Barcrest Casinos
To call a company in the online slots and casino world a “veteran” outfit doesn’t take much. This is a fast-moving sector and new businesses can come and go quickly. Barcrest definitely deserve the title though, and the company has a history that goes back well before the days of clicks when they were one of the biggest makers of cabinet games played in real-life gambling venues.
Barcrest are still out there now, although they’re a different beat from the original company in some ways. Their biggest title in the UK, Rainbow Riches, has been sitting in the UK gaming charts for years, and it’s a staple at every casino site with few exceptions.
Rainbow Riches has spawned a bright colourful family of related games, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Barcrest Casinos, so let’s dig deeper and see what else you’ll find behind the blue logo.
Best Free Barcrest Slot Machines Reviewed
Who Are Barcrest?
Google Barcrest and you won’t find a company website. Like many online slots companies, Barcrest are now part of a bigger company, the multi-headed hydra that is Scientific Gaming.
It wasn’t always this way though. Barcrest were formed in the UK in 1968 making cabinet games that were played in venues like pubs, clubs, arcades and casinos. Their games were big hits, and many players of a certain age will see their logo and flashback to a metal plate on the side of a big-box game.
As the casino world went digital, Barcrest followed along – really, there wasn’t much choice – and took its games into casino sites.
The company was brought in 2011 by Scientific Games.
Scientific Games is a company with a broader remit than Barcrest. To give them their full name they are called Scientific Games Corporation and they offer “gaming solutions” for the whole betting world. The company produces games on- and off-line and their main gaming operating is called SG Gaming, and brought together Barcrest and The Global Draw. That second name should tip you off that SG Gaming have a big presence in the lottery world.
Barcrest though remain largely a slots company. In the UK market, they have 74 games currently on the market, largely slots, but also some video poker games, and roulette table games.
The company is ranked 12th in the UK on measures that take into account the visibility and popularity of their games.
What is a Barcrest casino?
In the way we normally categorise these things, there are no Barcrest casinos.
Some sites are run by companies that produce both games and the software needed to run a casino site. These may produce sites that can fairly be branded with the name of the producer.
Barcrest and SG don’t yet do this. So, you will find Barcrest games all across the UK market, but shouldn’t find a site that is just Barcrest games.
Some sites – for whatever reasons, which we may discuss later – do feature the games of a particular developer.
But Barcrest games are widely available across the UK market.
Where Can I Play Barcrest Games?
Barcrest games are available in almost 600 casinos. And many casinos now offer you the choice of listing games by the developer so you can separate out your favourites more easily.
The sites in the UK that are rated the most highly for Barcrest games are:
Ladbrokes, betfair casino, PaddyPower Games, bgo, 888 Casino, Gala Casino, bucky bingo, and 888 Ladies.
If you want to see the games easily then look for sites that have the highest number of Barcrest games in the casino lobby.
There are:
Monopoly Casino, Bringo Bingo, Fancy Bingo, Sing Bingo, and Fantastic Spins.
Can I Get a Barcrest Casino Bonus?
A Barcrest casino bonus is some sort of giveaway or offer related to Barcrest games.
At the moment (these offers change regularly), the companies with Barcrest offers are:
Bucky bingo, Star Slots, Daisy Slots, Slots Racer, and Slots UK.
Can I Play Free Barcrest Slot Machines?
It is much harder to play online slot games for free these days. Crackdowns on what can be offered to young players (which we completely support) has meant that gambling games cannot be played without age verification. At most Barcrest casino sites, this means you need to create an account. Some casino sites allow you to create an account without dropping any cash on a site; although you may be asked to supply payment details even if you don’t need to make a payment.
You can also play games for free at some review sites where you verify your age, normally by a simple self-declaration. Some manufacturer sites also allow you to verify your age to play games. Barcrest do not.
It’s always a good idea to play games on demo mode before you play for real cash, just to get your head around how the games work.
Barcrest Slots
We are going to divide the Barcrest slots into two sections. Because the company’s Rainbow Riches titles are such a massive part of their reputation and the biggest hits they have by a mile we will list all of these separately.
Here are the company’s biggest hits excluding Rainbow Riches games:
Action Bank
This 2016 release is heist-related, with a top prize of 250,000 coins, betting from 1p to £20 and 20 pay lines. It plays in a very classic style on a five by three grid and has multipliers and scatters as its main bonus features. It is based on a cabinet game and has remained in the top 200 well into 2020.
7s on Fire
Sevens in the title usually means a retro slot with a classic design, and that’s the case with this game that was released in March 2020. It’s got a 95.1% theoretical return to player, and like a lot of these simpler games is aimed at players who don’t mind a bit of risk with its high volatility rating. The top prize is 1,250-times stake. The classic set-up is a three-by-three grid with just five pay lines.
Hot Frootastic
Fruits usually means classic too, and there’s a classic fruit set up on this game. It has a 95.96% RTP, and a top prize of 250,000 coins. You can bet from 10p to £500 on a five by three grid with just 10 pay lines. Hot Frootastic was released in December 2016.
