A Curated List of Popular Facebook Gambling Games

A Curated List Of The Most Popular Facebook Games Available

Facebook gaming is a huge business, with companies like Zynga earning hundreds of millions of dollars selling virtual rewards and in-game features. In some markets, Facebook is starting to roll out real-money gambling. We've seen early tests of this system in the United Kingdom, and the company plans to expand their availability over the next decade in new markets.

Though games like FarmVille and MafiaWars are now a big part of the social media landscape, Facebook didn't add games to their service until 2009. Those early games were a sort of grand experiment. Idle-style games, where the player's active participation is only occasionally necessary, tested the willingness of Facebook members to engage socially with gaming. Judging by the sheer number of game requests we all got back in 2009, the experiment was a success.

Today's Facebook games involve much more than idle farming. Action games, similar to console shooters, share virtual shelf space with sports games, board games, and gambling games. While real-money gambling is still a big no-no in most world markets, these games look and act just like real cash games of chance and skill, except they're played with virtual money or credits.

Below is a curated list of five of the most popular Facebook gambling game platforms. These five are the most popular such platforms on Facebook, with millions of members logging in and spending real money for virtual credits to play games like slots, video poker, blackjack, and more.

1. Slotomania

Slotomania is one of the most-popular Facebook gambling games, boasting 40 million players around the world. Slotomania hosts 102 slot-style games, including a dozen jackpot games featuring progressive top prizes. The social aspect of the game is strongly-represented - the app shows you which of your Facebook friends are already members and regularly suggests that you send them gifts or make contact with them. You can also get to know other players in the game and communicate with them away from the game using Facebook's built-in messenger program.

Besides the 102 games mentioned above, two additional sections of the site exist, both accessible from the games lobby. One, called Sloto Cards, is a collectible card game that you play by collecting cards that you purchase from the site's store, win during slot play, or have gifted to you by friends. Completing different collections of cards leads to different rewards. The third section, called Sloto Classics, features 40 classic-style slots with a single reel and simplified pay tables. Sloto Classics games are only accessible by more experienced players. You gain experience (and access to new titles and site features) by playing games and leveling up.

New members earn an instant bonus of 20,000 coins just for registering. New members also earn a free pack of Sloto Cards, though these don't come into play until you have a bit more experience on the site. Once you've accepted your coin bonus (by clicking a button), you can choose from one of two games available to all new members. As you accumulate experience, new games will open up. Sometimes, the site will open new games for you at random, or as a reward for playing multiple days in a row. For many players, accessing new games and clearing the entire library of 102 titles is a big part of the fun of the site, like collecting cards or sending gifts to fellow social slots fans.

Here are short reviews of three of Slotomania's most popular titles:

  1. Ladybug Loot - Ladybug Loot is one of the first two slot games made available to new members. This is a more complex slot game than it may look like at first, featuring stacked wilds and a bonus round. Slotomania doesn't host many games with legitimate bonus rounds - this is one of them. First, about those stacked wilds. The game's theme is the insect world, starring the venerable ladybug. The ladybug bonus symbols are stackable, meaning you can trigger multiple wild symbols at the same time to increase the size of your win. Plus, if you manage to spin three or more of the Wild ladybug symbols on any active line, you trigger the Ladybug Bonus. It's not exactly a bonus game, since all you do is pick symbols to reveal rewards. But it is nice to find a casino-style bonus game on a social gambling app.
  2. Elvis - Licensed and themed slots are popular all over the world, from the casinos of Las Vegas and Macau to global gambling sites and social games. Slotomania's Elvis manages to pull off a decent Elvis-themed game without stepping on anyone's toes, trademark-wise. Though you won't hear more than a few snatches of the King's music, the gemstone-emblazoned jumpsuits and oiled-up bouffant hair are all it takes to quickly identify this game as being dedicated to Elvis Presley. The game is fun, with lots of little bits of music and animations that fit the theme, though it doesn't offer much in terms of repeat play value. No bonus games exist, and the max bet range is a miserable $20 - $120, which doesn't offer budget-conscious bettors much of a change to play.
  3. Creepy Fortunes - Creepy Fortunes is another of the first slots available to new members at Slotomania. Spooky or Halloween-themed slots are always popular, and Creepy Fortunes is a great example of why. This is a five reel game with three rows of symbols and thirty pay lines, accepting bets of between $0.10 and $5 per credit. That gives players a max bet range between $3 and $150 per spin. We like that wide max bet range, because it allows players to approach the game in either a conservative or aggressive style, whatever fits their taste and their bankroll.

