Pragmatic Play Expands Its Arcade Portfolio With Mines+

The game uses a simple 5×5 grid where you need to choose tiles and uncover the diamonds, and avoid the mines. Much like the good-old minesweeper game, the goal is to ‘sweep’ the mines and uncover the diamonds, and you get a multiplier for every successful diamond.

There are 25 tiles on the screen, and, compared to some other releases, you can’t change the grid size here. Instead, you get to choose how many mines you want hidden on the board. The number of mines can range from 1 to 24, and this single choice defines the entire risk profile of the round.

You set the wager (from A$0.10 to A$250, so a truly wide betting range), and you reveal tiles by clicking on them one by one. Every diamond you uncover increases the win multiplier. However, hitting a mine ends the round immediately, and you lose the bet. You can cash out at any point before you hit a mine, and you’ll be paid out your win, which is your bet times the multiplier.

Where Pragmatic Play’s experience comes into play is the Autoplay mode. While tiles can be selected manually, there are two other options: random reveal and autoplay paths.

The Autoplay Path is an innovative mode that allows you to choose a custom path and decide the order for the mines that you want to be revealed. You can then set how many rounds you want the autoplay to run, so you can just sit back and watch the path you customised.

There’s the option to stop on a win or automatically cash out on a set multiplier, so essentially, you can set the risk level exactly how you want it.

Mines+ does not use a fixed volatility model. Volatility is fully adjustable and depends on how many mines are placed on the grid. Fewer mines result in lower multipliers and lower risk, while higher mine counts increase both the multipliers and the chance of losing as well.

The game comes with an RTP of up to 97.50%, which puts it above most standard pokies and in line with other arcade-style casino games. As with most Pragmatic Play products, the betting range depends on the casino offering the game, but Mines+ is designed to support both low-stakes and high-stakes bets, with an available range from A$0.10 up to A$250.

One detail that stands out is the maximum win. Mines+ comes with a cap of 5,070,293x the stake, which is exceptionally high for an instant-win arcade game (or any casino game). That extreme multiplier is also where the “+” in the name comes from, and once it goes live at online casinos in the following weeks, it will be one of the casino games with the highest possible max win.

Realistically, the odds of reaching it are extremely low, but it’s still notable that Pragmatic Play has attached a jackpot of this size to a non-pokie game.

There’s a clear reason Pragmatic Play is expanding its arcade offering. These games are growing faster than traditional casino formats, particularly among users who grow tired of pokies and prefer a simpler format. There are also fewer localisation issues, and it can be released across multiple markets with minimal changes.

For Pragmatic Play, arcade games add another game category that touches upon an “uncharted territory” for the studio without competing with its own pokies. Instead of cannibalising their own market share, Plinko+ and Mines+ target a different game category.