There are worse ways to celebrate turning 46 years old. Rather than sulk with a pint of Rocky Road ice cream, a bottle of Chardonnay and a playlist of rom-coms, Pennsylvania Lottery is celebrating in style with iLottery.
As part of a 2017 gambling expansion bill, Pennsylvania this past month implemented 11 instant-win lottery games on the PALottery website. It also included iLottery in its mobile app, which is available in the Apple Store and via direct-download from the PA Lottery site for Android users.
These 11 real-money games from the PA iLottery are the first online and mobile gambling products available in the Keystone State. They do not disappoint.
With that: Welcome, everyone, to the first-ever iLottoman Awards.
Best Bang For Your Buck On A Budget
Honorable mention
Got a need for a bingo fix? Bigfoot Reveal will satisfy that hunger a bit.
Four nine-square cards comprise a player’s game board with the goal of matching three like symbols on each card. Betting ranges from $0.01 to $5 and players can win more than one prize per game with seven multipliers ranging from 1 to 1,000. A perfect card rakes in $5,750, meaning a perfect board would net $32,000 on max bets.
Honorable mention
Call this a shared honor between Volcano Reveal and Foxin’ Wins Reveal, as both games share the exact same basics.
Both feature betting ranges between $0.01 and $5. Each includes seven multipliers from 1 to 1,000. Both have bonus options that result in even more winnings. The premise is simple: Match three symbols to win the prize with the corresponding multiplier. In Foxin’ Wins, three golden pots result in five free games with double the winnings. In Volcano, three volcanoes earn a “ladder bonus,” in which a certain amount of flames revealed nets a prize of up to $50,000.
Winner
Perhaps one of the more complex games available, Monster Wins Reveal deals out dough like a popular bakery. A 16-tile, match-and-win game, it is extremely similar to Robin Hood Reveal but boasts larger payouts.
Players must match at least three of one symbol to win a prize. Three of a specific kind nets one of nine multipliers from 1 to 1,000. Double those multipliers when a match of four is revealed. For good measure, three BONUS symbols earn players five free games, during which all prizes are doubled.
The difference between Monster Wins and Robin Hood lies in the betting range. For Robin Hood, players can lay down anything between $0.01 and $5. In Monsters, the range is $0.01 to $20. Without bonuses and with four foursomes, any one player could win $23.40 on one-penny bets or up to $46,800 on max bets.
Biggest Jackpot
Honorable mention
Super Gems is a rapid-fire game that could have players walking away with nothing or sprinting away with everything – especially if bonuses take effect.
Bet between $0.10 and $10 and players can see their prizes pile up. Six columns of colored gems, standing nine rows tall, fall into place with each go. Five or more like clustered gems are destroyed and added to the winnings slider on the left side of the screen and can add up with the right combination of clusters.
Three or more adjacent “FREE GO” symbols unlock a pick-a-card game to reveal how many free turns a player wins. On top of that, six gem clusters in one go earn one of two bonus games:
- Two cards are placed face down. One is a prize value, the other is “COLLECT.” Players continue turning over cards until the collect card is revealed.
- Spin a wheel to rack up bonus cash and keep spinning until the wheel stops on an empty slot, after which players collect all their winnings from that bonus game.
With betting ranging from $0.10 to $10, max bets on this game, without bonuses, could result in $100,000.
Honorable mention
One of the largest boards in iLottery awaits in Cash in the Lamp. Yet even with 25 spaces, the game is simple and straightforward.
Bet between $0.10 and $10 to get into this matching game. Reveal the symbols beneath all 25 yellow carpets to match like symbols vertically, horizontally, or diagonally and win the prize with the corresponding symbol. A red carpet bonus game has players open chests to win extra cash, and the lucky lamps bonus game asks players to choose one lamp and claim the prize that is revealed.
All told, a max bet nets players up to $100,000.
Winner
Action abounds in Super Cash Buster, as do the cash payouts.
On the right side of the screen is a Tetris-like board of colored blocks. Roll the die seven times to reveal colors, and those will destroy corresponding colors in the “CASH BUSTER ZONE,” which essentially the bottom row of the block towers. Colors that are blown to bits are then matched with the corresponding slots on the prize table. So, for example, destroy five red blocks and five slots will be filled on the red row of the prize table.
Destroying extra roll blocks earn you more turns, and instant-prize blocks result in more winnings. A mini-game is also available as players spin the wheel to earn extra cash, rolls or colors.
Betting ranges from $1 to $10, but the payout is upward of $200,000.
Most Entertaining
Honorable mention
There’s something about bingo that is incredibly addicting. That’s what Big Money Slingo brings to the table.
After selecting a game board, ranging from $0.50 to $10, players receive up to four jokers, which essentially act as free spaces before even beginning their “goes.” Each go reveals five numbers below the board, and corresponding numbers will be marked with stars. Complete horizontal, vertical, or diagonal lines to claim prizes. On a $10 board, those winnings can be as much as $100,000 per bingo.
Honorable mention
Crossword Cash may be one of the most rudimentary game names. But you know what you’re getting into when you play.
Maybe it’s a nerd thing, but crosswords by themselves are already entertaining. Add some cash to it in the digital version of a popular scratch-it and that will be a winning combination.
There’s no flash to the game, but that’s just fine. All players need are three things: how much to bet (ranging from $0.10 to $10), the letters to reveal and the words to solve. On the left are 18 bubbles to uncover either one by one or all at once. Those are the letters with which players will use to “solve” their crosswords. Center stage is that puzzle, and revealed letters that result in three or more solved words result in cash prizes reaching upward of $60,000.
Winner
As noted above, simplicity, for some reason, is all it takes. It’s like the gambling version of Occam’s razor.
With Cash Buster Towers, everything is simple. There is a straightforward display, a non-extravagant playing board, and easy-to-play turns. Towers is like when you buy a board game, pick up the instruction manual, and immediately throw it away because you’ve seen the pieces, and you already have the system down pat.
It’s difficult to pick nits with Cash Buster Towers. Betting ranges from $0.50 to $10, and players get five spins per bet. With each spin, the numbers 1 through 6 can pop up at the bottom of the screen, indicating how many blocks in that respective column will be destroyed. Each blown-up block brings the winning total – depicted in a tower-topping block – closer to the bottom. When that top block does so, that is your prize along with any other winnings earned during the five-spin round.
To boot, there are bonuses: Along with the numbers, stars, arrows, and circles are products of spins. Four stars earn a card-picking bonus game, for example. Arrows do reset the blocks in that column, but four of them collected results in a bonus game in which players spin a wheel to win more dough. Upon collecting four or more circles, players win the corresponding prize amount, which is located in clear sight on the screen.
Simplicity is king, and royalty can result in a $150,000 payday, making Cash Buster Towers an honorable mention for Biggest Jackpot.