2. Jackpot Party Casino

Jackpot Party Casino is an industry-leader, boasting millions of users and years in the burgeoning social games business. Jackpot Party premiered in 2010, not long after Facebook first began hosting games and gaming apps. In a business where few apps have been around more than a month, Jackpot Party has been hosting free-to-play Facebook slots for more than half a decade.

Jackpot Party Casino is home to 82 games, eight of them offering progressive jackpot-style pay tables. Eleven games are hosted in a section of the site called Fremont Street. These games are different from Jackpot Party's current lineup - they're classic Jackpot Party games, fan favorites from years past. You earn access to these and other titles at the site by gaining experience or outright paying for access. Jackpot Party Casino makes their bread and butter offering packages of credits for sale - as we reviewed the site for this write-up, we saw a half-dozen popups offering hundreds of thousands of credits for as little as $5.

Here are three short reviews of some of Jackpot Party's most popular slot games:

  1. El Toreador - El Toreador is one of the first jackpot games that new members will find in Jackpot Party's library. It's a complicated game that's actually very expensive - you play five tickets at once, and in order to trigger the game's jackpots you have to place a huge minimum bet. At the time of our review, only a bet of $1.4 million per spin or more would make you eligible for any kind of jackpot. If you're looking to chase a large progressive prize with El Toreador, you have to come with a large bankroll. It's not the prettiest game, with plain-looking symbols and little or nothing in the way of bonuses. But for people obsessed with jackpots, this is an ideal game, as it offers several tiers of progressive prizes.
  2. OMG Kittens - We had more fun playing this weird slot than any of us imagined. We should have known it was going to be wacky from the name, but then again, slots aimed at younger female players are all the rage in casinos these days, so we though this might just be a novelty game. It's actually one of the weirder online slots we've ever reviewed. Sure, the theme is pretty much just pictures of cute kittens doing kitten things. But the sound effects are downright bizarre - it's like an alternative rock score composed by a teenage girl with a cat fetish. The visuals are engaging. We really don't want to ruin your experience by saying too much. Just know that the scatter symbol is a ball of yarn that bounces and rolls off-screen when you land enough to trigger a bonus.
  3. Zeus II - This game is played on a 5x5 grid of symbols. It's remarkably similar to the bulk of slot games found at real-money online casinos, down to the mythology theme and symbol and pay table layout. The game includes a scatter symbol (another popular feature of real-money online gambling sites) - it's an image of the fist of Zeus holding a lightning bolt. If you spin three or more of these symbols anywhere on the screen, you'll trigger ten free spins, during which all wins are doubled, tripled, or quadrupled, depending on how many triggering scatter symbols appeared. The game's title symbol (Zeus II, with a rather weird-looking Zeus standing in front of a lightning storm) acts as a multiplier, increasing all line wins by 3x, 4x, or 5x, depending on how many appear.

3. House of Fun

House of Fun is another slots-only social gaming app on Facebook. House of Fun hosts 99 slot games, ranging from themed games like Frankenstein Rising to more traditional casino-style slot games. Of the three slot-exclusive gaming platforms we included on this curated list of Facebook gambling games, this one has the fewest bells and whistles. That doesn't always indicate that a site is less fun or that you'll have less fun playing there. We think in the case of House of Fun, it means you have less distractions from the app's focus - a huge variety of slot machines available in a free-to-play format.

House of Fun exists as a downloadable app. That means you can download the software and enjoy the games on your smart phone, laptop, or tablet. You'll still have the connection to Facebook's social network while you play, if you choose, or you can play exclusively through the Web or Mobile version of Facebook. In short, the developers went out of their way to make the game accessible to a large number of people.

Where House of Fun fails is in its game variety. Too many of their games follow the same 5x3 symbol layout, offering little in the way of bonuses, side games, or free spins. Since these are free-to-play titles, you expect things like jackpot games and double-or-nothing bets, but those features aren't here. What you're left with are games that look and act a lot like real-money casino titles, but without the real-money element.

