Playtech Marvel Slots
Marvel Slots are produced by two companies under separate licensing agreements with Marvel Enterprises and the resulting games have been some of the most memorable of recent years. Those companies are Cryptologic and Playtech with the former (2005) beating the latter (2010) to the start line by about five years.
A popular range of online slot games will disappear completely this week, as Playtech will be removing all Marvel slots from its game library. The casino software provider has notified operators that the games will be unavailable from the 31st March.
The Marvel range of slots by PlayTech are based on the blockbuster movies. They share a big pooled jackpot (often $1m +), between all the games which runs across different PlayTech casinos. Complete list of Marvel Slots + Comments here. Playtech Slot Games Based on Marvel Comics. As it seems, Playtech has a contract with exclusive rights to conjure games based on Marvel movies. Honestly, they are as giving them a section warrants—13 in all! We will go through a few, anyway. Remember the blazing man who goes all God of War on his bike? The beloved Ghost Rider. One of Playtech’s most popular Marvel slots is the X-Men slot. The characters of Wolverine and Magneto, not to mention Nightcrawler and the others, look fabulous; what makes the game great is the way these characters change the game in the bonus rounds.
With Playtech supplying casino games to dozens of operators, this move will affect several online casinos. Some of the biggest and best casinos around currently offer Marvel slots, including the following.
- Bet365
- Genting
- Betfair
- Coral
- Ladbrokes
- William Hill
Slot games featuring Marvel superheroes have been available at online casinos for many years. Another software provider, Cryptologic, was the first to strike a licensing deal with Marvel. They released games based on characters such as Captain America, Wolverine and Spiderman.
These games were an instant hit with slot players, and it wasn’t long before Playtech also agreed a licensing deal with Marvel. Several games were released in the years to follow, including the following.
- Avengers
- Blade
- Daredevil
- Elektra
- Fantastic Four
- Ghost Rider
- Iron Man
- Thor
- Incredible Hulk
- X-Men
These games are more advanced than the Cryptologic ones, and they have become very popular. It helps that they’re all linked to a series of progressive jackpots. The biggest is “The Ultimate Power Jackpot”, which has regularly reached over $1 million dollars.
Why Are These Games Being Pulled?
The withdrawal of these games is ultimately down to the fact that Marvel Entertainment was purchased by Disney in 2009. Disney is very protective of its “family-friendly” image, and it appears that the company does not want to be associated with gambling in any way.
This was evident back in 2011, when Florida was looking at expanding the number of gambling operations in the state. Disney vehemently opposed the building of casino venues anywhere near its world-famous theme park, Disney World.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that that Disney simply didn’t want any casinos competing for their share of the tourism dollars. Were they really trying to protect their image, or protect their commercial interests? People can make their own minds up on that one.
Disney took further steps to stop any association with gambling in 2014, when they announced that the agreement between Marvel and Cryptologic (now owned by Amaya) would be terminated. This left Playtech as the sole provider of Marvel-based slot games.
Playtech’s agreement with Marvel is due to expire out at the end of this month, and it’s obviously not being renewed. This leaves Playtech with no choice but to remove the relevant slots from its library, meaning Marvel slots will not be available anywhere.
Is This The End of Marvel Slots Forever?
It seems unlikely that Disney will change its stance on gambling. So, unless they sell Marvel Entertainment to another company, we probably won’t see Marvel slots ever again.
This is sure to disappoint a lot of slot players, but it’s not all bad news. Playtech have known this is coming for some time, and they’ve taken steps to compensate for the loss of these popular games.
They signed a similar licensing deal with Warner Brothers last year, and can now offer slots based on DC comic superheroes instead. In fact, they’re already doing exactly that. The following DC slots are available at most Playtech powered casinos, and there are more to follow in the future.
- Man of Steel
- Superman the Movie
- Superman II
- Batman & Mr Freeze Fortune
- Batman & The Penguin Prize
- Batman & The Batgirl Bonanza
Playtech have also overhauled their existing Age of Gods range of slots to effectively be direct replicas of some of the most popular Marvel slots. Although the themes are different, players will be able to enjoy the same mechanics, staking levels, bonus rounds and jackpots.
We’ve done some research into this, and are able to confirm which Age of Gods games are now based on which Marvel games.
- Prince of Olympus is based on The Incredible Hulk
- King of Olympus is based on Iron Man 2
- Furious 4 is based on The Fantastic Four
- Age of the Gods is based on the Avengers
It’s possible that Playtech will launch additional games as direct replacements for other Marvel slots too, but they’ve not announced anything to that effect yet. We’ll let you know if they do.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.PlayTech's Marvel Slots are a Must-Play - More on the Marvel Slots Range Here!
Update: The deal between PlayTech and Marvel expired, and these slots are no longer available.
The good news is that there are plenty of DC Comics superhero slots, the amazing Age of the Gods range and plenty of movie tie-ins still available.
Find out about them in my (very) detailed guide to PlayTech Online Slots.
Unless you’ve lived in a bubble for the past seven or eight years, you’ll have noticed that there have there have been a host of movies released based upon the Marvel Comics. Under the ‘Marvel Cinematic Universe’ franchise, ‘Iron Man’ was the first to be released in 2008 and has been followed by such blockbusters as ‘The Incredible Hulk’, ‘Thor’ and ‘The Avengers’. There is no letting up with these films, as the schedule shows that new movies are already planned. This film franchise has seen a number of spin offs, including TV series, books, short films and of course the slot series!
