We love the name Pragmatic Play:
Pragmatic means, “dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and that’s about the last thing you’d associate with gambling, which is generally rich in fantasy and escapism.
However, it’s a great way for both players and gambling businesses to look gambling. You should try it.
The company’s tag line is more typical of the industry, offering “Vegas at your fingertips”.
Pragmatic Play make a big variety of products: slots, casino games, bingo, live casino games, and a lot of products for casino sites that manage games for them, deal with client relationships and aim to maximise the amount of cash the sites take out of the customer (who is you).
Let’s have a look at this massive company, with at least 200 games currently available to UK players.
Pragmatic Play Slots
Pragmatic Play Casinos
Who are Pragmatic Play?
Pragmatic Play call themselves, “a leading content provider to the iGaming industry, offering a multi-product portfolio that is innovative, regulated and mobile-focused.”
They are licensed to operate in more than 20 jurisdictions and have won a shed-load of awards. Their products work on all platforms, in 31 languages, and in “all currencies” (they say, “all”, so we’ll take their word on it).
Their games include slots, live casino games, bingo, and scratch cards.
Alongside the games, they offer marketing and administration software to casino providers.
Pragmatic Play are based in four locations:
Gibraltar (at the World Trade Centre), in Malta (in Sliema), in the Philippines (in Manila), and in the UK, in Soho in London.
That’s a fairly typical set up for the iGaming industry. Gibraltar and Malta are commonly used offshore jurisdictions that offer financial and regulatory services and also low tax. Both are well-regarded within the online casino and gambling industry.
A location in Asia usually means good-value programming and technical work.
The UK is a prestige location, particularly in the heart of London’s best-known creative area.
Are Pragmatic Play Licensed?
You should never use a casino site or a game that is not licensed to be used legally by you in the jurisdiction you are playing it from.
This is a message we repeat over and over again, and it’s for good reason. Please don’t try to get around restrictions on games, casinos, or on yourself, as you’ll only end up losing out.
Players can play Pragmatic Play games with confidence around the world.
The most important licence for UK players is that from the UK Gambling Commission, without which no player should play a slot game.
There were two licences for Pragmatic Play:
The first is number 39027, and was issued to PragmaticPlay Live UK Limited, in Brentford in west London in the UK, the licence had no sanctions against it, and has been surrendered.
The active licence is: 46683, granted to Pragmatic Play Ltd in Sliema, Malta, and it licenses the company to carry out remote virtual events gambling, to sell gambling software, to host bingo and casino games.
There are no sanctions or other notes recorded on the licence. The company does not operate under any other trade names or have any other URLs registers.
Pragmatic Play is also licensed by the Malta Gaming Authority. The company is licensed to provide from its base in Sliema, business to business services with two licenses, MGA/B2B/317/2016, and RN/142/2019. These two licences also cover the supply of casino gaming services.
Next up are two licences from the Romanian gaming authorities. One is to Pragmatic Play Ltd in Malta and covers the software side of things.
The second licence (Nr.817/29.03.3019) is to Pragmatic Play Live SRL of Bucharest (Bucuresti) in Romania. This is for the filming and transmitting of gaming streams.
The story here seems to be that Pragmatic Play set up a live streaming business in the UK, but have subsequently moved it to Romania, where labour costs are exponentially cheaper.
Pragmatic Play are also licensed by the Curacao Egaming authorities. Curacao licensed the first online casinos and made a speciality of granting these licences. These licenses aren’t accepted everywhere these days, but they are still a valid jurisdiction, and Pragmatic Play holds licence No. 1668/JAZ.
There is also a licence from the Gaming Board of the Bahamas.
Finally, Pragmatic Play has a licence in its home in Gibraltar: a business to business authorisation: Casino (B2B) RGL no. 107.
Is Pragmatic Play Casino Software Safe to Use?
Yes, it is.
That was short and sweet!
You can see that Pragmatic Play has a multitude of licences. They say enough to offer services in more than 20 jurisdictions (some licences are accepted across multiple jurisdictions).
More than that, this is plainly a legitimate and highly respected company. Pragmatic Play works in partnership with some of the most well-known names in the online casino world, they’ve been around for years, and continue to make headlines. They are not a dodgy company.
