Updated: 2024
Quick Facts:
- Country of Origin: Isle of Man, United Kingdom.
- Owners: Privately Owned.
- Year founded: 1994
- Types of games: Casino, Live Casino, Bingo, Poker, Games, Sportsbook
- Games: 600+ (Casino)
- Game releases per year: 50+
- Most popular games: Mega Moolah, Immortal Romance, Thunderstruck Franchise (Casino).
Online casinos offering games powered by Microgaming
- Progressive casino and bingo jackpots that cover the entire Microgaming network.
- Constantly on the front foot, recently with the addition of Virtual Reality Solutions. New competitive games are released every month.
- A beacon of stability and reliability. Microgaming have been on the market for decades and serve some of the world’s biggest clients.
- Microgaming have so many products and slots that getting a proper overview can be difficult. Using a casino review/slot review is therefore recommended.
- Slots are the main product offered and developed by Microgaming. Some are annoyed by this, but it really is the biggest market within online gaming, so in reality it makes a lot of sense.
About Microgaming
For more than two decades, Microgaming has been a prominent supplier of online gambling software, and today they rank as the world’s leading supplier. With more than six hundred developed games the portfolio spans from card games to video poker, to slots and roulette. Microgaming is not a niche provider that specialises in a distinct field of the online casino business; they really are everywhere. For many years, they also hosted one of the most successful online poker networks, known as the Microgaming Poker Network. The network still exists today – known as the MPN – but online casino solutions is really the essence of Microgaming’s business model. Other solutions include their very popular bingo software as well as live casino.
Microgaming is obviously concerned with software systems, but there is also an element of connectivity between the different casinos that utilise Microgaming’s systems. The progressive jackpots are not exclusive to any one provider: The company thus offers a number of progressive jackpots through an interlinked network of casino operators. This has lead to some of the biggest online jackpots in the history of online casino. Later in this review, we will look in depth at some of most popular Microgaming slots.
Microgaming Software Solutions
In addition to Microgaming’s in-house developers they have increasingly been using third-party studious to develop their software solutions and products. Many are not familiar with these studios as Slots are often advertised as Microgaming rather than the third-party studios but they are nevertheless there. Switch Studios, Slingshot Studios, Gameburger Studios and Fortune Factory Studios are all companies that have worked in close tandem with Microgaming over the past years.
Apart from specific products, Microgaming also develops more complete solutions. Their wide selection of Casino in Bingo Solutions is one example of this. Another example is Quickfire, an instant play software solution developed by Microgaming’s own developers. This platform is easy to integrate for the different casino operators and can be installed together with solutions and products from other providers.
Microgaming Game Portfolio
Microgaming’s enormous portfolio consists of more than 600 different games. In 2016, they even won BEGExpo’s yearly award for the Biggest Online Games Portfolio. Their games can roughly be divided into six different subcategories: Interactive, Poker, Progressive Slots, Roulette, Slots and Table Games.
Interactive Games are a new genre that Microgaming started investing in last year. One example is the Poke the Guy game, where the player tries to defeat a giant man by, well, poking him! Before doing that, you’ll have to select items to attack him with, and place your bets. It’s an odd new genre but it shows how Microgaming tries to keep up with the evolving market around them.
Progressive Slots have progressively growing jackpots that are shared across different operators who all use Microgaming. It is on progressive slots that some of the biggest online casino scores in history have been won, such as a £13m Mega Moolah Progressive Jackpot Win in 2015.
Slots are really the key product developed by Microgaming. They have developed hundreds of them and have an incredibly stellar reputation on this market.
Roulette is as the name indicates the Roulette-solutions offered by Microgaming. It sounds simple enough for a software provider to offer Roulette-games – really can’t be that difficult, can it? – but in a market where competition is in constant growth, developers have been forced to rethink even a concept as traditional as Roulette. Traditional concepts include Premier Roulette (February 2009), European Roulette (October 2005) and French Roulette (July 2004). In 2016, Microgaming even launched a Virtual Reality Roulette Game.
Poker is also an integral part of Microgaming’s Casino-portfolio. Here we aren’t talking about the online poker network run by Microgaming – known as the MPN and multiplayer-based – but online video poker which is played against a simulator or a dealer at a table. Video Poker has been decimated by the success of online multiplayer poker, but in 2018 Microgaming launched a renewed edition of the traditional ‘All Aces Poker’, where you turn five random cards and win in accordance with a payout table.
Microgaming Table Games include traditional games such as Blackjack and different types of Baccarat.
All the solutions can sound slightly standard and generic, but Microgaming has been scooping up some of the most prominent online gaming awards for more than a decade. We have listed some of them below:
- Malta Gaming Awards: Slots Platform of the Year (2018).
- The International Gaming Awards: iGaming Software Supplier (2018), Mobile Product of the Year (2017).
- Global Gaming Awards: Best Digital Product (2017, 2016, 2015).
Software providers are often identified through some of their most popular slots – for example, we all know that Starburst was developed by the NetEnt Group. The most popular Microgaming slots include Immortal Romance, Mega Moolah and the Thunderstruck Franchise. All these are consistently ranked among the most popular on the market. In 2017, a player won more than £5m in the Mega Moolah Progressive Jackpot, playing through the online casino operator Captain Cooks Casino, an operator that definitely ranks as a top 10 Microgaming online casino. Below we’ve added a Microgaming slots list with some additional slots.
