The Weirdest Casino Games Inspired by Non-Gambling Games
To stay competitive, casino game developers must often come up with new ideas. To do so, they might need a premise for a betting game, a live dealer experience, or a never-before-seen slot machine.
It’s easy enough to create a game based on a TV or film property for which you’ve acquired the license. However, think about how challenging it would be to come up with a gaming idea that seems both fresh and familiar if you haven’t been given any direction.
For inspiration, developers might turn to childhood board games, nearly forgotten game shows, or playground activities. This kind of thinking has produced casino activities like Snakes and Ladders slots, Rock, Paper, Scissors betting, and Deal or No Deal live games.
Casino developers raiding childhood and pop culture for familiar concepts seems natural in this context, but it doesn’t change the fact that some of what ends up on gaming floors is just plain weird. Let’s talk about some oddities that have somehow made the successful transition to real-money gaming environments.
From Beloved Childhood Games to Dubious Casino Offerings
Imagine walking into a casino or logging in online and seeing a wholesome playground classic reimagined as a way to win cold, hard cash.
Snakes and Ladders is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Several online slot machines have debuted featuring this concept, as well as a handful of board-style betting games. In the latter version, users view a grid filled with snakes, ladders, and multipliers. Each die roll is a wager. It’s a bit like craps.
Players pick a pawn, stake a bet, and move around the board. You can land on multiplier squares, climb ladders, or slide down snakes, just like you would in the original game. However, what you do in this context determines your payout.
Modern Snakes and Ladders slot games use the recognizable reel setup for conventional spins that you’ll see with virtually any slot-based game. However, when certain symbols appear, the game launches a bonus board. You’ll be prompted to roll digital dice for a shot at big multipliers and top prizes.
Some players seem to gravitate toward the familiarity of that 10×10 grid. They enjoy watching their pawn try to ascend the heights, just as they did when they played the game in the past.
Rock, Paper, Scissors is another game that has been repurposed for some casinos. Where once it was a playground tie-breaker, now you can get in on the action with either a live dealer or through a random number generator (RNG) betting game.
In some versions, a dealer uses a 24-card deck split evenly between rock, paper, and scissors symbols. You can place a bet on the icon you think will beat the dealer’s draw.
Some tables also include different payout tables for the various colored zones. This is similar to low vs. high-stakes blackjack tables. You can also add side bets if you’re so inclined, an element that some players might equate more with craps.
Jenga has acquired a gambling twist at some modern casinos. Commercial “Jenga casino” sets are incorporated, using red and black blocks numbered like a roulette table layout. Eager players can stack the tower, placing chips on numbers or colors, and then bet on which block will be pulled or try to pinpoint the moment the structure collapses.
It feels a bit like a social drinking game. The suspense of the wobbling tower you might remember from the original game is there. However, there’s real money at stake, so the tension is more feverish than when you used to play it on the floor in your lounge or on the coffee table.
Board Games That Defied the Odds to Become Casino Staples
Among the unusual slot themes at CanadaCasino and similar platforms are ones that borrow liberally from childhood board games. Battleship is a prime example of this. Slots inspired by the grid-based naval combat aspect of the original game are in many casinos.
The modern reel mechanics are there, but you’ll also notice:
- ship symbols and missiles you can fire that “sink” ships
- chances at a fixed jackpot or free spins
Some live casino adaptations get even more complex. You can mark off coordinates on a digital grid as numbers are drawn. You win when enough sections of a ship are hit. It feels eminently satisfying when you can enjoy the visual of the ship sinking while simultaneously collecting a pile of money.
Scrabble-inspired gambling machines are one of the oddest game-to-casino adaptations we’ve discussed yet. Early “Video Scrabble” and puzzle-style slots once existed that borrowed the recognizable look of the original game’s letter tiles and scoring grids. All of the skills were removed, though.
The machine would:
- draw the letters and automatically highlight the highest-scoring word for you
- pay you according to a set table rather than your vocabulary
Some modern apps have tried to improve on this concept. They let you spin reels and then play a mini Scrabble-style word round on the side.
Some users appreciate that, but again, the real money outcome usually hinges on luck-driven symbol combinations rather than any action a player takes.
Developers have also produced a long list of other board game–inspired slots and casino titles. Mystery-style games like Cluedo and Clue have found some success with their mystery aesthetic. Monopoly, with its buy, build, and collect rent format, has also done well.
TV Game Shows Provide Fertile Ground for Casino-Based Activities
Television game shows are logical candidates for casino crossovers.
Deal or No Deal-inspired live casino games are a natural fit. They typically invite players to buy into a round where briefcases or boxes contain hidden amounts. Qualifying spins or mini-games might come next, followed by the player choosing which cases to open.
Wheel of Fortune-inspired slots have also been around for many years. These kinds of slots in a land-based casino usually involve standard reel play combined with oversized physical or digital wheels.
These wheels spin when the player lines up a specific symbol configuration, giving them a chance at bonus multipliers or progressive jackpots. The mechanics of spinning a colorful wheel and hoping it lands somewhere beneficial is about as direct a transfer from TV to bet-based gaming as you could hope to find.
The Price Is Right has also inspired play-for-money gaming structures. In particular, the Plinko and Showcase Showdown segments are ideally suited to make the jump to the casino floor.
If you’re playing a Price is Right slot game, you might also drop virtual discs down a pegboard for multipliers or spin a big wheel to get close to a target value. This kind of adaptation works so well because the original TV format already has mechanics and sound effects that mimic what you’d see when you walk into a bricks-and-mortar casino or log into one online.
The Weirdest of the Weird
There’s also a whole subculture of gambling experiences that are far more bizarre than anything we’ve discussed so far. Some barely resemble traditional casino play.
Consider arcade-style fishing games, for instance, which are wildly popular throughout Asia. Players sit around large digital aquariums. When they buy in, they can fire virtual cannons at colorful fish. Credits are earned based on what you “catch,” with more exotic fish being rarer and consequently worth more.
There are also other unusual formats that fall into this category, such as:
- virtual sports simulations with looping horse races or football matches
- outcomes determined by preset odds and RNGs rather than real athletes
What’s weird about these sports-adjacent game environments is that bettors can study racing forms or past “player” performances just like they would if they were betting on a real horse race or football match. It’s surreal to see would-be players arguing about the merits of certain “horses” or “players” that only exist as purely virtual entities.
If You Build It, They Might Play
Casinos have shown that they’re willing to experiment with almost anything that’s familiar if it can be monetized. Often, they do so simply because they’re looking for a fresh attraction that might get some new faces in the door or sign up online.
Some players might enjoy betting on a gambling oddity based on a childhood game they remember fondly or a half-forgotten TV show.
Others may scratch their head in bewilderment. Marketers tasked with creating new games in the casino space should know that creativity is always appreciated, but not every idea is a winner.