Furthering their good reputation you’ll see a couple of auditing labs listed on their front pages. These companies provide testing services to the gaming industry that can be used to show that their games are truly random and truly fair.
Gaming Labs have tested the Pragmatic Play Random Number Generator, and the Vegas Magic V30777 software, and issued a certificate valid until June 1st, 2020 for those products that certifies that they: “have successfully been tested to generally-accepted industry standards for highly-regulated jurisdictions.”
Pragmatic Play also use BMM test labs, one of the largest testing companies in the world, Quinel, and Gaming Associates.
Pragmatic Play also illustrate their commitment to responsible gaming on their website. This includes:
- The auditing process. Such audits and testing are required to get gaming licences. The company says that it only releases games once they’ve been tested and approved by the licensing bodies under which it operates.
- Pragmatic Play games also have “player protection software” on board, and are regularly tested by independent authorities.
- Finally, Pragmatic Play supports the GambleAware program as part of its social responsibility programme.
Award-winning Games and Systems
There are many awards in the gaming industry, and Pragmatic Play have won their fair share – perhaps more than their fair share – of them.
Among the best known are the EGR awards, an international award run by Pageant Gaming Media of London and New York.
Pragmatic Play has awards from the 2016 Business to Business awards, the 2016 Operator Awards, the 2017 Nordic Awards and B2B awards, and also won the Innovation Award in 2018.
There are also awards in 2018 and 2019 from the Malta Gaming Awards, and the Malta iGaming Excellence Awards. And Pragmatic Play were winners of the 2018 Game of the Year award at the Starlet Awards.
Pragmatic Play Games
Pragmatic Play produce such a variety of games it’s hard to cover the whole selection.
Their games are listed as “slots”, “table games”, “scratch cards”, “video poker” games and “other games.
The company also supplies live casino games and bingo games.
Pragmatic Play Slots
Slot games are divided up into video slots, and classic slots, as well as jackpot games.
Among the most recent Pragmatic Play slots releases are Fire Strike, Tree of Riches, John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen, Super Joker, and The Great Chicken Escape.
Classic slots fresh off the line at Pragmatic in October 2019 were: Monkey Madness, Triple Tigers, 888 Dragons, Irish Charms, and 888 Gold.
Jackpot games means big progressive prizes, and the top recent titles at Pragmatic were: Great Rhino, Fire 88, Lucky New Year, Chilli Heat, and Diamond Strike.
Whatever style of game you like – and here you see classic slots, fruit games, Chinese-themed games, action-adventure games, and cartoon games – you’ll find Pragmatic Play titles to suit you.
We looked at a top UK industry audit site to check out how Pragmatic Play games were performing.
The top Pragmatic slots titles at that site were:
- Wolf Gold, a Wild West-themed wildlife game with a massive top prize.
- Mustang Gold, a similarly themed game, with a very generous theoretical return to player.
- Pirate Gold is a pirate-themed game with lots of bonuses and fixed jackpots and a possible maximum pay-out in the millions.
- The Great Chicken Escape is a fun cartoon game with a nod to the film you’re already thinking of and cracking graphics.
- John Hunter and the Tomb of the Scarab Queen is another entry in the Indiana Jones-alike universe, with Pragmatic’s own hero/archaeologist with a million pound-plus top prize.
Table Games
Table games are casino games without live streaming. They simulate the experience of being in a casino via standard computer game controls.
Pragmatic Play has just four of these titles: Roulette, American Blackjack, Multihand Blackjack, and Baccarat. That covers all the UK and US classic casino games.
Scratch cards
Scratch cards or instant wins are a relatively minor diversion in the online slots world, but they must have a market.
Pragmatic Play has a small selection of this coin-flip games that are a very pure gambling experience. Their titles include: Wolf Gold Scratch card, Gold Rush Scratch card, Queen of Gold Scratch card, and Hot Safari Scratch card.
Video Poker
All slot games are descended from poker, and there’s no game closer to the modern slot than a video poker machine.
Pragmatic Play has one of these, a Jacks of Better title.
And the company also makes a Keno game.
Pragmatic Play Live Casino
The live casino game is the new state-of-the-art in the casino world. Although it’s been made possible only by advances in high technology, the effect is something more traditional: the actual experience of being in a casino.
