Many people who are not intimately familiar with slots – and even some who are – believe that they’re pretty stagnant. What I mean by that is that there seems to be a common belief which states that most gamblers start off with slots and then quickly transition into more “serious” gambling activities online, such as blackjack and roulette, leaving the slots behind to the newbies and the single moms who only gamble every once in a while. Slots are almost seen as second-class when it comes to gambling despite their prevalence and spotlight in various online casinos, a bit like how traditional gamers tend to regard mobile and free to play games. However, just like how mobile games are a gigantic market that shouldn’t be underestimated, slots are also growing more and more formidable by the years, and I’ve got the data to prove it!

We all know that general online casino profits have been rising exponentially since 2009, and are expected to continue to increase even more in the future. The graph I linked shows the data for online casino profits from 2009 to 2013, and then estimates their value from 2014 onwards, but honestly? Real life just might be blowing it out of the water. Let’s take a look at the increase from 2014 to 2015. According to the estimated progression, the overall casino profits will increase from $37.47 billion to $41.36 billion – an approximately 10% increase. That’s not bad, right? Slow and steady wins the race, after all. However… Yeah, you’ve read it in the title of the article already, you know it’s coming. According to a recently released analysis, the slot sector alone has increased by an astonishing 87% between 2014 and 2015, which is just utterly insane on so many levels! In fairness, the study is talking about the online slots market sector, which doesn’t just involve pure profits, but also things like player base, number of slots available, number of companies directly competing with each other and how powerful these companies are, exactly. But still, the fact that the slots industry as a whole has basically doubled in a year is astonishing!

If you’re like me, you might be wondering where exactly all this growth is coming from, and to tell you the truth… I don’t know. I guess a big part of it can be attributed to the slots (and casino) industry’s natural growth – the more people engage in an activity, the more popular it’s bound to be due to word of mouth. As a result, we can safely expect even more people to join the online slots family soon enough. While I sincerely doubt that we’re going to see anywhere near a 90% increase from 2015 to 2016 in the market sector next year, even a 50% increase is going to mean millions more people who are engaging in our beloved past-time. And at the end of the day, the bigger the slots audience is, the more and better slots we’re going to get. Everybody wins, literally! Well, except for market analysts. I’m not jealous of their workload next year.

There have been slots based on movies and TV shows practically since there have been online slots at all. It seems like these days practically any property is prime for the slot treatment. Some turn out great (“The Avengers”), some not (“Game of Thrones”), and some are just completely unexplainable (“Bridesmaids”). Companies such as NetEnt and Microgaming continue to release licensed slot after licensed slot, seemingly content with the money that their creations are bringing them, with Microgaming recently obtaining the rights to several Universal movies such as “Jurassic World”. And now Zynga, the developer of numerous immensely successful mobile games, the most popular of which being “Farmville”, wants in on the online slot action, and their way of getting a piece of the pie involves making a slot out of one of the most beloved children’s movies ever made.

“Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” was released in 1971 and quickly became a classic, fondly remembered even today. Despite an attempt at a remake by Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, which was received mostly negatively by the general public, the movie still remains firmly planted in the public consciousness. It’s not uncommon to hear people quoting it (“You get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!”) or spotting the image of Willy Wonka online, which I guess somehow explains why Zynga has decided to select it for a slot adaptation… somewhat. After all, the children who once watched it are now old enough to be actively interested in slots, but still, there seems to be something inherently wrong with turning a movie about a magical journey through a chocolate factory into a slot machine.

Zynga’s chief game designer Joe Kaminkow, however, disagrees with my assessment. “Beloved by generations, the Wonka-verse is full of pure imagination and whimsical fun, making it the perfect setting for an immersive social slots experience,” he says, adding that this slot is developed by the same team who also made slots based on “The Wizard of Oz” and “The Princess Bride”, which I have not played, but if you want to know my thoughts about them, just read this article from the beginning again. Those three are part of a 10-game deal which should see many more movies destroyed forever—err, turned into fun mobile slots for the whole family, or something.

Hey, don’t get me wrong – it’s good that we’re getting some more online slots, especially from developers who specialize in game design and not in slot design. I’m sure that the “Willy Wonka” slot is going to look and play great (though you don’t have to take my word for it – by the time you read this it should already be available to play on Android and iOS), but I still can’t shake off the notion that there’s nothing sacred to those big corporations.