Playboy Casino

Every form of gambling is designed so that the punter loses.

Sure, you can get a lucky win here and there, but over time the chances of actually making money from slot machines or against the banker at cards is so slim as to be almost impossible.

It’s this core element that makes it so difficult to create something that delves beyond the typical one-hit, shallow mobile games. It's admirable, then, that Playboy Casino does at least try to break the mould - even if it creates new problems by doing so.

Playboy Casino is, in a perverse way, similar to iCarly (I bet you never thought those two words would pop up in the same sentence) in that it's a game very much designed for one of the two genders in mind.

Upon starting the game, you’re plonked into the role of a new, male-only gambler at the aforementioned establishment, with the aim being to gather up cash, build up a reputation as a ‘playboy’, and chat up as many of the croupiers as humanly possible.

Naturally, this being a gambling den based on the famous soft-core porn empire, the croupiers are not smart-jacketed ladies and gentlemen, but Playboy bunnies in their traditional outfits.

The games on offer range from simple slots and Blackjack at first, before later expanding to include Texas Hold ‘Em Poker on the higher value tables, with each game attractively presented and easy to play.

Getting to the games isn’t performed by selecting menus, though, but is instead achieved by walking around the casino floor, getting missions from the patrons and buying drinks from the waitresses.

This section adds a nice RPG-like twist to the standard formula, giving the game more purpose and substance than your standard one-hit casino compilations.

To get around the core issue with gambling, Shamrock Games has added a special ‘Playboy’ move for each of the games that can be activated after a certain number of goes.

These range from switching your cards to rigging the slots, making it all but impossible to entirely lose your stack of chips.

While this means that you’ll always be making positive strides towards whatever objective you need to meet, it also removes much of the tension and interest from the games - you’ll soon fall into a pattern of betting the lowest amount before betting maximum with your cheat stick at the ready.

So while Playboy Casino does have more about it than initially meets the eye, it’s the very games it models itself on that ends up holding it back from being a must-buy mobile title for the discerning gentleman gamer.