The Best Representations Of Football In iGaming
As one of the world’s most popular sports, football gets represented everywhere in other forms of media. This is especially true in iGaming, where slots are often themed after different cultures and activities. Many of the top online casino/sports betting sites are also British, so they’re well-known by subcultures of football supporters in England, who are the target audience for football slots.
Football Hero
Developed by Core Gaming, Football Hero is one of the top football slots when its extra features and jackpot are taken into account. It has the basic structure of a slot game – five reels, three rows and 20 winlines – set against a stadium background. The stadium itself is slightly blurred, with the soundtrack using a cheering crowd to recreate the football shoot experience.
Due to the nature of the iGaming industry, any developer’s game can be hosted across multiple sites online. That makes it easy to find Football Hero and other slots and games by using the internet. It hasn’t got any real-world association with any football club, so it could fit in with English, European, or intercontinental football leagues. The standard symbols of a slot game – like Ace, Jack and King – are imaginatively stamped onto the backs of team kit, as if they were last names.
As for those bonus features that set it apart from the rest, there are six distinct score modifiers. They’re all named after events you’ll see in a football game, like free kick or red card and other referee decisions. Then there are the seven progressive jackpots, called the party pots, which can culminate in a £250,000 win for the luckiest players.
Spin & Score Megaways
Next is Spin & Score Megaways, created by the leading developers at Pragmatic Play. This one stands out because it’s one of the big-name Megaways slot that has a football theme. Megaways slots are relatively new in the world of iGaming, first being invented in 2015, and they enable slot games to have thousands of winlines. With Spin & Score, there are up to 117,649 ways to win.
The game is set up in six reels, where the row numbers vary to create the Megaways effect. The background is of a clear, animated stadium scene and its digital art is much more detailed than the Football Hero slot, though that’s to be expected from a larger developer like Pragmatic Play. As for its bonuses, the free spins mode carries variable multiplier wilds that take over entire reels.
Football: Champions Cup
NetEnt is another top developer in the iGaming space, and the creators of Football: Champions Cup. This is a five-reel slot that has a simpler background design, where the grid takes up most of the screen and obscures the stadium behind it. Unlike other games here, it allows you to pick from the best national teams from the Champions League, such as Spain, Italy, and England. Though you choose your nation, its symbols stay away from any trademarked imagery from the club.
One of the most unique things about this game is its penalty shootout bonus. Here you have a fully animated penalty shot scene, where you need to pick one of four corners to aim at. If the goalie picks the same corner, he’ll block you, randomizing your success. Alongside Football Hero and Spin & Score Megaways, these slots have many different aspects of football covered.