Cabaret Slot Machine
As soon as you load up the Cabaret video slot from MGA, you will be treated to an animation that takes you from the streets of Paris, through red, heart-shaped curtains, to the main stage where a song and dance show is about to begin. It’s a sign of things to come in this beautifully made slot machine. It’s got 5 reels – of which at least 2 will be identical in any spin, wild symbol substitutions, plus a double-or-nothing feature that can hopefully boost your winnings.
Grupo MGA is a Spanish slots developer that’s been in the business since 1966. Not to be confused with the Malta Gaming Authority, the company is based in Barcelona and is now producing slots for online and mobile-optimized casino sites – mainly for the Spanish market, but also for select casinos in Europe and beyond. All MGA games are licensed and certified by the local Juego Seguro division of the Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling. They also come with fair returns to players. But it’s the impressive graphics that draw attention to slots such as Cabaret in the first place.
Once the game has loaded up, you will see the reels taking center stage against a background of the theater. Tiers of balconies rise up behind, and a couple of showgirls in corsets and stockings stand to the sides. These ladies do a high-kicking dance to a musical clip whenever you land a winning combination. With a 243 ways-to-win layout that pays whenever matching symbols are in any places on adjacent reels from the left, those wins can appear quite frequently.
Come to the Caaaaabaaaaareeeeet!
Bright purple reels are placed in an ornate gold frame and filled with lavishly styled symbols. These include the playing card icons 9 through to A, which return the lower-value but more frequently seen prizes. Their payouts range from 3, 10, or 15 coins when the 9 is seen on 3, 4, or 5 reels, to 4, 15, or 40 coins when the A appears. Themed symbols start with a green feather headpiece and red corset, each worth 10, 75, or 250 coins.
Tickets to the show and a blue hat are next up, with the most valuable picture symbol showing some shapely legs in stockings that pay out 50, 250, or 1000 coins when seen on 3, 4, or 5 reels from the left side. Any of these wins will be multiplied by the number of times that the winning symbol is seen on each reel. So, landing a full reel of the legs, for example, will see the prize tripled to 3000 coins.
To make it easier for winning combinations to be created, there’s a red heart-shaped cushion that works as a wild symbol, acting as any other if needed to complete a continuous run. But it’s the doubled-up reels that are really going to help punters collect more winnings as every spin sees at least two reels displaying identical symbols in the same positions. There’s no telling which reels will be matched up in the next spin, and it’s possible for all 5 to be identical – which automatically leads to some serious payouts across the game as all lines are completed at once.
Dancing to a Double or Nothing Feature
Any win of 2000 coins or less can be gambled in an optional feature. But unlike most gamble rounds which tend to be simple guesses on a red or black playing card, this is an all-singing, all-dancing affair which comes with more animations, music and lights. A decorative golden wheel is lowered onto the stage – this has 8 sections to it, 4 of which are marked ‘2x’ while the other 4 have double dashes on them. A click will trigger the sections to light up one by one in a clockwise pattern. You double the triggering prize or lose it depending on which section is lit at the end, although you only get a single round. Win or lose, the gamble feature then comes to an end.
Coins can be valued from a low limit of just 0.01 to a maximum of 0.50, while between 1 and 5 coins can be played. Multiply this by 25 to cover all 243 ways to win across the game, and we have minimum and maximum stakes of 0.25 to 125.00 per spin. If you want to claim the biggest prizes possible, then there’s a max bet button that saves you having to scroll through all the options.
You can also save time and effort if you go for the autoplay option. This sees the reels spinning for any number of times without needing a click for each, although there’s also the option to set any win or loss limits beforehand. Free Cabaret video slots have been provided by MGA, although naturally, you won't win any real cash in this mode, so most punters don't bother.
Dance the Night Away
This isn’t the only slot called Cabaret. SGS Universal has an identically titled game on the market, although the basic features and style of this 5-reel, 20-payline game contrast quite sharply with the more advanced design of the slot we’re looking at in this review. Still, lots of players like their games to be straightforward. So, if the theme appeals to you, then why not take a trip to the SGS Universal version and see what the dancing ladies can bring to the table?
We think most gamblers will have far more fun spinning the cheeky reels of the Naughty Girls Cabaret slot from Evoplay. This features advanced 3D graphics across the 5 reels plus expanding wild symbols in the form of some dancers in the shadows, as well as 20 free games to enjoy when the scatter symbols appear. The number of spins is revealed on the turn of a card, while in a separate bonus round a woman in white awards you with instant multiplier wins.
A Parisian Delight?
The dancing ladies of Cabaret welcome you to a great-looking game with some interesting features that can have you singing and dancing when triggered. We particularly enjoyed the linked reels, and while it’s quite possible to have the reels at the opposite ends of the game matched up, it’s also fairly likely that you will see 3 or 4 reels with the same symbols on them. Having said that, we never quite managed to get the magical 5 matched reels at once.
It’s one of those games where the soundtrack is almost as important as the design. The music that plays when you land a winning combo, or when the double-up gamble feature is chosen, really adds a touch of class to this game. Some punters will miss having a free spins feature or side games, but once these online and mobile-optimized reels start spinning, most will forget about this as they enjoy collecting prizes and watching the animations play out.
