£2 Fixed Odds Betting Terminal Stakes – What’s New?
With the new £2 fixed odds betting terminal stakes in Ladbrokes, Coral, Betfred and William Hill coming into effect from the 1st of April 2019, what can we expect from the roulette and slot machine games that previously allowed stakes of up to £100? Obviously there will be some big changes, so here’s a preview of what will be happening.
Premium Spins
As some of you may know from my YouTube channel StopandStep, I enjoy high roller slots on the betting terminals, often playing at £30 per game. The reduction will have capped this to £2 with the same potential jackpot (£500). The bookies have made a work-around that has effectively broken up the high roller spins into multiple £2 games, now known as Premium Spins.
There are three options with the Premium Spins, all of which involve a set of three reels with either a winning symbol or a blank symbol (much like Luck O’ the Irish Power Spins). Three matching symbols awards the equivalent of the original high roller game, and depending on what set of reels you chose, the equivalent value will be either £20, £30 or £50.
With these type of games you will have very ‘lumpy’ results, however the long-term average will still work out the same (£20, £30 or £50 depending on which set of reels you choose to play at). This will basically mean that playing for the £50 game may cost several hundred just for a ‘real’ game, or you may get two or more back to back or within a short period of time. The risk will still be the same, however it will be a very long winded way to go about it.
Will people play them? Probably not, but it’s an option on top of the regular £2 and less staked slots of the same type.
Power Play
For me this was the more enjoyable and probably the more popular version of the new £2 stake FOBT slots. The Power Play will be available on Rainbow Riches Pots of Gold, Thai Flower and a few others. This is £2 a spin, and unlike the Premium Spins mentioned above, the Power Play allows you to play the slot as normal. What is different however is the games profile. The regular £2 stake will still be the traditional slot, the Power Play version will be more volatile with a higher RTP, and bigger but less frequent wins. When reel wins of £5 or more drop in, the bonus wheel is awarded. Some of you may be familiar with the bonus wheel as it is the Lucky Clover bonus from Rainbow Riches on the £20 stake game, or in Thai Flower’s case it will be the Thai Treasures bonus which can award free spins or multipliers.
Roulette
The biggest issue with the fixed odds betting terminals was the roulette and the speed at which the money could be played, £100 every 20 seconds. This was obviously too much with a maximum win limit so low (£500 per game). The new betting terminal stake limits will stop those kind of bets, but for the moment it hasn’t killed off bookies roulette completely. There are currently three fixed odds betting terminal roulette games running on £2 play.
Key Bet Roulette
A classic progressive pots roulette game that has 37 numbers plus the Key Bet bonus position. The £2 stake has changed the way this can be played, but it still survives..for now.
A minimum of 50p can be placed on the Key Bet bonus, up to £2. If the Key Bet is awarded with 50p on the bonus, the multiplier is halved, however if the pot is awarded, the full amount will be paid. This could still make them playable, although the progressive value will increase very (very very) slowly, as no one will be betting big. The spin on the wheel has also been decreased and barely does a full rotation.
Original Roulette
Limited to £2, Original Roulette will be played very little, if at all. The chips are 5p values and can be placed on the usual splits, streets, straight-up etc. As with the new version of Key Bet Roulette, the wheel doesn’t do a full rotation, there is also a turbo option which will display the outcome without showing any spin.
Golden Odds Roulette
Golden Odds Roulette survives..Kind of! The Golden Odds is an option on the Original Roulette game, simply press the button on screen to play in ‘Golden Odds’ mode. You’ll have the same roulette wheel but with different odds, this time up to 200/1.
It remains to be seen how the bookies roulette games will do after April. I personally think there will be short-term interest before it wanes off. The slots will survive as always, however the Premium Play versions will likely have little interest.
I’ll play them all for the YouTube channel so be sure to check it out and let me know what you think.