The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board set aside licenses for each brick-and-mortar casino operator, with any non purchased license offered to qualified out-of-state operators. Application fees were $4 million each for licenses for online slots, table games, or poker, or a $10 million fee for a combination license for all three. Click the link https://lanfordequipment.com/, if you intrested online slot game.
All of the PA casinos purchased the online casino licenses except Rivers Casino, Meadows Casino and Lady Luck Casino. Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh does offer online sports betting and now slots and operates under its sister casino Play SugarHouse which is also owned by Rush Street Interactive. Two of the extra licenses were later purchased by Golden Nugget and MGM, which operate online casinos in neighboring New Jersey.
Online casinos kicked off in PA in July 2019 where we saw three online casinos launch that month. Since then, more sites have begun trickling in and we can expect up to a dozen to be fully operational in the coming years.
How do online slots work?
With any slot machine the general goal is to make one or many lines of matching symbols. Specific payouts are determined by the type and number of symbols matched, proportional to the amount bet.
Generally lines must be made starting from the far left going right, and most modern slots run five vertical reels of symbols spread across three or four active rows.
Some terminology:
Paylines are the possible matching routes that are eligible for a win. Many combinations of horizontal and diagonal paths are offered, with vertical paths rare.
Wild symbols are allowed to be substituted for a match with any other symbol in a line.
Scatter symbols (often represented as coins or jewels) can result in a win if a large enough number turn up regardless of where they appear on any lines. These will usually award a specific set prize and unlock free extra spins, or trigger a special “bonus round” mini-game with different gameplay.
Player options are usually limited to choosing how many credits to bet and sometimes how many pay lines they want active on each spin, which will determine the values for each win on the pay table. More complex choices and strategy are usually only possible for that occasional bonus round.
Every slot game offers a specific rate of winnings usually calculated as “return percentage” or RTP. This number refers to the amount of money that can be expected to be won compared to the amount bet, over a long enough period of time. For instance, if a game boasts an RTP of 96%, over the long-haul players will lose $4 per $100 wagered.
Many major software providers such as NetEnt offer games that have static RTPs that do not vary. Other key providers like IGT offer different tiers of returns on its slots, but we have not seen PA operators exercising this option. However, even the worst online slots (Grand Monarch, Shark Bite) rarely drop below 92% RTP, which is still somewhat better than land-based casino slots, and there will always be a few rare games such as Blood Suckers and Jack Hammer in the 97-98% range.
A final aspect of a slot’s value is its volatility, which is a very important factor when choosing a game to play. High volatility games pay out very rarely, but when you win, the prize is usually huge. A low volatility game will pay out smaller prizes much more often, which is less thrilling but results in a more stable experience and allows a player to tend closer to the stated RTP without having to play for an extremely long time. Games like Dead or Alive and Wheel of Fortune: On Tour offer good RTP but are so volatile that short-term returns are very random, while Blood Suckers is a very reliable play with low volatility.