Evolution’s Crazy Time: Why live casino experiences can work better outside of a casino

The hosts are warm, energetic and funny – but they need to be if they want to keep up with the pace of the game!

You may have heard of the latest release by Evolution, a live casino game called Crazy Time. Well, to call it a game would be oversimplifying it. It’s more of an experience, as Crazy Time features an iconic money wheel, a multiplier slot and several bonus games all within one stream.

So what is Crazy Time?

Crazy Time is a lot, but it can be split up into different parts pretty easily. First of all, the host will spin the money wheel, a huge, colorful wheel with 54 segments on it. These contain the numbers 1, 2, 5 or 10 – as well as four bonus games. You bet on which of these you think the wheel will land on.

There’s also a Top Slot, which has the chance to multiply the winnings of whichever segment the wheel lands on.

Once the allocated betting time has passed, the host will spin the wheel and if you guessed the number correctly, then you get paid out! Of course, if the wheel lands on one of the mini-games…

What is Cash Hunt?

Cash Hunt features a large, square screen that acts as a shooting gallery with 108 potential targets. You place your bet on the symbol of your choice and wait for the cannon to blast away the images and reveal the multipliers that are hiding underneath. Your win will reflect whatever multiplier your symbol of choice was hiding.

What is Pachinko?

You might already be familiar with the concept of Pachinko, but for those of you who aren’t, fear not. The host will climb stairs up to the top of the Pachinko wall, where they’ll drop a ball into a randomly allocated slot. The ball will bounce down the hundreds of pegs in the wall and drop into a landing zone.

There’s also a chance that the ball will land on a ‘Double’ feature, which will double the values and the host will drop the ball again. Of course, there’s always the chance that this will happen again… and the process can repeat up until the multipliers have reached 10,000x.

I know what Coin Flip is, but tell me anyway

First of all, each side of the coin will have different multiplier values on it. Then the host will press a button and the coin will flip. Whatever the way the coin lands will determine the multiplier that will be applied to your winnings.

What is Crazy Time… wait, haven’t we already asked this?

You’ve learnt what Crazy Time is, but now prepare for the Crazy Time Bonus Game. The red door will open and you’ll be whisked through to a bigger, fancier, crazier money wheel. This one will have 64 segments, three flappers and a new range of multipliers.

The flappers will be coloured blue, green or yellow and you simply select one. The host will press the big red button and the wheel will spin, then whatever your flapper lands on, this multiplier will be added to your winnings.

There are also ‘Double’ and ‘Triple’ segments that the wheel can land on, which similar to Pachinko, will trigger the round to restart and the bonus Crazy Time wheel to spin again! The multipliers can grow as big as 20,000x.

So… Why wouldn’t this work in an actual casino?

Well, there are a few different reasons. These don’t just apply to Crazy Time, but most of the modern live casino titles. When people think of ‘live casino’ titles, they tend to think about the live roulette or blackjack games, which as we all know – work in casinos very well!

But the new age of live casino games are offering something so much more than the traditional gambling house selection. In fact, Crazy Time is just the latest release in the game show genre, a vertical that is growing steadily as more companies and customers are starting to pay attention to it.

Each game is now offering something bigger and, if you will, crazier than the last one.

And this level of production can only be unique to live casino titles that can be streamed to tens of thousands of people online. And the reason is simple – the cost.

Let’s break it down

The space that these impressive sets take up is huge, even if you take away all of the themed backgrounds and props and just focus on the games. A casino would need a large, dedicated room away from the pit floor if it was going to host something like this. Not only that, but it would need enough room for all of the anticipated players, which means that we’re talking about something the size of a small theatre now.

Next is the players themselves, you guys. One of the reasons that these live games can even exist in these over-the-top formats is because of the audience live casinos reach. All of the lights, mini-games and hosts aren’t cheap, and a standard retail casino likely wouldn’t be able to pull in enough consistent players to make it worthwhile to host this in person. This isn’t even mentioning the format of the betting. Crazy Time works because players can bet quickly using a screen, can you imagine the logistical nightmare this would cause in a retail casino setting?

This brings us to the final point – the hosts themselves. Being a host for these kinds of games is exhausting work. It may not look like much, after all, how hard can it be to talk in front of a camera for half an hour at a time? Oh trust me, the whole performance of being a host is so much more than that, which is why the hosts will be rotated so often while you’re watching from home. And while in a dedicated studio, this is easy to do. After all, the live stage will only be one part of the facility, with several areas built around it to accommodate the large amounts of staff this kind of production needs. It would be unlikely that a casino could juggle this, especially alongside the costs!