Pragmatic Play and NetEnt: Which one Supports Free Spins the Best?
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NetEnt and Pragmatic Play are two giants in the gambling industry when it comes to online slot providers. These companies offer many games with unique features and bonuses, including free spins.
Free spins bonuses, especially with these two developers, are the most popular promotion in the UK now. These bonuses give players a certain number of free spins to use on selected slot games, allowing them to play for free and potentially win real money.
Bonuses can be attached to both deposit and no-deposit criteria, making promo offerings different in casinos. But a big question on many gamblers’ minds is which supports free spins best. Let’s compare the ever-trending Pragmatic Play with NetEnt and see their features, flaws and bonuses.
- Pragmatic vs NetEnt – Which One Is Better?
- Why Pragmatic Play? Our Verdict
- NetEnt Software Provider – CasinoAlpha’s Verdict
- Pragmatic vs NetEnt Slot Games Features Comparison
- Popularity in Casinos and Casino Bonuses
- Why trust our comparison?
Pragmatic vs NetEnt – Which One Is Better?
| Pragmatic Play | NetEnt | |
|---|---|---|
| Popularity | Newer software provider but has become popular recently due to its innovative and top-quality slot titles. | Well recognised and trusted as a software provider due to its long history of success in the Gambling industry. More popular than Pragmatic |
| Number of games | 250+ | 160+ |
| Mobile adaptation | Perfectly optimized for mobile play providing great experience on smartphones and tablets. | Well designed for mobile play, but could seek some improvements |
| Game’s aesthetics | Known for its high-quality animation and graphics but with more focus on colourful and vibrant graphic details. | Popular for its high-quality graphics and animation with a higher emphasis on more detailed and realistic graphics. |
| Branded Slots | Recently started making branded slots and do not have much of them. | Popular for making branded slots with top pop culture references like popular movies, music and TV series. |
| Innovation | Known for creating slot titles with distinct features like unique free spins mechanics and entertaining bonus rounds. | A pioneer in the gambling industry with a history of innovation, especially in branded slots and slot game mechanics. |
| Return to player (RTP) | Gives slot players competitive RTPs to provide fair winning chances. | Provides competitive RTPs, offering casino players fair winning chances. |
From our comparison above, it is clear that Pragmatic Play and NetEnt offer similar quality for their games. Ultimately, choosing between either will depend on your personal preferences and what you value more in a slot.
NetEnt has a much longer history, an extensive game library, branded slots, and a major focus on aesthetics. You can find multiple free spins bonuses from NetEnt. Besides, you can also get free spins as an existing player from NetEnt.
It is also present in more casinos because it is one of the most well-established businesses on the European market.
However, Pragmatic Play is well known for its large game libraries, innovative slot features like engaging bonus rounds & unique free spins mechanics, and vibrant graphics. Their games have more bonuses and in-game features. Pragmatic is also better on the go because their slots are newer and were created already.
Why Pragmatic Play? Our Verdict
Pragmatic Play is an industry-leading online slot software provider established in 2015. The business has a multi-award-winning portfolio of 250+ games, available in many currencies and 33 languages. Some of their famous slot titles are Gates of Olympus, Sweet Bonanza, The Dog House and Wolf Gold.
They hold licenses in multiple jurisdictions, including the UK, Malta, Gibraltar, Sweden and Romania and you can find that almost all casinos from our list have Pragmatic Play games.
A team of industry veterans launched this business after they got hands-on experience working for other top developers like NetEnt and Yggdrasil. So, you can see why the competitiveness between NetEnt and Pragmatic is high.
NetEnt Software Provider – CasinoAlpha’s Verdict
NetEnt was founded in 1996 and is based in Stockholm, Sweden, and it is one of the pioneers in online casino game development. They were among the first to develop mobile-compatible games in 2011, before most other studios.
Each slot game made by NetEnt is unique with its special feature that provides players with a different experience in any game. NetEnt games offer high-value free spins and competitive RTPs.
Pragmatic vs NetEnt Slot Games Features Comparison
Our team considered the most crucial aspect every player wants to see as a provider. You need to consider the following aspects to get free spins that are worth it and bigger cashouts.
Slot games
- Pragmatic Play has around 250 slots covering popular themes like ancient civilisations, fantasy, and cartoons. The majority of Pragmatic Play titles have stunning 3D graphics and animations.
- NetEnt has a wide range of online slots with over 160 progressive jackpot slots or classic slots, covering a diverse range of themes. Their games are known for cinematic 3D graphics, and their most famous works are with cosmic or adventure themes.
- Both providers have excellent quality in terms of graphics, sound and overall gameplay experience. NetEnt edges out in some of the branded slots.
- Both offer progressive and non-progressive titles, but we couldn’t find too many buy-in slots.
The number of slot games for free spin hunters is the first important aspect. Pragmatic may have more titles, but NetEnt slots have more diversity in terms of themes, and they also seem to add more new titles on diverse casino sites more often than Pragmatic.
Bonus features
- Around 80% of Pragmatic Play slots have a bonus feature compared to 60% for NetEnt.
- Pragmatic slots are packed with features like free spins, cascading wins, instant bonuses and more. For example, their most-played title, Sweet Bonanza, has tumbling reels, free spins, multipliers and a progressive jackpot.
