Fair Play Slots
Fair Play is a funny old name for a slot machine. All gamers hope to receive a fair crack of the whip when sitting down to play the pokies. To be honest, we can’t tell whether the title of this 3-reel NeoGames’ slot is ironic, sarcastic, cynical or completely innocent. After all, the house always has an edge. It’s a truism that ‘the house always wins’ – in the grand scheme of things anyway. Still, Fair Play’s the name of the game and we shall judge it on its merits, not its appellation.
The non-progressive slot features five paylines and promises a grand prize of 10,000x. The action takes place in a fairground at nighttime. As stars twinkle in the sky, the gaudy fairground is besieged by thrill seekers looking to ride the Ferris wheel or grab a stall hotdog and soak up the ambiance. Will you leave the theme park a whole lot richer?
The Cost of Admission
To be in with a chance of winning the jackpot, you’ll need to stake coins that range in value from 0.10 to 10. You can only bet one coin for each of the five paylines, so a maximum bet of 50 for every spin of the reels is permitted.
Fair Play is an exceedingly simple game to play. You’ll find the control panel at the foot of the screen, underneath the reels. Here, you can configure the pay-lines to suit you and also toggle the bet button to determine your wager. Tabs on the lower left-hand side help you keep track of your total bets and also your total wins. In the right-hand corner, the all-important spin button appears, alongside an autoplay switch which lets you play a bunch of spins without having to manually press the button. The latter uses your pre-determined bet, so don’t forget to adjust it prior to activating the function.
Welcome to the Circus
The symbols in Fair Play hark back to a bygone time – fairgrounds populated by stilt-walkers and red-striped tents, the kind of pop-up entertainment hubs that occupied boardwalks in coastal towns during the height of summer. There aren’t a whole lot of icons – the game only has three reels, remember – but symbols include a red dodgem car, a hotdog (slathered in both mustard and ketchup, naturally), a red-striped tombola tent, a horse and a merry go round. Each of the symbols is linked to a different figure in the pay-out table; take a look to see what they all mean. Alternatively, let us indulge you…
The number one icon in the game is the red-striped tent. There are five paylines, remember, and depending on which pay-line you match a trio of tents, you’ll win from x500 up to x10,000. The biggest prize is gained by matching the tents diagonally, from the lower left berth to the top right corner. Hitting three tents on the opposite diagonal line, represented by a purple line, nets x1,000.
The pay-offs drop quite considerably with the other symbols, though the best one is the hotdog: it pays x100. The yellow duck pays x40, the dodgems pay x20 and the horses pay x10. Note, these are the pay-out values for three matching symbols. The aforementioned icons don’t pay for combinations of two, although the merry go round does – x4 to the player who can find two of these motifs.
In addition to being the game’s highest-paying symbol, the big top tent is also wild. As such, it can substitute for all the game’s other icons in order to furnish you with pay-out wins. What’s more, the tent doubles the resulting prize in the process. Sadly, there are no scatters or free spins in Fair Play. Not fair, am I right?
All’s Fair in Love and Slots
Fair Play is one of many three-reel slot games in the market – but how does it differ to its contemporaries? Certainly it’s better than some, but even a staunch NeoGames fan would struggle to argue that it belongs to the upper echelons. No, this is a solid mid-table slot – nothing more. It’s colourful, fun and simple to play, with an alluring jackpot, but the gameplay won’t send gamers stampeding to the casino to give it a go. The inclusion of a bonus or gamble feature might have gone some way towards improving this title; as it is, it’s decent but unexceptional.
