Cricket Star Online Slot Review
Cricket Star is available via Microgaming, at the developer’s many casinos, and it’s indeed dedicated to the second most popular sport in the world, cricket. With 2.5+ billion fans, this sport’s popularity is surpassed only by that of soccer. The game we have here delivers all-themed symbols and good cartoon-style graphics, so the look of it is definitely worthy of the sport.
Getting to the meat and bones of the game, the layout will feature 243 ways to win on 5 reels. As for the major features, those involve stacked wild symbols, a Wild Wickets bonus, Rolling Reels, scatters, free spins and even multipliers as high as 10x. Considerable wins are paid out in this game, even up to $25,000 per winning combo, while the maximum potential for one round is limited at $525,000.
Betting
The game is not quite as cheap to play, as others with 243 ways to win. It requires the use of 50 bet lines, while others only need 25-30, to cover all ways to win which are deployed. You start your bets from a minimum of $0.50, and you increase the coin size (up to $0.50) and the number of coins per line (1 to 10), to achieve wagers as high as $250 per spin.
Cricket Star Jackpot
The game will pay up to $525,000, which seems like a limit put in place by Microgaming, since winning combinations forming in a system with ways to win will pay up to $25,000 each in Cricket Star. Another good payout, of up to $62,500, is offered for five scatters acting as triggers for the free spins.
From what was announced, the RTP of Cricket Star is at 96%, which makes it a good pick even placed alongside a more recent release.
Special Features
I found the major features of Cricket Star to be fairly enjoyable, particularly since you’re getting them in a system with ways to win.
Rolling Reels
This system is available for the duration of most of your rounds in Cricket Star. It’s the one that gives you a second chance at forming a combination, as it removes winning symbols and lets others land in the empty positions, to hopefully create new wins for you.
Stacked Wilds
Present only on the last three reels, these stacked wilds are present in more than 40 positions on the reels, and they can seriously boost wins when they appear. Obviously, their appearance in stacked form boosts the number of symbols as well. Use them as replacements for regular symbols, but not for scatters.
Wild Wickets Feature
Activated at random, this feature will transform one of the middle three reels into a full wild, giving you a guaranteed win. The feature deactivates the Rolling Reels option though, so you can’t take advantage of that win further.
Free Spins
To access the free spins, you will need to land Ball symbols, scattered in a minimum of three positions. You can get 15, 20 or 25 free spins this way, plus a payout of up to 250x the bet at the start. Once you get inside, the Rolling Reels gain an increasing multiplier for each consecutive wave of symbols coming in, with the potential to reach 10x wins eventually. You may not retrigger free spins.
Design
Cricket Star is based on a sport that hasn’t gotten any love from developers so far, even though it’s got more than 2.5 billion fans worldwide. Soccer, with its 4+ billion fans, has gotten dozens of slot machines though. It’s time for cricket to have its own themed slot machine, and overall I think that Microgaming did a good job with the design for it. They used only proper symbols, related to the players, referees or fans that are in the stands, and of course the reels are placed in the middle of a huge stadium.
Summary
I expect Cricket Star to be enjoyable for anyone that likes cricket, though feature and RTP wise it looks good enough to be played by anyone.
