Trekkies who play at BetMGM Casino have cause to celebrate, as the company’s partnership with Atlantic Digital has given it exclusive access to the latter’s new Star Trek: The Next Generation slot. The game is currently only available in Michigan, but BetMGM plans to bring it to other states soon.
Atlantic Digital specializes in slots based on classic movies and TV series. Star Trek: The Next Generation is the second such title offered to players by BetMGM. The first—based on Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather—launched shortly after the two companies announced their content partnership in September 2023.
Despite its name, Star Trek: The Next Generation belongs very much to an earlier generation, namely Gen X. That said, die-hard Trekkies, regardless of age, will have watched all the series. And Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard would win many people’s votes for favorite Star Trek captain.
Atlantic Digital’s game is not to be confused with the Aristocrat Leisure slot by the same title. Atlantic’s is online-only, while Aristocrat’s is exclusively available at brick-and-mortar casinos, and the two games have very different features.
In the release announcement, Oliver Bartlett, BetMGM’s Vice President of Gaming Product & Content, said:
Star Trek is one of the biggest media franchises of all time. We are honored to expand its universe to iGaming. Star Trek: The Next Generation is a bonus-feature filled game that players will love. It is another perfect addition to our ever-growing library of games that can’t be found anywhere else in the United States.
Once BetMGM launches the game in New Jersey, it will also appear at Borgata Online, which BetMGM also owns. It’s a thematic shoo-in for the Borgata Arcade, which launched last year.
Star Trek: The Next Generation Gameplay
Atlantic Digital’s Star Trek: The Next Generation is a five-by-five, all-ways-pay slot. In other words, when the same symbol appears on the first three or more reels, it pays out regardless of position. The low-pay symbols are the standard 10, J, Q, K, and A. The high-pay symbols are the key crew members from the show, with Picard being the highest, of course.
It features a cascade mechanic, with new symbols dropping down to replace the ones the player has matched. The cascades can trigger the first of the game’s two bonus rounds by filling a power meter on the left side of the screen.
Each time the player makes one or more matches, the corresponding symbols light up at the top of the screen, and one box of the left-side meter fills. If the cascade triggers another match, another symbol lights up, and another box fills. Doing it a third time triggers the respin bonus round. The player gets one respin, during which the reels will fill with only the symbols that have been lit up. This respin also pays matches from right to left, as well as left to right. These features all but guarantee some good payouts on the respin.
The second bonus feature is the familiar free spins bonus, triggered by spinning three scatter symbols. These free spins pay both ways, like the respin feature, and include a multiplier that increases with each match. The player can choose between three volatility levels, which vary in terms of the number of spins granted, the starting multiplier, and the amount by which it increases with each match. The power meter is also active during free spins but serves a different function: rather than triggering the respin bonus, filling adds one free spin to the player’s total.
All in all, it’s a relatively simple slot to understand, but the cascade mechanic and respin bonus provide tension and a nice emotional build-up to big wins.