Microgaming Slots List
- Jurassic World
- Mermaids Millions
- Frozen Diamonds
- Playboy
All these slots rank well in terms of RTP, the well known percentage that denotes the ‘Return to Player’. The higher the RTP is, the better your chances are at turning a profit while playing a particular slot. A decent rule of thumb is to look for slots that have an RTP higher than 96.5%. Then, of course, you can develop your own casino strategy, depending on whether you are looking for low, medium or high volatility. Microgaming develops slots that fit all of those criteria.
Microgaming Casinos List
- Mr. Green Casino
- Wixstars Casino
- 888 Casino
- 21 Casino
- Playzee Casino
- Gate 777 Casino
As can be seen in the range of casinos, Microgaming’s casino solutions and table games have an excellent reputation and their pool of clients is constantly growing. Earlier in 2019, Microgaming announced a new partnership with 888 Casino, one of the most popular online casino operators. According to the agreement, Microgaming’s casino content immediately went live with 888 Casino, which dramatically improved the already well-established pool of games in 888 Casino’s portfolio. It speaks to the magnitude of Microgaming’s product that they continue to sign contracts with operators as massive and influential as 888 Casino, who is now the top Microgaming online casino.
Microgaming Mobile Casino
Since Microgaming launched their first mobile casino solution in 2004, developments have just continued to accelerate within this sector. Today, mobile casinos account for the majority of online gaming experiences, which has made the quality of them more important than ever. Below we have added a list of casinos that utilise the Microgaming mobile casino software:
- BGO Vegas Casino
- Casimba Casino
- Playojo
- Bethard
Microgaming Bingo
Microgaming offers all the most popular Bingo games in customisable formats to their different clients. As listed on Microgaming’s official website, these include:
- 90 balls, 75 balls, 75 ball variant, 75 ball pattern, 75 ball classic and classic.
All Microgaming bingo software comes with an integrated chat system, something that is very important for the bingo operators. Real life bingo has always been driven by a social aspect, and that is something Microgaming tries to emulate through their software systems.
Just like the casino software the Bingo solutions operates on a cross-operator level, that means particular progressive jackpots can be won across the network. Having such a gigantic pool of players is ideal if you want to offer a major progressive jackpot, which is often to the interest of both recreational and more regular grinders. In 2012, in fact, it was through Microgaming’s software that one lucky player won £5.88m, at that time the largest online jackpot win in the history of bingo. The investment? £0.30!
Microgaming Bingo sites also offer what is commonly referred to as CiB (Casino in Bingo solutions). Similar to what we described in the Poker section, this is an example of how software developers can integrate expertise from one area into another solution. These are casino games that can be accessed and played through the bingo platform, as a little entertainment on the side. It is a popular solution as it allows for bingo and table games at the same time without the customer having to access different sites or clients.
Microgaming Poker
We already mentioned Microgaming’s Poker solutions in the beginning of this review, but let’s look a bit further into it. If any of you were around in the mid-2000s, when online poker really gained popularity and the different operators were competing fiercely against each other, you might recognise Microgaming and the MPN (Microgaming Poker Network). Back in the days, a number of different poker networks were battling it out against each other: the P2P Network, iPoker, Pokerstars and Microgaming as some of the competitors. Many of them have died out – but MPN survives to this day!
Here is list of a few Microgaming Poker Rooms which are still active:
- Coolbet
- RedStar
- Betsafe
- 188Bet
- 32Red Poker
Flagship Tournaments
Like all other poker networks, the MPN hosts a number of flagship tournaments every week. These are usually set Sunday afternoon and involve players from all the different skins. The skins are the different operators who use the Microgaming Poker Network. Set as Multi Table Tournaments (MTT), these Sunday Majors are extremely important in attracting new customers and keeping your poker network attractive. MPN realised this years ago and have always kept a strong presence with regards to MTTs on Sundays.
Microgaming Poker Network Tour
The Microgaming Poker Network Tour (also known as the MPN Tour) is a live poker tour consisting of MTTs that are held around the world every year. In 2019 for example, the MPN Poker Tour has toured Prague, London and Tallinn, whereas it visited both Morocco and Sunny Beach in 2018. In the recent London edition there was £50,000 for the winner of the tournament.
Microgaming is much more than just a software provider. Staying relevant on such a competitive market requires you to sponsor different events while building up your public profile. The MPN is an important part of that and continues to contribute to Microgaming’s global reputation.
Summary
More than two decades after their initial launch, Microgaming software systems continue to dominate the online gambling market. Microgaming casinos are commonly ranked as the most popular ones on the internet, and the Bingo and Poker solutions continue to be popular as well. For a company to stay relevant for as many years as Microgaming has, you need to develop the most cutting edge and qualified products on the market. And they have done that consistently. Already in 1994, they foresaw an arena for online gambling solutions, and ten years later, they were the first to launch a mobile casino.
The Microgaming software systems are second to none on the market, that being in terms of casino, poker, bingo or live casino. As the competition between different operators and software providers continues to intensify on a competitive market, Microgaming remains a beacon of reliable and popular solutions.
