Caesars has just introduced a new custom-branded online slot for soccer lovers, called Caesars Ultimate Stars. Created by Aristocrat Interactive, it’s the latest addition to the ever-growing lineup of bespoke casino game content at Caesars-branded online gambling sites.
However, it’s the first such game to focus on Caesars Sportsbook & Casino, rather than Caesars Palace or one of the company’s retail casino chains. It’s about time sports fans got a little attention. Meanwhile, the company’s secondary brand, Horseshoe Online Casino, has its own set of custom-branded games.
So far, Caesars Ultimate Stars is available in New Jersey and Michigan, but players in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ontario are likely to see it arrive soon enough.
There are over a dozen other games in Caesars’ custom content series, including:
- Caesars Palace Royale
- Caesars Palace Vegas Experience
- Caesars Big Money
The original Ultimate Stars was produced by Roxor Gaming, a studio Aristocrat acquired in 2023. The Caesars version replaces the game’s soccer jerseys with ones sporting the Caesars Sportsbook & Casino logo.
How does Caesars Ultimate Stars play?
Aside from the custom branding on the game’s jerseys, the custom-branded game plays exactly the same as Ultimate Stars. Its main twist is a true persistence feature where the return from the Free Spins bonus feature improves each time you hit it, except only once each day.
The base game is a very standard five-reel slot with 20 paylines. The low-pay symbols are the usual poker-themed 10 through A, while the high-pay symbols include stars, lucky 7s, and soccer jerseys.
Trophies are Wild, and the Soccer Ball is the scatter symbol you need to trigger the Hold-and-Respin round, which this game calls the “Matchball Bonus.”
How many spins you get depends on the number of Soccer Balls you collected:
- 3 Balls = 10 Spins
- 4 Balls = 15 Spins
- 5 Balls = 20 Spins
During the Matchball Bonus, you’ll spin the reels repeatedly, trying to collect more Soccer Ball symbols, each of which comes with a cash-on-reels value. At the end of the bonus, you’ll collect the total value of every ball in the grid.
Collecting enough Balls expands the grid. Lock eight to expand to 4×5, 13 to make it 5×5, and 18 to unlock the full 6×5 soccer pitch and receive three more Spins in the process.
Aside from the Soccer Balls, you can also land Player symbols during the Matchball Bonus. There are several types of Player, each with a special power, and only some will be available during each instance of the bonus. This is also where the game’s true persistence comes into play.
Jerseys and Players in Caesars Ultimate Stars
The first time you win the Matchball Bonus in a given day, you’ll upgrade the Jersey hanging above the reels. You can do this a maximum of five times, and you never lose a Jersey upgrade once you’ve received it. These make the Matchball Bonus more valuable and upgrade the game’s overall RTP.
When the Matchball Bonus starts, it will reveal which Player or Players are active. Only active Players can appear on the reels. They will have cash values just like the Soccer Balls, but also trigger a special benefit. The type of benefit depends on the specific Player, and it gets more powerful the higher the level your Jersey is.
- Hero: Has a particularly high cash value, determined by a prize wheel.
- Captain: Is worth more for every prize already locked on the reels when he appears.
- Finisher: Applies a multiplier to two other prizes.
- Playmaker: Increases the value of all other prizes.
- Shot Stopper: Adds extra spins.
The idea of permanently upgrading the game every time you win the feature is a fun one. Unfortunately, even the maximum RTP for Ultimate Stars isn’t anything to write home about. It starts at 92.29% when you first load the game and increases to a maximum of 94.00% after the fifth upgrade. If you like the sports theme and the expanding Hold-and-Spin bonus, this is likely to be a fun slot. However, the “upgrade for better odds” aspect is largely a gimmick, as it only changes the RTP by 1.7%, and there are other slots at Caesars that give you a better RTP up front than the highest you can get from Ultimate Stars.
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