I’m sure that, if you’re reading this, you’ve got a registration to at least one online casino, right? Okay, let’s do a little bit of a practical experiment! And I’m serious, I really want you to do this experiment on your own, as you’re reading this, okay? It’s very easy – all you need to do is log into your casino and check out the slots section. Most online casinos have a couple of slots that they put front and center, featuring them and pushing them in the faces of their players. I want you to tell me how many of these slots are licensed (or, in other words, based on an existing property – “Game of Thrones”, “South Park”, “Avengers”, something like that). I don’t need an exact number, just a rough estimate. Go ahead and check them out, I’ll wait. Did you check them? Well, if my hunch is correct, most of the featured slots there were licensed, weren’t they? Don’t worry, I’m not psychic or anything – this is quite common! In fact, if you look at the reviews of the most popular UK casino sites, you’ll notice that the same thing happens pretty much everywhere – the featured slots are almost always licensed. But why?

Well, there’s quite a lot of reasons for that, honestly. In the world of branded products (which slots are), licensing is nothing new – the most popular products often tend to carry a brand name. We’re talking “Ghostbusters” drinks, “Star Wars” cookies, “Game of Thrones” coloring books… Any product you can think of, the most popular version is either licensed or has been around for decades and has a long-standing connection with consumers. Hell, even the most popular movies coming out these days, like all those Marvel movies, “Power Rangers” or “Transformers” are all licensed properties (even if in Marvel’s case the people who created the original material are the same ones who are also making the licensed product, which is rare), and, in the case of “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”, we’re getting five movies based on eight movies based on seven books. Damn! All that for a little extra popularity? You better friggin’ believe it!

Currently, the market is oversaturated with products – there’s dozens of people who make cookies or toilet paper, for example. It’s especially bad when, due to laws, regulations or just common sense, you are unable to make your product that much different from the product of someone else. So how do you still make people invest in YOUR version as opposed to your competitors? Licensing is a great way to do exactly that. As you may have noticed, most slots are fairly similar to each other due to very strict gambling laws which are active in places like the UK. As a result, people tend to be more attracted to a slot with a name they recognize, like “Game of Thrones”, rather than something that sounds utterly boring and foreign to them, like, say, “Bratislava Bingo 2: Electric Boogaloo”. Slot developers have noticed that, so they generally place bigger budgets and more effort into slots that are licensed, knowing that they’re going to be more popular than the rest. Players catch on, realize that most licensed slots are better than the rest, and start playing even more of them. It’s a bit of a closed circle, honestly, and one that casinos have very much taken advantage of by placing licensed properties front and center.

So that’s why licensed slots are featured in so many online casinos – they tend to be better than the rest, and players flock to them like ants on sugar. It’s not like non-licensed slots are discriminated against (some non-licensed ones, like “Mega Moolah”, are still among the most popular choices), it’s just that most players generally prefer the properties they’re familiar with and know will be better-made than the rest. There’s nothing really wrong with that.