That means live, real people (who should always be treated with respect by you, the player) shuffling real cards or spinning real reels, while players watch, and take part via a digital interface and an internet connection.
Pragmatic Play have recently jumped onto this bandwagon, and film their own live casino games from a studio in Bucharest, Romania.
Making live casino games is very expensive. You actually have to pay someone to sit and deal out the games for long periods of time.
To their customers, who are casino operators, Pragmatic Play advertises a load of great quality characteristics, including low latency. Players will be pleased to learn that these games are available on all platforms, mobile and desktop, using HTML5, the state-of-the-art web language in 2019.
The games played are:
Live Roulette, Live Blackjack, and Live Speed Roulette.
That covers the two most popular casino games.
There are lots of extra features for players. In live roulette players can save their favourite bets, and the company has its own special bets. There are also extra bets in Blackjack, which can be played in multi-player, and multi-seat functions. Speed Roulette is more like a real-life casino.
La Partage Roulette, which returns some of some losing bets to players, is coming soon, as is a live version of baccarat.
Live casino games are a new dimension in casino play. With a new experience comes new things to learn, so please make sure you keep your head when you play live casino games, and use the same safe-play checks you would when playing any other online gambling game.
You’d be naive if you hadn’t noticed that online gambling companies like to make their dealers and croupiers as attractive as possible. That’s just the way of the world, but don’t be led by such things, and never, ever treat an online casino staff member with any less respect than you would like to be treated with yourself.
Pragmatic Play Bingo
We’re not a specialist bingo site so we won’t cover Pragmatic’s bingo offering in full detail.
Bingo enjoys its own special space in the online gambling world and has a particular market. In the UK, for example, it is the most female-friendly form of gambling, certainly in the way it is marketed.
Pragmatic Play offer a full bingo service to its clients. This includes the slot games that are played in chat rooms to pass the time while waiting for the balls to drop.
Pragmatic Play’s bingo games include various branded versions of 90-ball bingo, 80-ball, 75-ball, 50-ball, and a high-speed 30-ball game.
Back Office
Pragmatic Play doesn’t just make games, they also help companies to offer them in the most attractive way. This is to sell them better to you. To get you to spend more time playing. And to spend more money.
Pragmatic Play’s offering in this area is called Pragmatic Play Enhance™.
This is a set of promotional tools that promise to “Take your player experience to the next level”.
The key features of this system are:
Tournament promos: play against other players for a prize.
Prize drop promotions: this allows sites to offer prizes to players at random.
Free round bonus: free spins are the favourite bonus of every slots player, and this allows the casino to offer players free spins as a reward during play.
There are also countdown free round bonuses, game boost features, and free scratch cards when you play on those games.
Where can I play Pragmatic Play Games?
You’ll see Pragmatic Play games all over the internet. They are a big company and make a lot of top titles. Their news page is filled with reports of new releases and new tie-ins with casinos, most recently with BetConstruct and Betano for Live Casinos.
We can’t list all of their partners here, but you should find Pragmatic Play slots, casino, scratch cards, and live casino games at the following Pragmatic Play casinos:
Mr Green, William Hill, Leo Vegas, Vera & John, Casumo, 888 Casino and many many more.
In Conclusion
Pragmatic Play is a great company who’ve earned their place at – or very near the top – of the online casino world.
They have a huge number of games on offer: slots (classics and video slots), scratch cards, casino games, bingo, and live casino games.
You can play all Pragmatic Play casino games with confidence that they are licensed for you and that they’ve been tested by the best auditors in the business.
New titles keep coming from Pragmatic Play, with Honey Honey Honey and Aladdin and the Sorcerer on the way in October and November 2019. Like many games studios, they are starting to offer more and more series games.
Their live casino offering is top class, and the company’s news page is filled with new casinos signing up. It’s definitely one you should check out, for quality, honest play with excellent dealers.
Their marketing tools will be most obvious to players in innovative in-game promotions. When you see those you’ll know you’re at a Pragmatic site. Whatever you do, always play safely and within your financial limits, and it’s good to see Pragmatic Play also committing to supporting safe and responsible play and having a good corporate responsibility offering.