Adding Progressions to Mini-Games Boosts Engagement

Read this month’s Headline Release and Market Watch

This month’s Casino Headline Release looks at how Jackpot World’s Waves & Wins drives engagement and spend by tying a unique cooking mini-game to multiple reward progressions and purchases. Events that contain multiple mini-events, like Waves & Wins, are common in the core market but rare in the casino market. Casino apps may want to experiment with this type of event, as our data suggests that these events perform relatively well in casino apps. 

In this month’s Market Watch, we tear down a new leading bingo app, Live Party Bingo, as well as an update of a breakout app that we covered in March, Jackpotland. We also examine six new innovative features and events from top casino apps.

Headline Release

In Waves & Wins’ mini-game, players make smoothies by timing a button press to stop a moving pointer on a meter. Cooking mechanics are a long-standing trend in casino and casual that typically revolve around collecting ingredients. Mechanics that give players control over the actual process of cooking are much rarer and could be a real opportunity for innovation. Other casino apps can draw inspiration from Waves & Wins to design other cooking tasks, such as chopping, stirring, or grilling.

To prolong engagement, Waves & Wins offers several progressions based on the tokens players earn from the mini-game, including a battle pass, daily login rewards, and solo and global reward meters. The event monetizes these progressions by selling additional ingredients that improve players’ smoothies and a premium version of the battle pass that unlocks a deluxe version of the mini-game.

The strategy of building a set of events around a mini-game helped Waves & Wins increase revenue 11% WoW and 5% 20Do20D. Jackpot World used the same strategy previously in its Jingle Boom event, which included a side-scroller mini-game instead of a cooking mini-game and boosted revenue 9.1% WoW. 

Release Trends

Temporary expansion events, such as Waves & Wins, and permanent expansion features are both rare in the casino market. Although there’s limited data on both, the data we have shows that expansion events perform fairly well and expansion features (which are slightly more common) perform exceptionally well. 

Read our full analysis of Waves & Wins in this month’s Headline Release.

Revenue for event types is calculated using Liquid & Grit’s Lift Tool. For more information on the Lift Tool, email Brett Nowak.

Market Watch

Breakout Apps

Live Party Bingo combines popular bingo features with the lively presentation of slots apps by including jackpots, flashy animations, and a progression of themed lobbies. The app also offers a novel bonus feature that awards boosts for player engagement.

Jackpotland’s daily revenue has more than quadrupled since we first covered it in our March ‘23 Casino Report. Since then, the app has added pets, W2E bonuses, challenge and mission seasons, and updated UIs for multiple features.

Read our complete teardown of these apps in this month’s Market Watch.

Feature and Event Releases

In Cash Frenzy’s Farm Adventure, a monochrome image is split into a grid, with each space representing a timed challenge. Completing a challenge colors the space and unlocks challenges in adjacent spaces. Completing all challenges in a row or column awards a chest.

In Lotsa Slots’ Badge Boss, players complete challenges related to the base game to earn badges, which award spins on a mini-stepper. Earning rarer badges awards more spins, and earning all badges awards a profile cosmetic. 

In POP! Slots’ The Golden Ring, 24 players compete in a three-round competition. In the first two rounds, players spin slots and earn points based on their wins. In the final round, players are given lives based on their rank, and a wheel spins to remove players’ lives until only one player remains.

Read our full teardowns of all notable releases in this month’s Market Watch.