Need your input: What was your gateway game into online casinos?

[Webzcas]

As the title states, what was the game you played that drew you into playing at an online casino. For me it was surprisingly for those that know me, it was Blackjack. Yep straightforward 'boring' ( lol ) blackjack.

I first signed up to an online casino was probably late 2000, after I had been at Ladbrokes for a couple of months. When I first started at Ladbrokes, Ladbrokes Casino actually went live that exact week, first week of October 2000.

Being on my own ( with my girlfriend and now wife not due to join me for another 6 weeks ), with my new colleagues we went out several evenings during the first few weeks upon my arrival in Gibraltar. Some evenings this would end with a visit to the Casino, which as it happened was owned by Ladbrokes / Hilton at the time.

There I would play blackjack or have a go or two at the roulette table. So it was only right and fitting that when I did open an online casino account towards the end of 2000, blackjack would be the game that I first played.

Then I found slots....

Tombraider, what a game, absolutely loved playing that game. Then there is Thunderstruck. Another absolute classic and stellar game. But yes, it was the draw of the table games that got me playing online in the first instance.

 

[YouTubeSlots]

Roulette on williamhill was my first online experience of gambling, and bingo/slots on shitty uk bingo sites also.

 

[cappync]

Great question!

The old RTG game "Goldbeard". One big win and I was hooked! I still play it from time to time and it still hits big (from time to time)

 

[Mosse]

Mega moolah!

 

[satchnz]

I’d occasionally have a few slaps on the pokies at the pub with mates back home. Every time I got to a land based casino I’d always play blackjack and slots. I was also a bit partial to Caribbean Stud and played that when I could too. I also played most of the other table games but nothing caught my fancy like blackjack and Caribbean.

I hadn’t had much exposure at all to online casinos until the pandemic hit. We had newly arrived in the UK (the evening before the very first national lockdown), and looked for ways to entertain ourselves outside of watching more TV than I care to admit. Online slots caught our eye.

We’d make a Friday or Saturday night of it (occasionally both) and get some nice booze or have pre mixed cocktails delivered (it’s crazy just how many options there are of things like this). We’d probably play for 5-6 hours with breaks in a session.

One of our first experiences was depositing £50 into b365, gambling it up to £1,000 at 20p per spin, and eventually withdrawing £500. This in itself doesn’t sound overly remarkable, but this balance lasted us over a year of slotting (no other deposits made during that time) and we walked away with £450 profit.

We’ve never looked back since, but our slotting limits have remained the same despite the early exceptional experience.

Apologies for the life story but for anyone who made it this far, you might be interested in a basic graph of our balance over the 12+ months.

We lost a number of records prior to 31/01/2025. Our biggest win was £254.05 on Scribes of Thebes (1016x). Our highest balance was £1,077. We withdrew £500 on 01/01/2021 and left £80 in our account. This £80 lasted us another three weeks.

 

[itsme123]

Thunderstruck was my gateway game. First time I played at any casino online was probably 15 years or more ago and this was the first game I saw, thought I would have a go and got a bonus within my first half a dozen spins. Got a premium 5OAK for £225 and that was me hooked.

 

[dunover]

Cleopatra from IGT was my first ever online slot at Paddy Power, deposited about £150-200 IIRC but withdrew around 2k, this was to a credit card, Mastercard as that was allowed back then. The next couple of games were Enchanted Unicorn and Triple Fortune Dragon and then went to the bingo sites as mentioned above, playing games like Secret Garden (was essentially a clone of IGT's Cleopatra funnily enough). This was my first experience of tardy withdrawals and the pain of reverse-and-spunk.

 

[Jono777]

Spotted an add in the Sunday People Newspaper for surprisingly called "The People Casino" way back in 2003.

Advertised promotional game was "Monopoly Here and Now" which I played semi often at 20p spins. Didn't take me long to spot and move onto Cleopatra where on most days £20 would last for what seemed like forever with plenty of 20-50x bonuses along the way.

First MG game was some gameshow based thing can't recall name, closely followed by Thunderstruck. First taste of Netent was 20FS at Mr. Green on JATB. Played on after FS ended and got harps and it went mental for a £200+ cash out on Xmas day lol.

 

[Casinos Hate Winners]

My first slot was A Nightmare on Elm Street, an 888 exclusive.
I even hit a 5,000 jackpot there on a $1.5 bet, playing with bonus money.
That was back in 2016, but I still have the screenshot.

 

[SpinUk]

Sad to say was the party casino games, specifically wizard of oz. “Glinda” etc. 30p spins all the way.

