New Slot Announcement Bonanza by Big Time Gaming

[brianmon]

The thing that no one's been able to adequately explain about Bonanza is if it's been changed, then what aspect of it has been changed, and how? And for what reason?

RTP is the same, 96%, so it's not that.

Feature frequency still appears to be the same old insane 1/460 number, so it's not that.

A couple of months ago someone posted their numbers from long extended periods of play without getting a bonus, and RTP came in at 76%, which is bang on what the base game RTP in Bonanza is known to be. (And if base game RTP is the same, then the RTP allocation for the bonus must be the same as well.)

At that point all we've got is volatility, and they could have messed with either or both of the base game and/or the bonus round, but then we come to the other question, why bother?

I've been reading this thread for years and it seems to me that Bonanza has always been a weird proposition, thanks to that bonkers 1/460 feature frequency and large allocation of RTP to the base game - it's always been capable of weird shit, and it's still doing it today.

I mean, I'm not saying they haven't messed with it, but as per the list above, there's not really much they could have actually messed with!

One reason they might increase the volatility is to (hopefully) get extra deposits.

Low Volatile Bonanza

Deposit £20 and play at 20p, bust out after an hour, maybe a bonus or perhaps no bonus at all.
But you've had an hour's 'entertainment'
'Ah well, better luck tomorrow (or next week or whatever)'


Higher Volotile Bonanza

Deposit £20 and play at 20p, bust out after 15 minutes (which can happen quite regularly these days), No decent wins, no bonus
Only had 15 minutes play...
'Maybe I'll give it another £20'
'Maybe it's saving up for a big win' (yeah I know they don't work like that. But your average punter doesn't)

If you were a slot provider. How would you increase your income and/or decrease your costs

 

[Jono777]

Agree with the above but it is a bit more in depth than that.

Honesty time in that I really can't be bothered to type a lengthy post, however my key point had I done the long post would be that the providers don't worry too much about how to keep the customer happy or get them back 'tomorrow' No - They pray on addiction, vulnerable and those who don't understand the game in full and those who won't or can't say "Enough is Enough"

Provider costs lol, these are miniscule compared to their profits, guarantee BTG made a mint from the Megaways licence alone before we even think about individual slots profits.

 

[pinnit2014]

As Brian mentioned, psychology is a big thing - you lengthen gaps between big wins, you increase the 'chase' feeling - if you think providers don't tweek games to maximise that, then you need your head read.

Ah, but the RTP is achieved regardless:

Given they apparently can chose how many trillion of spins in a simulation...so what?

 

[pinnit2014]

Agree with the above but it is a bit more in depth than that.

Honesty time in that I really can't be bothered to type a lengthy post, however my key point had I done the long post would be that the providers don't worry too much about how to keep the customer happy or get them back 'tomorrow' No - They pray on addiction, vulnerable and those who don't understand the game in full and those who won't or can't say "Enough is Enough"

Provider costs lol, these are miniscule compared to their profits, guarantee BTG made a mint from the Megaways licence alone before we even think about individual slots profits.

Funnily enough the licensing aspect is maybe why they can run with 96% etc and not run lower - licensing is the holy grail of a business: you pass all the risk onto others, get a guaranteed income and have no real development costs

 

[ChopleyIOM]

One reason they might increase the volatility is to (hopefully) get extra deposits.

Low Volatile Bonanza

Deposit £20 and play at 20p, bust out after an hour, maybe a bonus or perhaps no bonus at all.
But you've had an hour's 'entertainment'
'Ah well, better luck tomorrow (or next week or whatever)'


Higher Volotile Bonanza

Deposit £20 and play at 20p, bust out after 15 minutes (which can happen quite regularly these days), No decent wins, no bonus
Only had 15 minutes play...
'Maybe I'll give it another £20'
'Maybe it's saving up for a big win' (yeah I know they don't work like that. But your average punter doesn't)

If you were a slot provider. How would you increase your income and/or decrease your costs

Yes that makes sense, you could absolutely change the volatility profile of a slot to make it more enticing/addictive to players, especially those who are into the 'sunk cost fallacy' space, and I guess you could try and simply take 'all the money' before those players ran away skint. (The NLC bonus buy model, let's get all the money as quickly as we can.)

