Visit virtually any online casino site and you’ll find an almost endless number of slots games to choose from. You’ll also notice that there are an equally wide number of themes that range from Ancient Egypt to futuristic sci-fi games. But another category that is always very well represented are games based around sports.
The logic around this is quite simple. Slots are a form of entertainment that may well also appeal to people who are into sports, whether it’s football, horseracing or even tennis. They may also be the sorts of people who like to use sportsbooks to make watching their favourite teams or players a little bit more interesting. So it stands to reason that a slots game themed around a particular sport is also going to appeal.
Because slots games also involve exciting images and sounds, it’s quite easy for them to capture a lot of the excitement of the sports themselves. Some can even include actual clips of sporting action.
The competitive nature of different sports has the added advantage of making it easy to theme bonus features in slots to tie in with that particular sport, whether it’s a penalty shoot-out in a football game or a tie-breaker in a tennis-themed one.
It’s also surprising just what a wide range of sports that you’ll find covered by online slots, as all of these examples show.
Football
As the world’s most popular sport you might expect there to be plenty of slots games themed around it – and you’d be right. Often these are released or promoted around major tournaments like the World Cup, the Euros and even the African Cup of Nations.
A great example is Football: Champions Cup. Originally released to tie in with the 2016 European Championships it’s still hugely popular today. A great part of the game is the fact that you can choose to play as a particular country. This is especially significant when you make it through to a feature that gives you free spins. From a starting group of 16 teams you can progress through a series of rounds, hopefully reaching the final for maximum rewards.
Horse racing
The so-called “sport of kings” has long been a favourite theme for slots designers and it’s easy to see why. There’s the obvious link between racing and placing bets on horses but, more than that, it’s a sport that’s full of characters who can be used as figureheads for the slot.
For example, there’s one slot named after Peter Scudamore, former jockey and member of one of the most famous families in racing. Scudamore’s Super Stakes captures all the excitement of steeplechasing – no wonder as he has such close links with the most famous race of all, the Grand National.
The summer sport of flat racing is also featured in another high quality slot called Frankie Dettori’s Super Seven. This ties in with the famous day at Ascot when the Italian jockey won all seven races, a feat unlikely to ever be repeated. A special feature of this is a round in which you need to pick a horse and, depending on where it comes in a race, you earn yourself between ten and 35 free spins.
Cricket
Cricket is a famously difficult game for novices to understand. Some forms also have the reputation for being rather slow-moving. The came can’t be said of the Cricket Star slot. It’s fast, fun and the rules are simple. The reels, which include no less than 243 different ways to win, feature players bowling, batting or fielding. A key point of the game comes when the Wild Wickets feature kicks in.
This starts something called Rolling Reels in which they automatically move down to reveal more and more winning combinations. So even if you don’t know your LBW from your silly short leg you’ll soon get to grips with this game.
Hockey
There can’t be two more different games than cricket and ice hockey. The latter is fast- moving, rough and really only has one purpose – to slam the puck into the opponents’ goal as many times as possible.
So it’s no big surprise that one of the very best slots to feature the sport is called Breakaway. It’s at its violent best when a feature called Smashing Wild comes into play. Animated skaters literally crunch into the reels turning them into wilds and giving you free spins. This is also when you might get all five pucks on the winning line to earn you the game’s big 125,000 coin jackpot.
Boxing
Another knockout slot comes from the world of boxing, and this time it also has a movie theme. In Rocky it brings the iconic Rocky Balboa back into the ring for one last bout. It’s this that forms a special bonus feature in which he has to go ten rounds with your choice of opponent. But your money had better be on Rocky. Because, when he wins, you do too.
Of course there are plenty more sports slots that we just don’t have time to go into here. But if you’re a tennis fan there’s Centre Court, named after the Wimbledon’s main show court. Or if heading out into the wild’s your thing then check out Alaskan Fishing – but watch out for the wild bears who are out to spoil your sport.
And, whatever sports slot you choose, remember it’s not always the winning that counts, it’s more the taking part.