As a casino reviewer and news reporter, I have accounts at many if not most British online casinos, but when I play in my personal time, my place of choice is Leo Vegas. The reason for that is that it features the biggest mobile games selection on the market making it the best possible place for casino players like me that prefer to play on the go. Another reason for me liking them so much is that they constantly add new games and at a much faster rate than other casinos. Last time I entered the site, they had over 50 new titles, but the one that immediately caught my eye was the slot game Genie’s Touch – the latest title in the collection of the famous Microgaming-powered software house Quickspin. With the success of the other orient-themed slots such as Genie’s Jackpots, Millionaire Genie and Arabian Nights, I’m sure that this slot will soon be a hit. I would bet on it! This is why I immediately loaded the game and started playing, first for fun, then for real money. Turned out that my hunch was correct – the game is really engaging and has what seem to be very profitable features. Let me tell you more about it detail in the next few paragraphs.

Genie’s Touch Slot Overview – Symbols, Features and Bonus Round

Genie’s Touch is a 5-reel, 20-line slot game that features 10 general symbols and three special ones – the bonus scatter, the magic lamp and the wild which substitutes for all other symbols except for the special ones. The low-paying general symbols are not playing cards, as in most slot games, but differently coloured diamonds, which is refreshing to see. The four other symbols are represented by four characters resembling the ones in the movie Aladdin. The unique feature of the game, called Genie’s Touch, is triggered when you get three magic lamps anywhere on the reels. Then, the three lamps will choose three other symbols on the reel and will replace them with the same symbol to create a bigger winning.

The bonus symbols, on the other hand, appear only on the second, third and fourth reel, and if you get three of them, you’ll receive 10 free spins. During the free spin feature, you’ll get additional lamp symbols to increase your chances for the Genie’s Touch feature. If you do get it, instead of with generic symbols, the Genie will replace the lamps and the three other symbols with wilds to secure you quite the big winnings. That’s definitely the most exciting part of the game.

Genie’s Touch vs. Other Genie Slots

As I already mentioned, the moment I saw Genie’s Touch slot thumbnail, I immediately thought of the two most popular genie-themed games: Millionaire Genie by Dragonfish and Genie Jackpots by Blueprint Gaming. Though they have quite a lot of similarities, such as free spins, bonus rounds and the autospin setting, it’s pretty obvious that Genie’s Touch has the best graphics out of the three. In fact, lately I’ve been noticing a great advancement in the graphic style of all the new games by Quickspin in general. After seeing also other new titles like Illuminous for example, I think that they are giving NetEnt a real run for their money when it comes to the quality of the games.

Anyway, back to the genie slots. As I already mentioned for the most part they are pretty similar, offering pleasant oriental music, useful playing options, big bet range and free spins. Except for the graphics, Genie’s Touch excels above the other ones with its special homonymous feature which in the combination with the free spins gives quite the juicy payouts. The only thing that the Quickspin game lacks compared to the other two games is the progressive jackpot. Oh, well, you cannot have everything, can you?

In the last few years we’ve seen a sharp increase in gambling addiction rates across the globe. Pretty much everywhere online gambling is legal, we’re bound to see spikes in people who become medically diagnosed as addicted. That includes several states in the US, as well as various European countries, each of which has reported a dramatic spike in people with gambling addiction. Some countries, such as the UK, have even begun prescribing pills to gamblers in an attempt to curb their destructive habit. Addiction rates are getting out of control, and we have absolutely no idea how to stop them. Over the years, we’ve at least somewhat curbed cigarette and alcohol addictions (even if the rates still remain painfully high), but we have yet to come up with a plan to stop gamblers from ruining their lives. The question remains – who is responsible?

The obvious answer would, of course, be “the gamblers themselves”. After all, when someone gets addicted to cigarettes they have only themselves to blame, right? Stopping a cigarette addiction is about as easy as just not buying cigarettes anymore, right? Well, with gambling is a bit more complicated than that. Gambling, unlike most other addictions, runs on the Skinner Box principle. The Skinner Box was an experimental device created by B. F. Skinner, who aimed to study human behavior by using rats as test subjects. Imagine a rat being placed in a box with a light and a lever. Whenever the light came on, the rat would receive a painful electric shock. If the rat pushed the lever, though, the shock wouldn’t be administered, and instead they’d receive some food as reward. The rats soon managed to learn the relation between the lever and the light, and at first began pulling the lever only when the light came on. However, soon enough the desire to get the reward overwhelmed the desire for safety, and the rats began pulling the lever even when the light was not on.

The same principle applies to humans, especially in the context of gambling. We all have our reasons for starting to gamble, whether it’s because we need the money or just for fun. However, soon enough our desire to win overwhelms our initial reasoning, and we continue to “pull the lever” even if we no longer need to. The whole “Just one more spin” mentality when playing slots is directly connected to the Skinner Box model. Just like how the rats eventually got addicted to pulling the lever and receiving the food, even if there was no danger of an electric shock or even of starvation, it’s very easy for people to become addicted to gambling even when playing would inevitably hurt them. It’s in our very psychology to become addicted to things which reward us. And while sometimes this can be used for good (like using positive reinforcement in education to get children addicted to studying), it’s more often than not used as a gimmick to hook people. So don’t get hooked, stop when you can, and most importantly, don’t blame people who got addicted to gambling – they’re just following their brain’s programming.