the population of states like New Jersey and Pennsylvania are comparable to, or more than, established European markets like Belgium, Denmark or, regulated more recently, Sweden.”
Darkin notes that these types of games are most often “lined up side-by-side in the slots lobby of an online casino operator, for real-money play.” But organizers of the CasinoBeats Festival felt it was important to replicate a “player prospective” at the event, and thus decided to invite slots streamers CasinoGrounds to live stream some gameplay from the event, try some titles for the first time, and provide commentary and opinion on the products.
“Getting industry executives to look at the products this way is key to the Festival’s appeal, we think,” Darkin said.
Those interested can register for the event free at the CasinBeats Slots Festival website.
Access to the CasinoBeats Slots Festival will be available at 9 a.m. GMT (4 a.m. ET). Streaming events are scheduled to start at 4 p.m. GMT (11 a.m. ET). But aside from the streaming events, there’s no strict schedule.
“When US audiences, coast to coast, wake up it will be live and running until at least midday, even on Pacific time,” Darkin says. “They can drop in any time and just play at their own pace.”
