Pragmatic Play Casinos

The History of Pragmatic Play

There are actually not that many known things about the multi-award winning online software provider. Currently, the company is based in Sliema, Malta and holds over 1,000 employees as of 2023. But of course, this wasn’t always the case. The history of Pragmatic Play begins back in 2015, when they were first founded. Back in the day they had a different name, Top Game Software, which was quickly changed to Pragmatic Play, the name we know today.

It didn’t take Pragmatic Play too long to develope their first games, but there was work to be done beforehand. In 2016, Pragmatic Play gave their games to Gaming Labs Internationals, a company specialised on testing online gaming software on their reliability and fairness. Pragmatic Play passed these tests without issues and received the GLI certificate.

Pragmatic Play were not lazy in the meantime, they have acquired a total of 3 gambling licences in this year, with the most important being the license of the Malta Gaming Authority. They have quickly expanded their influence in 2017 by being licensed by the United Kingdom Gambling Commision, meaning that they could also offer their games to online casinos licensed under the UKGC.

Little is known about the year 2018 in the history of Pragmatic Play, as there were pretty much no key moments or milestones in this year. This would change in 2019, when Pragmatic Play first entered the Swedish market, one of the biggest markets for online casino entertainment. This was also the year when they released one of their first hit games, Mustang Gold, which we will cover later on. Many players loved and still love the general theme and idea of Mustang Gold, and thus Pragmatic Play have picked up on popularity amongst many players.

But Mustang Gold was only a stepping stone for things to come. In 2020 Pragmatic Play have reached a lot of very important milestones, but a few things stick out the most. First, Pragmatic Play have made their first collaboration with a major online poker room to have their games features in their software. This was quickly accompanied by Pragmatic Play’s first branded game, Peaky Blinders, based on the TV show. And to top it all off, Pragmatic Play have expanded their live casino offer with their first ever live game show Mega Wheel. This was a big deal, considering the rising popularity of live casino game shows, and a direct attack towards Evolution Gaming, who more or less ran a monopoly back then.

There isn’t much more we could bring to you concerning the history of Pragmatic Play. The last thing left to say is that in 2022 they have partnered with 888Casino. A collaboration deal was signed, which should bring a dedicated Blackjack Studio for the online casino alone. This can also be considered an incredible milestone for Pragmatic Play, since things like dedicated live casino studios are mostly a rarity.

As you can see, Pragmatic Play have had quite the history until now. And their story is far away from being finished. Pragmatic Play remains one of, if not even the biggest online software provider on the current marked. And with that being said it is only a question of time until they will present us with their next milestone.

Notable Pragmatic Play Games

Over the last few years Pragmatic Play have put out games that have risen in popularity amongst players very fast. In this section we will go through some of the most famous Pragmatic Play games and what made them so famous.

Big Bass Series

Of course when we talk about notable Pragmatic Play Games we cannot leave out the Big Bass Series. This series has started in 2020 with their first installment Big Bass Bonanza. And ever since then it was a great success among players. Maybe because it was a clone of the then popular Fishing Frenzy game of Merkur Gaming. Pragmatic Play noticed this as well, which is why they have brought a successor, Bigger Bass Bonanza. While the first game only had 3 rows, this one now has 4 and bigger wins possible. There were more games in the making soon, including Big Bass Bonanza Megaways, Christmas Big Bass Bonanza, Big Bass Splash or Big Bass Amazon Xtreme. The series currently hold 9 titles, of which many are clones of previous games, to be fair. But one thing is sure, the Big Bass Series as a huge boost in the popularity of Pragmatic Play.

Zeus vs. Hades

Zeus vs. Hades is one of the newer games of Pragmatic Play. In this game you will be part of the eternal conflict between the two brothers. Which side will you choose? Zeus vs. Hades offers you the possibility to side with either the great god of the Olymp or the ruler of the underworld. Depending on which side you choose the volatility of the game will change. While Zeus will offer you more frequent wins, Hades will grant you higher but less frequent wins. And if you win with Hades, you will win big. What makes this game so special is the thrill it provides, in both game variants and the base game. With random wilds that expand when hit and very high multipliers, this game is rightfully one of the most popular games of Pragmatic Play with one of the highest win caps of 15,000 times your bet size.

Fruit Party

Fruit Party is a game you either love or hate. That is maybe the reason why it has risen in popularity ever since it was first released. For some playing Fruit Party is a relaxation, which can rise in thrill very quickly. And for others its just a boring game. Fruit Party is an 8 times 8 grid game in which you need to get clusters of fruits as big as you can. A cluster of 15 will provide you with the highest possible payout for a symbol. While this sounds pretty unspectacular, there is a twist. Every symbol in a winning cluster can get a random multiplier. These multipliers will multiply with each other up to a maximum of x256. And you can probably guess that such a multiplier will be pretty good when it comes to big wins. In fact, Fruit Party is the one game of Pragmatic Play which has the highest chances of hitting the maximum win. On average, a max win will occur once every around 400,000 spins. These are more than okay stats for a win cap of 5,000 times your bet size, which probably contributed to the popularity of Fruit Party.