Here are three short reviews of popular House of Fun slot titles:

  1. Three Tigers - As one of the first games new members have access to, 3 Tigers is both popular and familiar to House of Fun players. Three Tigers is styled after modern online real-money slots. The focus is on lining up the game's title symbol, which acts as a scatter symbol. Spin three of these symbols anywhere on the screen and you'll win ten free spins, which can be re-triggered by another set of scatter symbols. This game lacks multipliers, a common feature of both real-money and free-to-play slot games. We also wish the theme were more robust, since it only seems to extend to the game's reel symbols. Not much replay value - but that's not a huge surprise, since this is the "default" slot game.
  2. Beast - The theme here is "The Beauty and The Beast," though you wouldn't know that from just playing the game a few times. Once again, House of Fun offers a cartoonish take on a theme without digging too deep. There's no bonus round, and the game doesn't offer any sort of scatter symbols. Stacked wilds, which reveal greater and greater prize multipliers and offer free spin chances, are the name of the game. The max bet range is impressive - you can wager between $2 and $150 per spin, leaving room for low-rollers and whales alike.
  3. Neverland - Neverland is another House of Fun slot game with a clear theme but not much in the way of special supporting features for that theme. Neverland does include a scatter symbol which rewards ten free spins, though the scatter feature isn't paired with multipliers and can't be retriggered. We like that this game includes a Wild symbol, though the wilds aren't stackable. Really, this game offers just as little replay value as the default Three Tigers game, even though it requires a decent amount of experience points at the site to unlock.

4. DoubleDown Casino

DoubleDown Casino is a set of social media gambling games produced by online gambling giant IGT. It should be no surprise, then, that DoubleDown includes a lot more game options than slots. IGT has spent a couple of decades creating real-money gambling games for online and land-based casinos - their move into the non-gaming segment of the industry makes perfect sense. It's also resulted in one of the best-looking and best-featured Facebook gambling game apps.

Let's start with the lobby - DoubleDown Casino's interface looks like a physical casino. If you want to play slots, you click on the banks of slots. Prefer blackjack? Click on the blackjack table. It's a nice feature that makes the site easier to navigate than any of the others on this list. Then there's the game selection - you can choose from poker, bingo, video poker, slots, roulette, and blackjack. Consider the fact that DoubleDown hosts slot, video poker, poker, and other game tournaments, and it really starts to look and feel like a legit online casino.

We like the idea of doing our social gambling with a company that has years of experience in the real-money casino industry. The games look better and they have a better library of titles to pull from for future library additions. We also like that if we choose to send DoubleDown some of our hard-earned money for in-game credits or other goodies, we're dealing with a company that has been in the game for a long time.

Below are short reviews of the various forms of gaming available at IGT's DoubleDown Casino on Facebook:

5. Caesars Casino

Caesars Casino is an up and coming Facebook social gambling app produced by Caesars, the same people behind New Jersey's most popular online poker and gambling service. That means a few things - for starters, these games are collected from the libraries of popular online game designers. Also, you're dealing with a company with decades of real-world real-money gaming experience. That's always something we get excited about. Unfortunately, it also means you've seen a number of these games before, either online at real-money betting websites, or as part of other social gambling apps. In other words, there's not much unique at Caesars Casino worth getting excited about.

The site's games are broken up into four categories - slots, video poker, roulette, and blackjack. We provide a short review of each section below:

Conclusion

Recently, Facebook announced that the future of the site is video and virtual reality. They envision a network of personal video updates, video news feeds from current events, on top of video and virtual reality gaming, all seamlessly integrated into an idiot-proof user interface. The company has also made it clear that they imagine millions of users connecting their virtual wallets and bank accounts to that video/VR network. You can imagine the possibilities for game designers - and so can they.

That's why gaming companies are shifting their focus from consoles and computer platforms to all things social. Game design startups are popping up all over the place, hoping to be the next Angry Birds or MafiaWars. Competition is fierce - and when real-money gambling comes to Facebook in a major way, as we expect it will within the next decade, you can expect that competition to increase. That's a good thing for us consumers, who have nothing but great things to expect from Facebook gambling games in the coming years.