PariPlay Ltd

About the Company

Pariplay is an online gambling game developer and provider founded in 2010. In late 2019 the company was acquired by Aspire Global and now has offices in Bulgaria, Gibraltar, India, Isle of Man, and Israel.

In November 2021, Aspire Global created a  new business division called Wizard Games that is powered by but operates independently from Pariplay. Now, Pariplay is the game aggregator for the triad and all game development has moved to Wizard Games.  The products are new and fresh and offer innovative maths models and feature mechanics. In our review, we go further into some of the things that set Wizard Games apart from the competition. 

Their systems and games are certified by leading test labs approved by the regulators who have issued their licenses (gaming labs, iTech Labs). The company is regulated and licensed in the UK and Gibraltar by their respective Gambling Commissions as well as the Malta Gaming Authority, Romanian National Gambling Office (ONJN), and the New Jersey DGE in the US.

It's currently unclear from company literature if they have changed the math models and game engines of legacy and newly released games. In the past, all of their games were based on a fixed-odds model, but those references have since been removed from current digital literature.

The acquisition of Pariplay parent company GMS Entertainment Limited brought with it not only the hub offices in Bulgaria with about 70 employees but the technology and delivery system behind the games themselves. In fact, the purchase included 100% of the assets of the parent company.

Aspire Global operates about 80 licensed online casinos including several that offer NeoGames software.

We mention this because NeoGames has produced several online "slot machines" that are actually fixed-odds model games with a visual representation of spinning reel.

The difference matters to the purist, but not to regulators who do not seem to care about how the final numbers are arrived at, but only that they are "fair" in the end.

The mention is also important because Aspire Global and NeoGames are "sister companies".

We believe players should be aware of close relationships such as when the same company, for all intents and purposes, owns the casino lobby, manages the backend, and owns some of the games that are on offer.

We'll look more at the fixed odds models in the Software and Games section.

The Pariplay back-office platform and game aggregation solution (Fusion), turn-key game development framework (Ignite), and catalog of over 120 existing game titles are just one element among many of the Aspire Global family.

The platform opened new doors for the company to ink Pariplay deals with dozens and potentially hundreds of online operators outside of their own stables.

One of those agreements in the smallish US market of New Jersey with 888, sets the company up for massive expansion in one of the most lucrative markets in the world if or when a national regulatory framework is established in the United States.

Other notable partnerships and deal renewals since the acquisition include BetVictor, the Estoril Sol Group in Portugal, and Romanian operator Baumbet. For the Nordics, the company attained ISO/IEC 27001 certification for its Information Security Management System (ISMS) in July 2020.

Importantly for future expansion, the company entered a deal with Skywind in late 2019. Skywind is licensed in Alderney, the UK, Malta, Romania, and Spain and its games are certified in Sweden, Portugal, and Italy to name a few jurisdictions.

Software and Games

It's unclear how much of a stand-alone product the Pariplay platform and systems are... whether or not they have been cannibalized into the existing management system Aspire used prior to the acquisition or if they have become the new framework for the parent company.

As the branded components (Fusion and Ignite) still exist on the company website we can assume they are the products offered.

For the player, the elements are not too important as long as a betting site operates properly. Things that affect players directly are the conversion, retention, and bonus tools included in the marketing suite. However, there's no real fingerprint for them to speak of for a player to recognize.

Interested industry readers can find all they need about the products on the company's website.

That leaves us with the games...

Video slots

We'll focus on Pariplay games proper in this review with a quick mention that they have development or distribution agreements with SkillzzGaming, Pirates Gold, Ballywulff, and Juceey.

Unfortunately, we no longer find Atari slot games like Astroids, Black Widow, and Pong in the Pariplay catalog. Atari may have taken their own path with a focus on their signature cryptocurrency and their own casino - or - they may have disappeared into the annuls of Aspire financial reports for the time being.

The branded games category now contains Bloodshot: Rising Spirit, X-O Manowar, Sharknado, and Bloodshot. Licensing, development, and other details are not readily available from the company other than a statement that Valiant comics and the firm have had a partnership since 2014.

Good News!

We were pleased to see that the fixed odds model "slots" titles are gone from the company's portfolio.

In their place is a slew of modern slots with themes and bonus features that appeal to current players. Nothing in the paytables indicates they are anything but true RNG game maths video slots with advanced feature mechanics.

Scratch cards

The company offers over a dozen scratchers with a good range of themes.

Oddly enough, we don't find any of their previous title here and the games are dissimilar to the previous volume. There is also a single game in the Instant Win library, Santa's Workshop.

Bingo and keno

There is a small handful of RNG bingo and keno numbers games in the library, these include:

• World Cup Keno
• Lucky Keno
• Rio Keno

Animated numbers games like Secret Jewels of Azteca and Fortune Teller are nowhere to be found.

Other games

European Roulette and a deluxe version of the game are included here. The titles load very quickly compared to the slots. However the art and animation are cartoonish rather than realistic, the ball physics are less than stellar, there are no game files to determine if they offer true odds, and no statistics or another player controls beyond a sound toggle are provided.

The Final Analysis

At some point between our initial review in 2012 and their acquisition by Aspire global, Pariplay seems to have undergone a complete reimagining of their online real money gaming philosophy in addition to a new portfolio.

As can be seen from the paytables on these two games - the one on the left a prior Pariplay title and on the right, a current Neogames title - both were the same sort of game and neither was a slot machine, rather a fixed-odds game with a slotlike appearance.

There is nothing to indicate that the games are anything but normal maths-driven, RNG generated video slots. This, even as we still find Aspire sister-company NeoGames offering fixed-odds model "slots" with no indication of the difference unless you read the pay tables.

The hookup with Aspire Global seems to have catapulted the platform and/or games onto the wider world stage with deals occurring everywhere from Mexico and Portugal to greater Europe through Betvictor as well as Asia and beyond through Skywind.

The slot games we tested were about as good as any others out there, but some titles came up short against competitor's games with the same or similar themes.

While a 'fixed-odds' model may be acceptable to regulators and some players alike, formulas used in the past were anything but "fair" to players.  Imagine a roll of lottery scratch tickets with one jackpot winner in it, a lot of various sized prizes, and a bunch of zero-return tickets. Now imagine that roll not being replaced with a new roll after every spin.

It's good to see that they seem to have come into the modern world of slots that act like slots.