- NetEnt games have a range of innovative bonus features like Walking Wilds, Sticky Win, Avalanche Reels, and Cluster Pays. Their most-played game in the UK, Starburst, has a win-both-ways mechanic, expanding symbols, sticky wilds, and free respins.
- Both providers offer medium to high variance slots with the potential for big wins through bonus features.
The point for this section goes to Pragmatic Play because they have more games with in-game features and offer more in-game free spins. Pragmatic Play has numerous games with multiple bonus features and layered multiplayer experiences, which help players who want free spins bonuses that bring real money in their pockets.
Mobile optimisation
- Pragmatic Play and NetEnt build all their games using HTML5 technology, ensuring excellent optimisation in all mobile casinos.
- NetEnt slots also perform nicely on mobile, but some older game designs that are still popular (like Gonzo and Starburst) don’t translate quite as well to smaller screens compared to Pragmatic’s slots.
- We also found that Pragmatic Play is preferred by iOS casino users because of its fast loading time. However, Android casino users also have no complaints about it.
Spinning the reels on the go is vital. You should be able to enjoy every slot’s bonuses in any place without worrying about glitches. So, although they both provide good mobile casino experiences, Pragmatic Play gets the nod for the best free spin experience on the go.
Volatility
- Pragmatic Play has slots across low, medium and high variance. But their trending game, Sweet Bonanza, is a medium-high volatility.
- NetEnt also has a good mix of variance. Their top games, Starburst and Immortal Romance are low-medium volatility.
- Both providers cater to players with different risk appetites through their volatility range.
An important factor when using free spins is the volatility of the games. By comparing the most played games, we can see that casinos and players prefer lower-medium volatility for free spins promotions. A lower volatility game gives you more chances to win during your free rounds, which is exactly what most gamblers seek. So, NetEnt won this round.
Popularity in Casinos and Casino Bonuses
The final and most important key factor for comparing NetEnt free spins with Pragmatic Play free spins bonuses is the popularity in casinos and the presence in their rewards.
Pragmatic Play and NetEnt have contracts with some of the best casinos in the UK market. You can find their slot games and live dealer options at top-rated casinos in the UK, like Bet365, LeoVegas, The Phone Casino, or Jammy Monkey.
However, we found a big difference in popularity regarding casino bonuses. We researched 40 casinos and compared their casino welcome offers and found that NetEnt is present in almost 55%, while Pragmatic was present in only 5% of the promotions.
CasinoAlpha’s Selection of NetEnt Free Spins Casinos
| Casino | Bonus | Wagering |
|---|---|---|
| Your Favorite Casino | 20 Free Spins No Deposit on Starburst | 65x bonus |
| Yeti Casino | 23 Free Spins No Deposit on Joker Pro | 40x wager |
| NetBet | 20 Free Spins No Deposit on Starburst | 10x wager |
| Space Wins | 5 Free Spins No Deposit on Starburst | 65x winnings |
| Immortal Wins | 5 No Deposit Spins on Immortal Romance | 65x bonus |
We selected some NetEnt free spins deals for this to allow you to see a better comparison between the two. You can see that the multiple new online UK casinos in this case offer between 5 and 23 free spins with 10 to 65 playthrough.
There are new casinos like Space Wins that embarked on the NetEnt free spins cruise, and consecrated brands like NetBet. You can see more casino reviews on our dedicated listing.
CasinoAlpha’s Selection of Pragmatic Play Free Spins Casinos
| Pragmatic Play Casino | Bonus | Wagering |
|---|---|---|
| The Phone Casino | Up To 100 No Deposit Spins | no wagering |
| Slot Animal | 5 Free Spins No Deposit on Wolf Gold | 65x winnings |
When we created this article, we found only two Pragmatic Play free spins bonuses, which is not the most favourable for the provider. The Phone Casino offers spins without wagering, while Slot Animal requires a relatively high wagering requirement.
Thus, Slot Animal has another minimum £10 deposit active bonus that grants you 5 spins at Wolf Gold and up to 500 spins at Starburst. This combination shows that casinos and providers know that even when they are competitors, they still must collaborate correctly and give the players a fair market.
Who Has The Best Free Spins?
You can see multiple casinos offering Starburst free spins, but the research is more challenging for Pragmatic titles. However, in promotions where you must pick one slot from a list, there will always be at least one from Pragmatic Play.
It is easy to see that NetEnt is more prevalent in the top UK casinos’ promotional pages compared to Pragmatic Play. There is no doubt that NetEnt’s promotions are more hunted and valuable for UK players.
Why trust our comparison?
At CasinoAlpha, we have over 8 years of experience in the online gambling industry. Our team of experts has invested countless hours researching, analysing and testing online casinos and their games from top providers like Pragmatic Play and NetEnt.
We invested over 5 hours to create this article and more than 20 hours to write and research Pragmatic Play/NetEnt casinos and games. Besides, we have over 250 casinos reviewed and over 500 bonuses and understand the market’s changes and variations.
While both developers have their strengths, our detailed comparative analysis looks deeply at key factors that matter to you. We provide objective insights into the slot portfolios of Pragmatic Play and NetEnt. We aim to help you always make informed choices about which games and providers best suit your preferences.
So, now that you’ve discovered the best and worst features of these two top providers, which one will you choose?