I've been saying for years that this is the problem with the multi-provider 'shopfront' online casino model, whereby you're not being presented with a single curated experience, as used to happen with Microgaming and the Viper Client casino, so they don't want to 'kill you off' as it were with one big hit, but want you to keep coming back, over time, and lose your money that way. And honestly I was fine with that, I knew what the deal was, I knew I was playing random games with a house edge and I'd lose eventually, but also that Microgaming had a vested interest in keeping me coming back to casinos powered by their software. (Which is also the 3Dice model of course, my eyes are wide open with this, and I'm fine with it, I like to have a gamble, I'm OK with the 'cost' aspect of it, but I expect to be entertained in the process.)

If Bonanza has been changed behind the scenes into a more volatile game with absolutely no indication of that change being given to players then it's a total dick move and morally indefensible, but as long as it still makes RTP in the end, BTG have done nothing 'wrong', at least from a legal perspective, it's not written down anywhere that you can't change the play profile of a game and not tell anyone about it. (3Dice occasionally do this with their own slots, such as Gemini and Berrini's Fortune, but they always make you click through a pop-up window and an explanation of the changes made the first time you play the slot after the change has been made.)

I've said all along that, for example, snorky may well have enough data to reasonably conclude that Bonanza has had its parameters tweaked, I simply don't have enough experience with the game to pass judgement on that aspect of things, but if it's still making RTP, then we can argue about the morals of it all day long, but BTG get off on the technicality of having done nothing 'wrong'.

 

[goatwack]

Yes that makes sense, you could absolutely change the volatility profile of a slot to make it more enticing/addictive to players, especially those who are into the 'sunk cost fallacy' space, and I guess you could try and simply take 'all the money' before those players ran away skint. (The NLC bonus buy model, let's get all the money as quickly as we can.)

I've been saying for years that this is the problem with the multi-provider 'shopfront' online casino model, whereby you're not being presented with a single curated experience, as used to happen with Microgaming and the Viper Client casino, so they don't want to 'kill you off' as it were with one big hit, but want you to keep coming back, over time, and lose your money that way. And honestly I was fine with that, I knew what the deal was, I knew I was playing random games with a house edge and I'd lose eventually, but also that Microgaming had a vested interest in keeping me coming back to casinos powered by their software. (Which is also the 3Dice model of course, my eyes are wide open with this, and I'm fine with it, I like to have a gamble, I'm OK with the 'cost' aspect of it, but I expect to be entertained in the process.)

If Bonanza has been changed behind the scenes into a more volatile game with absolutely no indication of that change being given to players then it's a total dick move and morally indefensible, but as long as it still makes RTP in the end, BTG have done nothing 'wrong', at least from a legal perspective, it's not written down anywhere that you can't change the play profile of a game and not tell anyone about it. (3Dice occasionally do this with their own slots, such as Gemini and Berrini's Fortune, but they always make you click through a pop-up window and an explanation of the changes made the first time you play the slot after the change has been made.)

I've said all along that, for example, snorky may well have enough data to reasonably conclude that Bonanza has had its parameters tweaked, I simply don't have enough experience with the game to pass judgement on that aspect of things, but if it's still making RTP, then we can argue about the morals of it all day long, but BTG get off on the technicality of having done nothing 'wrong'.

......and thus fall into the 'I believe the game has changed' category, as manifested in the thread Snorky created, indicating the gameplay and volatility changed from years of daily play

 

[pinnit2014]

I'll save you the bother of debate:

It has changed

But the RTP is, apparently, the same.

So, it's not the destination, but how you get there

 

[goatwack]

That's what I tell the missus all the time!

 

[pinnit2014]

The driver varies week to week?

 

[johnnymcc1966]

First 17 spin bonus in ages

 

[hogexd]

They may be still operating at max rtp (although I would love to see genuine proof) but they have changed how the rtp is achieved. The game became virtually impossible to bonus and virtually all the big base hits have been removed.