 

[kg2025]

Gladiator and Batman Dark Knight game were the one's that got me into online slots . I won 4 grand on 888 years ago but can't remember what game it was . Got sent out a check lol .

 

[geordiecolin]

I had been sports betting for many years with Paddy Power when I began wagering the change I had left over on Egyptian Wilds. After a few big hits on that over time I began seeking out other casinos just to play slots. The skinny shit Jack and the Beanstalk really got me hooked.
Incidently,I canot recall anybody stating that they loved bloody Starburst even though most casinos pushed it as their star attraction

 

[kg2025]

Thunderstruck was my gateway game. First time I played at any casino online was probably 15 years or more ago and this was the first game I saw, thought I would have a go and got a bonus within my first half a dozen spins. Got a premium 5OAK for £225 and that was me hooked.

I used to play that and Agent Jane Blonde , I might go back playing them tbh. Very rarely would you be waiting 45 mins to and hour to hit free spins

 

[spindoctor99]

For me it was playtech games, Ironman, Spiderman etc. The first casino I joined was Mansion casino. Managed to snag a Marvel jacket in the first week for $5k was hooked on the Marvel range and Gladiator. Unfortunately Casino.com (Mansion casino) made it extremely difficult to withdraw funds.

Its a pity those Marvel slots are no longer around.

 

[conker]

I loved land based before online took off. I played IGT and Aristocrat mainly, so it didn't take me long to find those games when online was starting to take off. Queen of the Nile 2 has taken many a shilling off me, Cleopatra 1 & 2 also. Oh, and for a bit of variety, Lucky Lady's Charm, a great Novo land-based that also made its way online.

They don't make them like they used to - possibly making myself sound like an old fart.

 

[spindoctor99]

I loved land based before online took off. I played IGT and Aristocrat mainly, so it didn't take me long to find those games when online was starting to take off. Queen of the Nile 2 has taken many a shilling off me, Cleopatra 1 & 2 also. Oh, and for a bit of variety, Lucky Lady's Charm, a great Novo land-based that also made its way online.

They don't make them like they used to - possibly making myself sound like an old fart.

Loved the old Aristocrat games, old fav's of mine were Big Ben and Indian Dreaming. Had some whopper wins on those back in the day.

 

[Lemon]

Although I dabbled on Rainbow Riches, Reel King and the like, I would have to say Lucky Lady's Charm. I used to play it all the time. The original version on the NRGS platform (before Greentube) used 97.10% maths and was a superb game. Then I gravitated towards some of the classic WMS slots like Ruby Slippers, Bruce Lee, Kiss etc before NetEnt came along with their superb original catalogue of slots.

 

[SpinUk]

Is there anywhere you can play the WMS classics still

 

[conker]

Is there anywhere you can play the WMS classics still

I believe the JackpotParty social casino has them.

 

[PeenyBunslinger]

500x 4 Rolls and an 8x+10x back to back chance into a 10 for an 800x on Monopoly Live in my first hour of gambling. Got killed playing it for the next few months and then never touched it again.

 

[racingcat]

i played a lot of poker back in the golden days. started out 2005 and won a lot pretty fast. played up to NL600 and 100$ tourneys regularly. all with pokeroffice and pretty much full day/night. that was a real "moneyprint" situation back then.
you only had to be tight to be a winner. add some more strategy and u r in the top 1-5% easily. (boy i miss those days and the lost opportunities. i cashed out too much when i should have gone up in stakes)

i got a 20$ casino bonus (only on slots) which resulted in about 250$ winnings. i had no clue what was going on but took the money. from then on i played some slots next to poker sometimes. usual bet was 1$ back then, something i cant even think of now

poker became much harder in the years to follow and theory became to time consuming so i quit around 2012.

in 2019 i came back to slots only and its been a good ride since.

the most important factor for this sucess is DISCIPLINE imo! glad i learned that in poker

 

[sareena01]

As the title states, what was the game you played that drew you into playing at an online casino. For me it was surprisingly for those that know me, it was Blackjack. Yep straightforward 'boring' ( lol ) blackjack.

I first signed up to an online casino was probably late 2000, after I had been at Ladbrokes for a couple of months. When I first started at Ladbrokes, Ladbrokes Casino actually went live that exact week, first week of October 2000.

Being on my own ( with my girlfriend and now wife not due to join me for another 6 weeks ), with my new colleagues we went out several evenings during the first few weeks upon my arrival in Gibraltar. Some evenings this would end with a visit to the Casino, which as it happened was owned by Ladbrokes / Hilton at the time.

