Strictly Slots August 2022

Social media influencer, Brian Christopher, unveiled Pop’N Pays More, a slot machine featuring his likeness and created by Las Vegas-based manufacturer Gaming Arts, at the Plaza Casino in Downtown Las Vegas on July 7.

INFLUENCER ON THE REELS One of the first “slot influencers”gets his own slot machine

B rian Christopher started putting his own slot sessions on video in 2016.The Canadian slot enthusiast endured his share of abuse at the hands of casino officials as he continued to record his sessions as YouTube videos, but he per sisted. His videos began to gain steam,and eventually de fined a new type of internet star—the“slot influencer.” Today, there are dozens of these young stars on Facebook,YouTube and private websites. Christopher, though, has remained the king of these new celebri ties, live-streaming slot play on new games, hosting their own play with enthusiastic narration of wins, losses, bonuses and game features. Christopher, though, is arguably the king of this new genre of celebrities.HisYouTube channel BCSlots has some 479,000 subscribers and has logged a re markable 318 million views since its 2016 launch.

ing with Christopher to design a new game themed around him and his popular slot shtick. On July 7, Christopher himself launched the new game, Brian Christopher’s Pop’N Pays More, at the Brian Christo pher slot zone at the Plaza in Downtown Las Vegas. Even if you’ve never followed Christopher online, the game is a lot of fun. It fits right in with Gaming Arts’ Pop’N Pays series. Christopher says he was involved in designing the game from start to finish.“Pop’N Pays was already a hit among my fans,so when they asked me about part nering on a new version, I jumped on it,” he told Strictly Slots .“They had already worked out what they wanted for their other iterations of Pop’N Pays More—Piñatas Ole and Big Top—and although you will notice many differences between them and my game, all three games in the series are remarkable. “I offered up ways to add more features, and a

ton more interaction. I was able to offer input on the music, the word ing, symbols,sounds and performance.Nothing was off limits,so long as it kept to the Pop’N Pays brand.” The Brian Christopher slot, with 1,047 ways to win in the base game, has a feature that expands reels 2–5 up to eight symbols high.At full expansion,there are 16,384 ways to win on every spin.There is a free game feature offering up to 15 free games with frequent re-triggers.

Christopher himself,who has some 41,500 Instagram followers,has be come a star.Millions of fans have watched his videos—the average view time is a remarkable 18 minutes—and have become familiar with his fa vorite slots and any number of catch phrases he uses to get players ex cited about features of a given slot game. As you may have read last month in our cover feature of Strictly Slots, slot manufacturer GamingArts has latched on to this trend by join

14 AUGUST 2022 ■ STRICTLY SLOTS ■ www.casinocenter.com