The game became an absolute joke since Evolution took over, along with their other original games like DHV. As so many of their recent releases completely flopped, they had to cash in somewhere and they chose to hit Bonanza. They are fizzling out anyway. One trick ponies and once the audience has worked out how the trick is done, they stop paying your wages.

Funnily enough I got my first ever base game diamonds all the way on the EVO version of the game a few days back

 

[The Viking]

Funnily enough I got my first ever base game diamonds all the way on the EVO version of the game a few days back

All mind games i really dont think it matters what version or from what server you are playing from
for me it pays the same as it did 3-4 years ago.
just go back to page 3-400 3-4 years ago same stuff still talking about how crap it but still play it
i play some spins on Bonanza in nearly every session, i also still play Raging Rhino where avalible in nearly every session
even there the bonuses are worse you get feature garanty there in 9 out of 10 features but like Bonanza you know
its possible to hit big and thats why we play it.

 

[hogexd]

All mind games i really dont think it matters what version or from what server you are playing from
for me it pays the same as it did 3-4 years ago.
just go back to page 3-400 3-4 years ago same stuff still talking about how crap it but still play it
i play some spins on Bonanza in nearly every session, i also still play Raging Rhino where avalible in nearly every session
even there the bonuses are worse you get feature garanty there in 9 out of 10 features but like Bonanza you know
its possible to hit big and thats why we play it.

I’d rather play the Bonanza 2.0, better known as Extra Chilli since there you can actually just buy the bonus and hit big instead of spinning 1000 times for a 30x bonus.

Alas, I still play bonanza from time to time, but there are so many better options from BTG, it’s usually last on my list nowadays

 

[hogexd]

According to this info sheet that they presumably got from BTG or Evolution, the max win is 26,000x

Has it ever actually been achieved?

 

[PMKFRUITPRO]

That’s like asking if Barrow have ever won the premier league.

 

[goatwack]

They've won the Northern Premier League in 2010. So by that reckoning, if the BTG rep answered that question, then Barrow were Premier League champions once

 

[snorky510238]

According to this info sheet that they presumably got from BTG or Evolution, the max win is 26,000x

Has it ever actually been achieved?

No but it’s only been out 6 years……oh, hang on, well, come to think of it.

 

[goatwack]

*walks on podium*

Just because no player here, out of the hundreds of regular players, and those that play it religiously, often as their only game, hasn't hit the '26,000x' and shown it here, doesn't mean it hasn't happened. For all we know it's happened countless times across the internet. We're not the Messiah you know, just a very naughty boy

*stacks it off the podium*

 

[PMKFRUITPRO]

There is no max win as it’s got that much potential.

I mean come on do you ever see max wins on Pragmatics, Netents, Hacksaw or NLC??

I wonder if the former disgraced BTG office junior (rumour was, his name was Rick Nobinson BTW) who was punting out faked screen shots had time to knock up a 28,000x’er before the head honcho’s realised what that sneaky employee was doing and fired his/her ass??

Hopefully one of their fanboy streamers can premiere maybe even a vid of it??

 

[PMKFRUITPRO]

Hopefully Rick erm I mean Nick could be in the chat on that stream to talk us through when it happened and what casino it was at??

 

[goatwack]

The win potential is capped at 26000x eh

So I take it the Unlimited Multiplier isn't actually unlimited then, those sneaky bastards

 

[Kroffe]

Gold dust retrigger pays 26000x, im sure the game can reach that number in other ways aswell but i have only had it from the GD retrigger.

 

[snorky510238]

I wonder how many times the x26,000 was hit during the billions of trial spins? I think I know the answer to be honest.

 

[Kroffe]

I wonder how many times the x26,000 was hit during the billions of trial spins? I think I know the answer to be honest.

Well there is one sure-fire way to get it that i know of (other than getting a gold dust retrigger)

 

[pinnit2014]

I wonder how many times the x26,000 was hit during the billions of trial spins? I think I know the answer to be honest.

I hit it twice in a day because, you know, it's random*

*only such a thing as losing randomness, not winning randomness