Autoplay Issues

Autoplay settings are very useful on the online slots. You have various options such as number of spins, stop if win exceeds x amount, stop at feature, fast spin etc. Why have autoplay issues occurred and the function been removed from many online slots?

UKGC Autoplay Issue Rules

Quite simple really. This is in response to the UKGC (United Kingdom Gambling Commission) rules on responsible gaming. You now must have a facility in autoplay on slots to limit losses for the duration, and cannot have settings for 500 or 1000 autoplays as before on some software namely Netent.

Autoplay Issues on New Slots

So, this has been integrated into Netentertainment games (Netent) as they have very modern autoplay settings – all you do is set a loss-limit for the chosen amount of games beforehand, and you can still choose up to 100 games. On Microgaming slots similar applies, and they already had UKGC-compliant settings. WMS games though like Raging Rhino and Montezuma and Ruby Slippers have simply had it removed as they only had basic settings  for stake and spins. To comply they would have had to totally redesign their autoplay structure so for UK slot players WMS slots simply had it removed.

You will also get hourly annoying reminders popping up in a grey box ‘You have been playing for 1 hour and have lost 67.54. Do you want to continue YES or NO?’ These used to be present at some casinos anyway, but now you’ll see them on all if a UK-based player.

The Effect on Online Slots

So, if playing from the UK and some other European countries, you will find autoplay issues as of April  30 2016. As a player I have got used to the changes, but playing my favourite WMS games like Raging Rhino and Montezuma is a complete nightmare – remember, the autoplay button ‘greyed out’ before the reels had stopped if a feature was going to drop in which I and many other WMS slot players loved! All gone for now, bah!  And if you’ve seen the html5 autoplay versions, the greying out at the beginning of the spin hasn’t returned.

Back to Normal Mostly Due to html5 Updating!

There is a good conclusion to this story though – now developers are bringing slots up to date by making html5 versions of their back catalogues, these have had compliant autoplay reinstated.  Flash is being dropped by most browsers, notably Chrome by 2020 so the chances are whether on a desk top or mobile device, you will be playing only in html5 from January 2020.  This means the autoplay issues should be resolved very soon, if not already.

Rule RTS 8A In this UKGC Document explains all: