How Mobile Slot Designers Comply with Regulators Technical Requirements

There was a time when those involved in the design of slot machines had free reign to structure, theme and then launch any type of slot they could dream up.

Those days have long gone, in fact I recently spoke to Jacob Atkinson from SOSgame.com on that very topic, who is a font of knowledge on iPad real money slots and every other type of online, land based and mobile slots.

All Gambling Commissions and Licensing Authorities have a strict set of technical guidelines all slot game design studios must adhere to, if they want to launch slots in their respective jurisdictions.

Random Number Generators and RTP’s

Any mobile slot game you come across, which does include free iPad slots that can be played at no risk, have to be independently certified as being both completely fair and random, whilst also having been verified as having an RTP that is achievable over the long term.

That sees a game verification company simulating billions of spins on each slot they have been given to certify and ensuring it does achieve a random outcome on each spin, and the payout percentage it has been designed around is the one the slot plays and pays out to and eventually achieves.

Most gambling jurisdictions require each slot that is available to players in any playing environment displays the RTP which stands for Return to Player, that being its long term expected payout percentage is displayed on either the pay table or game play rules attached to each slot.

Bonus Buys and Other Game Play Options

The best iPads slots are of course those that appeal directly to as many players as possible, and it is often the theme of such games that will lure in players to play them.

However, it can also be the bonus games and bonus features that can be awarded and triggered that can attract a large number of people to play a slot machine, so a great deal of time and effort is put into the design of such things.

Over in the United Kingdom for example, the UK Gambling Commission has recently updated their technical design requirements for all slot machines available at their licensed venues, sites, and casino apps, and have taken the decision that any slot machine that offers a bonus buy feature cannot be made available within their jurisdiction. The opposite is true in the U.S.A., however. 

That feature allows players to bypass the usual way of triggering a bonus game, that usually being by them spinning in bonus or scatter symbols in a certain way, and instead being able to pay a much higher stake to be guaranteed of triggering a bonus game in exchange for that increased stake.

The reason they chose to ban such an option, is that they deemed it to be one that could tempt players to gamble for much higher stakes than they would normally play for, and some people could get into financial difficulty by taking such an option repeatedly when playing.

Auto Play and the Theme of a Slot Machine

Another thing that the UKGC decided was against their responsible gambling regulations was the auto play option many popular iPad slots and other types of slot machines have on offer. 

They decreed that if any designer did put into place an auto play option then players should not be allowed to set that option with a large number of spins programmed into them. 

Therefore, it is only possible to configure slot games at sites and apps licensed by them in such a way that they cannot be set to play off a large number of spins automatically with no additional interaction from the player, which is something by the way that U.S. players are able to do. 

In fact, that regulator is currently looking at banning that setting on slot machines altogether and are currently engaged in a consultancy period to determine whether to do so or not.

To protect youngsters from playing slot machines in any player environment, one additional rule that has been put into place is that no slots should feature any themes or onscreen characters that would appeal to children, which has led to many slot designers having to withdraw a number of slot games that did boast a childlike theme.