16 May

Oh Craps! Joy of Six Pokies Review

Joy of Six Pokies ReviewJust when you thought you’ve seen every pokies theme imaginable, Microgaming goes and does something unexpected; something that surprisingly hasn’t been overdone. In 2009, they created a poker machine that’s themed around another casino game, Craps.

They called it The Joy of Six Pokies, and infused it with multiple images you’d expect to see at any casino craps table, right down to the green felt backdrop. In our Joy of Six Pokies review, you’ll discover all the game’s features, and whether (in our experienced opinion) it’s worth playing for real money.

Joy of Six Pokies Review

As any craps player knows, 7 is not the number to shoot for on the dice. A 6 is a great roll, though, which explains Microgaming’s title for Joy of Six Pokies. The game features an array of thematic symbols, including a cocktails, craps dice, a boxman (er, boxlady), casino chips and the ever-present green felt.

Joy of Six Pokies Review Symbols

Joy of Six Pokies is a 5 reel game with 30 paylines. It’s equipped with all the usual goodies, like wilds, scatters, multipliers and free spins.

The Dice symbol is the Wild. I’m not sure why it’s a single die, rather than two, but I have a feeling it was to keep the winnings from getting too high during free games, since the die is used to determine multipliers here.

For the most part, the Dice symbol is a typical wild, taking the place of any other symbol except the Scatter. In the base game, anytime a wild appears on a winning payline, it doubles the payout with a 2x multiplier.

Joy of Six Pokies Review Wild Dice

During free games, whenever one or more dice contribute to a winning combination, the die will be rolled to determine its multiplier, 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x or 6x. The multiplier will be applied to all winning combinations involving a wild on that spin only.

To trigger those free spins, you’ll want to land 3 or more of the lovely Craps Dealer Scatters. When you do, they’ll flip over to read “15 Free Games”, which is exactly what you’ll get. You can also retrigger free spins by landing another trio of Scatters.

The Joy of Six Logo is also a Scatter, but has no special function outside of delivering Scatter Pays worth up to 7,500 for 5.

Joy of Six Pokies Review – A Fine Shooter?

I did have a few misgivings with Joy of Six Pokies. First of all, there’s no static multiplier in the free games. I feel Microgaming would have attracted a lot more players if each bonus round started with the player virtually tossing a pair of dice (like a real craps game) to determine a guaranteed multiplier of at least 2x, up to 12x.

Instead, a multiplier only comes with a Wild Dice, and could end up being 1x, making it potentially less valuable than the Wild Dice in the base game. That just doesn’t make sense.

I was also disappointed in the lack of imagination in the graphics. Why place all those generic card values on the reels? They could have used more thematic symbols, like the Big 6, a Come/Pass Line, maybe Snake Eyes or Box Cars. Not only were 10-to-A used, it’s the exact same 10-A symbol used on many of Microgaming’s other online pokies, like In It To Win It.

Aside from the lapse in creativity, I have found this game to be somewhat generous. I’ve played it half a dozen times now, and came out ahead on four occasions, mostly from triggering free spins before I went broke, and cashing out immediately thereafter.