Any movie buff that happens to wander into a land-based casino will quite easily spot several slot machines upon the gaming floor that are themed around a blockbusting movie.
Over the years there have been huge numbers of such slots released, and many of them have proved to be an instant hit with slot players.
However, in countries such as Great Britain the gambling regulator, that being the UK Gambling Commission are continuing their purge of some slot machines that are available to online players, as they do not deem them to be suitable to comply with their responsible gambling policy.
That may seem like a baffling statement, however the types of slot machines that online casino operators are being told to yank from their sites are those that have any type of theme that a child could or would find appealing.
You may wonder why it is necessary to ban such slots, given that all online casinos are required to age check and also verify the identity and addresses of all new customers that sign up to their sites.
Well, it is down to the fact that many underage gamblers are still able to circumvent the systems some casinos have in place to detect underage gambling and there have been some real horror stories recently of children getting into all manner of problems when playing online slots and other online casino games.
There has however been no requirement for land-based casino operators to remove such slot machines from their gaming floors, as that is due to the way in which anyone entering such a venue in the UK is required to go through an identity check when they enter, therefore negating any possible chance of a child wandering in and gambling.
Some More Unusual Slot Machine Regulations
Never an organisation to shy away from tightening up the rules and regulations they have to enforce, the UK Gambling Commission has also recently brought out several new regulations that online casinos must aide by, when it comes to their slot machines.
Each licensed casino site must be completely transparent with the long term expected payout percentages that all of their slots have been designed and built around.
As such when you visit the websites of any such online casino, you will find a page completely dedicated to listing all of their games alongside each of them you will find the payout percentage that game is expected to achieve over the long term.
Obviously being random games, when someone plays a slot machine on a single session, the actual payout percentage they achieve could be much higher or way lower than the expected one.
Another recent ruling that did raise the odd eyebrow was regarding the way some slots have bene designed in respect of their bonus games and staking options.
As most slots these days offer a main type of bonus game, which could be a set of free spins ort a wheel spinning bonus game, many slot design studios chose to add a “Buy a Bonus” option, allowing players to pay a much higher stake and in return be guaranteed of trigging that bonus game in exchange for that heftier stake.
That was deemed to be too step to far for the regulator who banned such options from slots available at online casinos they license.
A range of player adjustable responsible gaming option settings are now also a legal requirement in both online and mobile casino sites, with players being able to put in place a range of options to allow them to negate the possibility of them gambling more than they can afford to, such as a choosing their own deposit limit.