There I would play blackjack or have a go or two at the roulette table. So it was only right and fitting that when I did open an online casino account towards the end of 2000, blackjack would be the game that I first played.

Then I found slots....

Tombraider, what a game, absolutely loved playing that game. Then there is Thunderstruck. Another absolute classic and stellar game. But yes, it was the draw of the table games that got me playing online in the first instance.

Good tale! Blackjack was a good place to start and a traditional option. It's funny how many of us became addicted to slots like Thunderstruck and Tomb Raider. Online casinos have a certain allure in their early years!

 

[Webzcas]

Good tale! Blackjack was a good place to start and a traditional option. It's funny how many of us became addicted to slots like Thunderstruck and Tomb Raider. Online casinos have a certain allure in their early years!

Are you Self Aware yet?

 

[DreamRJ]

Err well I am trying to remember it was such a long time ago now.

I do recall it was around 2010, I still went to my local arcade back then though (those 18+ ones in town).

I think it was bingo I first tried and then saw they had slots. I think it was gala bingo the first online casino account I created. I think my first slot was from barcrest called (Action Bank)

Then not short after that I just made an account in LCB and that started my online gambling venture. Not shortly after that I discovered Jackpot Party Casino. That casino was my all time favourite and I really miss it to this day.

I did get that random jackpot present picking bonus a few times over the years I played their and once I did get the second best jackpot which at the time was at around £3,000 ish if I recalled. (may I add that was my first ever big win. But not my biggest to date, my biggest was the max jackpot which was around 12K euros, back when UKGC was not a thing. Won on that yggdrasil slot Secret of the stones - I did make a thread about it at the time and I won that at LeoVegas.)

I was still also going to my local arcade but much less often than I was. But soon after that maybe 2013 ish I just went fully online and stopped going to my local arcades.

 

[sareena01]

Are you Self Aware yet?

View attachment 213115

Not sure, maybe!

 

[09237653]

Partycasino's 'Fire Drake' was the first online slot I ever played on the partycasino download client.
it still exists now but in a terrible HTML5 version with a minimum 90p stake.

my account must be 20+ years old and funnily enough I'm still using it as they have 96% Reactoonz and a few other older playngo games @ 96%.

 

[racingcat]

fire drake was one of my first ones too. got the egg in free spins a few times but it never gave me 100 spins

 

[Mr Shine]

2 now obsolete games that were on Paddy Power Games I can't remember their exact names. 1 Was a 5 dice faceoff against "the general" and another was hi-lo with you being a knight against a dragon where you could collect or go on for higher multipliers after each round of 6. Those are the ones that got me actually spending real money, and it's snowballed from there.

 

[ESCJAMIE]

Playing on fruity machines in arcades on holiday and days out with family with£5 jackpots for
Under 16s got
Me wanted to play online when I was 18. I do think letting kids play them fruit machines is wrong I don’t think I would of been intrested in gambling without them

 

[Valhalla]

Alaskan Fishing on Ladbrokes' old MG download casino.
I was a video poker player and nothing else, had a decent amount in my account and was bored one day. Went over to their slots and that was the first on the list (might have been alphabetically listed). Since I was playing VP at £2.50 a hand back then it didn't bother me to spin it at £3... I think my first spin landed a bunch of wilds and high paying symbols for a few hundred £ and I nearly had a heart attack. That was me hooked [pardon the pun].

God I miss old Ladbrokes

 

[avfcalex23]

Poker and blackjack at land based casinos during my time at uni.

Wild mega bunny slot on black chip poker casino (in terms of slots mid way through last year ) had 2 dollars and 50 cent left in my account and would usually throw that on electronic blackjack to try and make it up to a tenner to have another sit n go. On my very first spin on my first ever slot I won 500 dollars off a dollar spin and couldn’t quite believe my eyes.

I wish I’d never found slots, the volatility and swings is too much at times to take, but it’s all down to self discipline. Something I need to work on. I need to get out the mindset that winning £50 off a 20 spin when it could have been £250 if I’d have just bet a quid instead. It’s a greedy mindset and after all, gambling is meant to be fun, not an income or a way to fund a lifestyle. I think 2026 will be my year to get to grips with all of this once and for all.

 

[steveh35]

Land casinos my parents used to take me to amusements from being a child so probably 2 penny drop machines, as an adult Golden Game 25p version and some game where the theme was a magician, you had to get three hats to trigger bonus was around 1999.

Online used to be a Microgaming download game on 32red 3 liner with Diamond maybe Triple Diamond? and my first big win of £800 and I used to love the original Price Is Right slot.