Barcrest Casinos
Barcrest, along with their classic blue logo, have become a common sight in amusement arcades, gaming halls, and online casinos, and this software provider has a long history in creating fruit machines and slot games for players around the world.
Most players who are somewhat familiar with how online casinos work, and indeed the software providers who partner with them, will be familiar with Barcrest. If they don't know the name itself, there will very likely know their flagship game, which is Rainbow Riches. The company is now a global corporation owned by SG GAMING, and in this post, we are going to be looking at some of the games that the company offer to online casinos.
Best UK Barcrest Casinos & Bonuses
Slots
Barcrest have an incredible portfolio of games, ranging from both slot titles to casino table games. They are well known for their creativity, and while the look and feel of the games may not be quite as slick as some of the more web focused software providers, it should be noted that the company operate some of the most reliable and versatile games on the planet. Below, we going to start by looking at some of the popular video slot games they have developed.
Action Bank
If you've ever been into a UK bookmaker, and played one of the FOBT machines, you'll almost certainly have seen some of Barcrest games on offer, and one of the most notable of these is Action Bank. This 20 pay line “old school” video slot has become a cult classic with gamblers, and is now available in both online and off-line versions with betting options starting from just 20p and rising up to £1000 per spin. This huge range ensures there's plenty of scope for players on all budgets to get involved with the game.
Rainbow Riches
Rainbow Riches, a game virtually every player will have seen or played this game before, is Barcrest’s most popular release, and it is often credited with helping the gambling industry boom. Its popularity was unprecedented with millions of people having played the game to date. While the original game benefits from relatively boring gameplay, many spin-offs have appeared including Rainbow Riches Reels of Gold, Rainbow Riches Free Spins, Rainbow Riches Pick and Mix, and more. While the original game is more than 15 years old to this day it remains one of the most popular and commonly played slot games in the UK.
Fast forward into the slightly more modernised world (think NetEnt and Microgaming slots), we see Barcrest have been developing their games with a little more emphasis on design and usability – although it’s worth noting that the quality of the games themselves has not suffered.
Monopoly: The Big Event
Monopoly: The Big Event is by far one of the software providers most popular “modern” games, and the software provider has managed to secure an exclusive partnership with Hasbro games to be able to produce the monopoly themed slot. It is a commonly cited “player favourite” thanks to the near unlimited potential the bonus round offers, and videos on YouTube show wins as high as 20,000X. That's a heck of a lot more than the majority of software providers can offer.
Thai Flower
Thai Flower is the fourth game with talking about today. As the name suggests, Thai Flower features scenes around Thailand and while the game doesn't benefit from the cutting-edge graphics that we've seen in some of the new game from the developer, it is a staple player favourite thanks to its exciting bonus feature, decent base game wins, and it’s generous RTP payout. This can often be as high as 97%, dependent on where the game is played.
While the company has attracted some controversy in recent years, due to their creation and release of mega spins – a function which allows players to wager between £20 and £50 per five spins on the slots – Barcrest’s impact on the video slot industry cannot be taken away, and it’s clear that the company will continue to grow as their team continues to produce high-quality games.
Table Games
Now Barcrest aren't overly well-known for their casino games, but they do have a few Roulette titles to choose from, so in the section below, we'll take a closer look at the different Roulette variants.
Roulette
Barcrest don’t offer one of the largest selection of Roulette games (although their sister companies do), and at present, just a couple of titles can be found within the developers' game range. Key Bet Roulette is by far the more popular version of Roulette they offer and it’s simple to play with potential for big wins, so it was always going to be a hit.
The game uses standard European Roulette rules and gives you the option to place an additional side bet wager on what is known as the Key Bet (as pictured above). You then spread your bets across the Roulette table as normal and click spin once you’re ready to play. Now, around the outside of the wheel are various multipliers ranging from 15X to 50X with 37 multipliers in total (one for each segment of the wheel, minus the Key Bet space), and where the ball lands, the multiplier attached is what your win is multiplied by.
This can obviously be great if you hit a multiplier value of 35X or above, but you can also get unlucky and land the 15X, thus getting paid only half what a normal game would pay. Where the real benefit lies, however, is with the Key Bet, and if the ball lands in the yellow Key Bet position (and you placed a wager on the side bet), you’ll be taken to a mini-feature round, where you can win up to 500X the value of your side bets wager.
It’s a bit gimmicky, maybe, but it’s fun, and it has recently been made into a 100-number variation, as well, making the total number of Roulette games from Barcrest a whopping 3. The third is called Monopoly Roulette Hot Shot Properties, and is much like the Key Bet game, except you enter a bonus round where you play monopoly, collecting cash values as you make your way around the board.
Video Poker
Barcrest offer a small but tailored range of video poker titles for players to enjoy, and while you won’t find a multi-game facade options to enjoy, you will find yourself faced with most of the classics, such as Jacks or Better, Bonus Poker 100 Play Power Poker, Aces and Faces Power Poker, All American Video Poker, Deuces & Joker 4 Play Video Poker, and Deuces Wild 50-Play Video Poker.
One thing that is worth noting, is that the availability of the Barcrest video poker titles is highly dependent on the casino – and indeed the various gambling licences held by a casino – and you won’t necessarily find all of the video poker games available at casinos featuring Barcrest games.
Jackpot Games
Barcrest are yet to come out with any progressive jackpot games, and while some of their machines and slots feature in game jackpots (in other words, a fixed jackpot amount that rises in value with the State wagered on the machine), it’s very likely that we may see jackpot games emerge from the software provider in the months or years to come, especially as they look at shifting their business from the off-line market, more to the online space.
About Barcrest
- Year Founded: 1968
- Owner: SG Gaming
- Publicly Traded: No
History
Barcrest was founded all the way back in 1968, originally cementing itself as a leading name in terminal and content game creation for the arcade and bingo markets. The company provided fruit machines to the UK letter gaming sector for many decades, and it wasn’t until the early 2000 that they took a more innovative role in slot games themselves, which differ fairly significantly from fruit machines.
The company saw their first major breakthrough into 2006 when there hit slot game rainbow riches launched in the UK. The game went on to achieve global notoriety, and it wasn’t long before Barcrest established itself as one of the main and leading suppliers of gambling software to UK casinos and arcades.
After the initial success of the rainbow riches slot, Barcrest begun to expand its product range by entering into the online market – a volatile yet lucrative venture at the time – and after a few years of uncertainty, the company begun to strive after the games began featuring on various different online casinos. 2011 saw the company acquired by scientific games, and this boosted their popularity further. Many of Barcrest’s popular games were then licensed under the scientific games company brand. With far more global reach than Barcrest had on their own, this enabled the company to get their games and products in front millions of players around the world.
Today, Barcrest operates alongside the global draw – another of SG gaming’s brands – and combining their expertise and experience, they help to build, develop, and maintain gaming solutions that are used by online and off-line casinos around the UK, and in other countries around the world. With some of the clients being major bookmakers, to some of the world’s largest online casinos, Barcrest now attract over 60,000 players to their games each and every day, and it is estimated that half £1 trillion have been staked and wagered on their games alone.
The Future for Barcrest
Going forward it’s unclear where the company aims to go, but with such an emphasis on mobile gaming, it’s very likely that we will see Barcrest continue to transfer some of their games from flash to HTML5. This will enable mobile players to enjoy a smoother, more reliable gambling experience, and will open up mobile gambling to more players on more devices.