Winfall
This was released in May 2018 and has a 96% RTP and a medium variance. The game is extremely simple by modern standards with just a single bonus game, a wheel of fortune delivering the top prize.
Beetlejuice Megaways
Beetlejuice was a massive comedy hit back in the last century, and it’s aged pretty well. It took until 2020 for the Megaways slot game to arrive though. Megaways is a game engine pioneered by Big Time Gaming and now used in a number of games by other developers. We don’t think there’s much difference in play from a player point of view, though the system always comes with cascading wins and increasing multipliers, but these games are everywhere now so we assume that developers love the mathematics of the system. This game is fairly typical, released in April 2020 it has the usual many thousands of pay lines and a 96% RTP. It looks great.
Legend of the Pharaohs
Every slot developer has to have at least one Egyptian game on offer, and this 2017 release from Barcrest is a good example of the genre, operating in a fairly simple manner and delivering the company’s usual capped top prize of 250,000 coins. It’s got a lot of features, including some novel wilds and a bit betting range.
7s to Burn
The top prize is tapped slightly lower here at £125,000, but this is a game that will attract high rollers simply on the basis of its aesthetics and feel. You can even play for higher stakes with a special Hi Roller spin. The game takes the classic three-by-three grid as its basis and allows betting up to £500 (big prizes often cost big stakes). The main bonus feature is a fairly simple wilds feature, so this isn’t one for players who like a lot of sophisticated gameplay.
Monopoly Bring the House Down
It’s not often reported that Monopoly was initially invented as an anti-capitalist game that illustrated the dangers of the system! Time has flipped history of its head and made the man in the top hat a hero of a system that seemingly works out for the giant games corps who make the game now. It’s natural for slots with its money and business theme, and this title from Barcrest was launched in 2017 with lots of bonus features.
Pearl of the Caribbean
Pirates are another perennial favourite of the slots world and this nice-looking jolly roger of an offering from Barcrest was released in September 2019. The mathematics are fairly standard for the company, but they’ve bumped up the reels and rows to a five by five grid giving 250 ways to win and expanding symbols adding another new dimension.
The Rainbow Riches Series
Rainbow Riches are a massive hit for Barcrest. It’s not unusual for a good game that’s a big hit to generate a sequel or two, but Rainbow Riches is a huge family of games in 2020.
The original game is still far and away Barcrest’s biggest hits, sitting at number four in the UK charts in September 2020.
What do people like so much about Rainbow Riches?
The games are pretty simple, and certainly not sophisticated in the way that some modern slots are. The colours are bright and the theme is very old fashioned – luck of the Irish – to the extent that it might even be considered a bit offensive by some!
The original game was released in May 2009. It has the sort of stats you’d expect at that time, with a 95% rtp, medium variance, a five by three grid, 20 pay lines, and a 500-times stake top prize that can be valuable thanks to a big betting range that goes up to £400 a spin.
The game is built around bonus games that offer big prizes in simple ways – usually prize picks, and prize ladders. These features have stayed true through the Rainbow Riches series.
Rainbow Riches Pick and Mix
Rainbow Riches Pick and Mix was released in 2016, and the big novelty is that there are five bonus games. You can pick three at the start of the game.
Rainbow Riches Cluster Magic
Rainbow Riches Cluster Magic is a summer 2020 release with a load of bonus games, and cluster wins that deliver cluster wins on an 8 by 8 grid. It’s by some distance the most sophisticated of the Rainbow Riches series in terms of its gameplay innovation but keeps the same old look that people obviously love so much.
Rainbow Riches Megaways
Rainbow Riches Megaways uses the system from Big Time Gaming that’s taking over the online video slots world. This game came out in summer 2019 and has the huge number of possible winning combos that the system always comes with along with lots of bonuses, starting with the standard-issue cascade and multipliers on wins and free spins.
More Rainbow Riches slots:
Rainbow Riches Home Sweet Home has an RTP of 97.75% and was released in 2018.
The same generous house edge and an endless stream of wilds that drop onto the reels from above has the Rainbow Riches Drops of Gold.
Rainbow Riches Leprechaun’s Gold also has that RTP and a 3-d leprechaun as the main visual bonus.
Rainbow Riches Reels of Gold, Rainbow Riches Free Spins, Rainbow Riches Fortune Favours, Rainbow Riches Original, Rainbow Riches Leapin’ Leprechauns, and Rainbow Riches Mega Drop Quest (a progressive game). And there’s a Slingo version of the game.
Are Barcrest Slots Safe?
Barcrest is a safe, licensed company that you can play with confidence as long as the games are featured on a licensed site with an up-to-date licence from the UK Gambling Commission.
You can expect new releases from them every couple of months – including, we imagine, more Rainbow Riches games – and you’re likely to see those new games at most UK online casino sites.
