I want one million dollars!!! Are there alternatives to Spin&Go?
"I wont million". Review of Spin&Gos in alternative networks.
In the last years, a common thought is that only by playing big MTT tournaments you could make any poker player dream come true - "win one million dollars". However, not all players can participate in these tournaments, and also not everyone has the time to do so. Modern online poker industry has recently brought a quick and fun way to make this popular dream come true. As you may have already guessed, we are talking about the Spin & Go lottery!
Probably the most common choice would be to start this article with the most popular games: Pokerstars Spin & Go; however, taking into account the latest news, we consider much more relevant to review alternative rooms for those players who do love Spin & Go, but simply won't play in the new VIP system that kills rakeback.
The buy-in structure of Winamax Expresso is classic: €1, €2, €5 y €10. Average rake is 7%. The game format is already familiar to all players: 3-minute levels, 500 chips initial stack. The game starts with 10/20 blinds. Maximum multiplier is 1000x, which only occurs 5 out of 100,000 games. In 75% of cases, players will be playing only to double-up their buy-ins and the remaining 14% will play games up to x4. Remaining 1% are games with a multiplier greater than x20.
Making a difference, 888 Poker presented the Blast Poker, with a very different format. It keeps the same SnG lottery, but with big differences.
First, games are played by 4 players instead of 3 as in the other rooms.
Then, before starting each game, a timer starts backward. After reaching the time (if the winner has not been determined yet), an all-in round begins, so you can just sit back and watch the big prize getting to you. Or don't. There are 4 levels of play: $0.10, $1, $5, $15 and $30.
The blind structure and the prizes distribution depend on the multiplier. The higher the multiplier, longer the time before the automatic all-in is set. For example, in the biggest multipliers (1,000 and 10,000) there are 6 levels of 2 minutes each one (by the way, 2 minutes is the standard time for all Blast Poker games) and all 4 participants will receive a prize. But if you are playing one of the smaller multipliers (2 and 5), the timer will only have 6 minutes (3 levels of 2 minutes) and only the winner will get a prize. Starting chips are always 1500. Multipliers start at x2 up to x10,000.
Last difference is rake: it goes from 6.67% up to 10%!. With this rakeback and automatic all-in, Blast Poker looks more like slots variant with some poker elements.
Default distribution: First place 75%, second place 15%, third place 10%. There is an option to make deals at the table, which must be accepted by the players: first place 40%, second place 30% and third place 30%.
PartyPoker joined lottery fashion not long time ago, however, its format called Hero came loaded of colors and some interesting twist. We can highlight that randomly one of the 4 players at the table will have a bounty. The bounty equals 25% of the prize and creates a very interesting action around the "victim". The rest of the game is pretty standard: five levels, $1, $3, $5, $10 y $20. Multipliers are x2, x4, x6, x10, x50, x100, x1000 and x10,000. Rake is 5%-7%. 500 starting chips.
Fish Party Sit&Go is everyone's favorite format: 3 players, 500 starting chips and a random prize. Available buy-ins are €1, €5, €10, €20 and €50. Multipliers are x2, x3, x6, x20 and x100. Largest multipliers are x500 and x5000 + progressive jackpot, and prize structure as follows: first place 50%, second place 30% and third place 20%. Blinds increase every 2 minutes and there is ante from the first level. Rake is slightly less than 6%.
Being fair, we must mention that Fortune Spin are the most common version of the SnG lottery. But it seems that the creators made specific efforts to confuse the players, putting some strange clues along the way hoping for someone to understand them. The only thing that is clear is the rake: 5%. Let's try to understand.