Gates of Olympus

As we have mentioned earlier, Gates of Olympus is a very special game, in the sense that it offers a pretty unique mechanic. Just like Fruit Party, this game is played on a grid, but it uses Scatter Pays to determine wins. This mechanic alone is not seen often anymore, which already makes it kind of special. But what really makes Gates of Olympus stand out are the special features. In any spin, Zeus can raise his fist and put random multipliers on the board. These multipliers can go up to x500 and are added together if there are more than one. In the free spins feature though, these multipliers are safed if a win occurs. In order to activate the multiplier, you will need to hit another multiplier and a win. Then the multiplier is added to the active multiplier and applied to the win. This is one of the most thrill-inducing game mechanics we have ever seen and sure plays a part in the popularity of Gates of Olympus.

John Hunter Series

Last but not least we have a classic. One of the oldest Pragmatic Play game series’ is the John Hunter series. Many of you probably know the explorer symbol from “Book” games. Pragmatic Play decided to give him a name, thus being John Hunter. But John Hunter has experienced many adventures throughout the years. In total there are 8 different John Hunter adventures for you to enjoy. And they are almost all different. Let it be a “Book” games, Eye of Horus clones or completely unique games like DaVinci’s Treasure, the John Hunter series features something for almost every type of player. And in the meantime, Pragmatic Play decided to give him a sister called Jane Hunter, who is also an adventure enthusiast just like her brother.

Why we like Pragmatic Play

Over the past years we have witnessed many of the ups and downs of Pragmatic Play. We would like to give you our view on why we think that Pragmatic Play deserves its top spot.

Innovative Games

If Pragmatic Play has showed us one thing in the past then it is the fact that their creativity is basically endless. Pragmatic Play has given us plenty of refreshing games that featured innovative mechanics, like for example Gates of Olympus. While grid games are nothing new on the market, the way this game works, with random and rising multipliers which activate through other multipliers falling on the grid is something we haven’t seen this way before. Another very great example would be Yum Yum PowerWays. This game uses winning ways from all directions, whether it be from top to bottom or vice versa. Pair this with a rising multiplier that can reach incredible heights and you will have yourself a wonderful game. And that is only the tip of the iceberg, Pragmatic Play has so many more innovative games to offer, with creative game mechanics that make you wonder what’s next to come.

Achievable Max Wins

Alright, maybe we need to clarify the word “Achievable”. In basically every Pragmatic Play game the max win is in fact achievable, sooner or later. But many Pragmatic Play games have a reasonable chance to actually hit the max win, like Fruit Party for example. Getting the max win of 5,000 times your bet size is not too hard, compared to other online slot games. Of course this also goes the other way around, where it seems impossible to ever hit these max wins. But if you’re someone who cares about stats of online slot games, you can easily pick out games that have the highest chance to obtain such a max win with the lowest possible average of spins.

Different Themes and Approaches

Speaking of the creativity of Pragmatic Play, they manage to turn basically every theme into an online slot game. Are you a fan of old egyptian games? No problem, take a look at John Hunter and the Book of Tut, Gods of Giza, Diamonds of Egypt or Nile Fortune. Or do you want to take a look at the wild west? Pragmatic Play can offer The Wild Gang, Wild West Duels, Cowboy Coins or Wild West Gold. There are so much more themes to be explored, no matter if it is comedic, fruits, animals, aztec or even the Oktoberfest. Pragmatic Play will feature a whole lot of different themes and even game mechanics like the Megaways mechanic, which has been a favourite of players for years.

Why we don’t like Pragmatic Play

Of course something like the perfect online software provider doesn’t exist. There are also things we don’t like about Pragmatic Play, and we would like to share our opinion with you.

Predictable Spins and Outcomes

As much as we like Pragmatic Play and their cool and unique slot games, unfortunately in many games the outcome can be foreseen. And this is not because we have psychic powers, but because many spins and outcomes of Pragmatic Play games are predictable. Of course not if you play the game for the first time, but if you have had one or the other bonus game you will quickly be able to tell how a game behaves. This is probably because spins and bonus games are pooled, which means that said spins and bonuses are pooled from a pool of predefined outcomes. The best example for this is the bonus feature at Curse of the Werewolves Megaways. There is roughly a 90% chance that the bonus will be over just before you hit the last stage, and if you manage to get to the last stage chances are high that you will get a pretty decent win.

Too many Clones

Earlier in the days we were pretty excited to see a new game of Pragmatic Play. Nowadays this excitement has been damped a lot because of the increasing numbers of clones that are put out. If you don’t know what a clone is, it is basically a reskin of an already existing game. And Pragmatic Play has quite a lot of them. Chances are high that if you like a game of Pragmatic Play, you will find 1 or 2 games by Pragmatic Play that follow the same rules and game mechanics of that game. So it is a bit of a pity that we can’t be that excited anymore for new game releases of Pragmatic Play.

Should I play Pragmatic Play games?

Of course this is a question every player has to decide for themselves. In the end all we can say is that Pragmatic Play is probably an online software provider you won’t get around, and that is actually fine since they have a whole lot of different games for any kind of player. They definitely have proven over the last years that they deserve the spot at the top of the online software providers.