Software developers PlayTech have produced a wide range of Marvel slots and head to any PlayTech powered casino and you’ll see that these games take center stage. The early games in the series are based upon the comic book stories, but the latter slots are all about these movies, featuring film clips and bonuses based on the biggest scenes. All of these slots are linked by a pooled Jackpot, so you’ll contribute to the Jackpot pool whichever Marvel game you are playing at any of the PlayTech powered casinos. There are actually four Jackpots on offer at these, with the ‘Ultimate Power’ the largest, offering life changing wins.
In this article I start by detailing the Jackpot, explaining how you’ll actually go about winning the big one and discuss some of the amounts on offer. Then I move onto the slots themselves, listing each and finish by picking out the three Marvel slots that particularly stand out. You can find the full range of Marvel Slots (along with 100's of others from PlayTech, IGT and other software providers) over at the Ladbrokes Casino - see www.ladbrokes.com for the latest deals.
The Marvel Slot Jackpots
The four Jackpots you can win are the ‘Power’, the ‘Extra Power’, the ‘Super Power’ and the largest of all in the ‘Ultimate Power’. These are seeded at €50, €500, €5,000 and €100,000 respectively, making these amounts the minimum you can win, although they will go much higher. An illustration of this is the fact that the average payout amount for the Ultimate Power Jackpot is almost €500,000, with the highest payout ever of €852,000. Although incredibly large, this Jackpot is won on a much more regular basis than rival big money payouts, with somebody in the world bagging the big money approximately once every nine weeks.
You’ll enter the Jackpot round randomly after any spin, although you’ll have more chance of entering the round the higher the stakes you play for. The Jackpot screen shows twenty tiles, with the four Jackpot amounts down the right hand side of the screen. You’ll click on each tile in turn and reveal one of the four Jackpots, continuing until you reveal the same Jackpot three times, at which point that Jackpot is yours!
The Full PlayTech Marvel Slots Range
The great thing about the Marvel slot range is that it isn’t static, as when a new movie comes out, along comes a new slot! At time of writing there are currently fifteen slots based upon the franchise, although some of these games have two versions with differing amounts of win lines, so you could increase that number, as the versions do play differently.
Here is a rundown of the Marvel Games:
Avengers - 20 lines
Blade - 20 lines
Captain America - 20 lines
Daredevil - 20 lines
Elektra - 20 lines
Fantastic Four - both 20 lines and 50 lines
Ghost Rider - 20 lines
Iron Man - 25 lines
Iron Man 2 - 25 lines
Iron Man 3 - 25 lines
Spiderman - 25 lines
The Incredible Hulk - both 25 lines and 50 lines
Playtech Marvel Slots Online Casino
Thor The Mighty Avenger - 30 lines
Wolverine - 25 lines
X-Men - both 25 lines and 50 lines
Marvel Games Highlights
Picking out the best of this bunch is no easy task, as each and every game is highly playable, so I’d certainly recommend playing all of them. However, if you told me the world was going to end unless I played three of these slots and even the Avengers were powerless to stop it, I’d choose the following three!
The Incredible Hulk Slot
On the reels of this Hulk based slot you’ll find the Hulk himself alongside a helicopter, a police car, a radioactive symbol and a jar of green liquid. You’ll also find a ‘smash’ bonus symbol on reels one and five and land both of these and the fun begins! You’ll be taken to a screen featuring seven police cars and you’ll fling a fire hydrant towards them, revealing cash prizes, before downing a helicopter for a multiplier. You might even be lucky enough to trigger the Hulk rage feature, where he will smash the lot (this game is worth playing simply for this experience!). You’ll also find a free spins round and expanding wilds – the action comes thick and fast.
Avengers Slot
On the reels of this game you’ll find Hawkeye, Black Widow, Nick Fury, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and Captain America, alongside the S.H.I.E.L.D logo and the Avengers logo. There is no doubt that the highlight of this game is the ‘Wall of Heroes’ feature round. This feature works a little like the Jackpot round, although here you’ll reveal either one of the four Avengers, each giving you a unique free spins round. For example, Thor gives you 9 free spins with between 1 and 5 added wilds, while Captain America gives you a random multiplier of between 1x and 5x after each spin. Hit Loki on the ‘Wall of Heroes’ however and the round is over. As an added bonus, should you line up the four Avengers and Nick Fury on consecutive reels, you’ll gain a nice 200x your line bet bonus!
Iron Man 3 Slot
When playing Iron Man 3 you are met by a series of Tony Stark’s Iron Man suits on the reels, alongside his adversary in Mandarin. The Iron Man logo is the wild and the scatter is the title of the slot. Land three of these scatters and you’ll enter the highlight of the game which revolves around the three body suits. The Mark 42 suit gives you 10 free spins with freezing wilds, the War Machine suit gives you eight free games and random wilds, while the Iron Patriot suit gives you 15 free games with a dynamic multiplier. You’ll also find an ‘All Systems Go’ re-spin when landing the three different suits on reel 1, 3 and 5.
Where to Play Marvel Slots
Ladbrokes has been a familiar name in the UK for decades. They have used their big brand to create one of the best gambling portals around - with sports betting, poker and casino games from several of the best software houses all in one place. You'll find the entire Marvel range waiting for you at www.ladbrokes.com - check them out for yourself now!
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