Playtech’s Beach Life is a progressive jackpot video slot with a lightweight, summer theme. Most slot developers pick out themes of wealth and luxury; Playtech decided to merge this concept with the concept of a perfect holiday, hedonism and the warmth of summer. The game was launched in 2008, in a period when progressive jackpots were on the rise. The design itself isn’t too much to handle, the machine has a standard structure and a visually pleasing interface.
Apart from the vibrant summer theme and a plethora of special features, its biggest benefit is, of course, the possibility to obtain a progressive jackpot prize which amounts to roughly £2 million on average. Beach Life comes with a return percentage of 93.25%. This percentage would be normally considered low, but a progressive jackpot slot is expected to deliver such a return rate.
The Jackpot
Beach Life delivers a sizeable jackpot in a very straightforward way. The game makes it clear – the only way to win the jackpot amount is to land 5 sun symbols on the 20th payline. The sun symbol is the Wild, so you need to collect 5 Wilds on only one of paying lines, and it has to be the 20th. This leads to the obvious conclusion that players who do not enable all paying lines can’t play for the progressive reward.
You need to bet on all 20 paylines when you spin, which will require bigger investments than playing with a limited number of lines active. In return, you will enter the race to win a life-changing sum. In addition, to meet the win condition, you have to set the wager to the maximum bet value. If you collect 4 Wilds, the game will pay 2,000 times your line bet. If you collect 5 Wilds on any of the other paying lines, not the 20th, you can expect a payout worth 100,000 times your wager.
It is not unusual for the Beach Life progressive jackpot to go beyond the six-figure mark. You can see the current jackpot amount at the top of the game screen anytime during play. The seed for Beach Life jackpot, the guaranteed minimum amount of prize money, is 100 000x the coin size. The wager contribution rate for the pot shouldn’t be higher than 3%.
Beach Life is not guaranteed to pay a multi-million reward, as sometimes the jackpot peaks at several hundred thousand. However, the game is one of the most played progressives from Playtech and it was estimated that it pays $3,170,281 per win on average and is won every 35 weeks or so.
Beach Life Gameplay & Features
Before you start playing Beach Life, you should know that the slot runs on 5 reels and 3 rows, with a maximum of 20 paying lines. This is a fairly standard setup for online video slots, especially those released before around a decade ago. Beach Life sports bright and rich thematic graphics, but most players nowadays would agree that the design can be called a bit out-dated. Still, the game is full of positive vibes and it is nice to look at.
The control board below the reels shows pretty much everything you need to be able to play the game securely and transparently. You can access the paytable, set your bet or activate max bet right away, also you can adjust the number of paylines and you just click on the “Spin” button. The volatility is high, so players should always keep track of their budget. Autoplay and Turbo Mode are additional options for those who want to speed things up.
On the beach, where all the fun is
The slot is set on a sandy beach and the reels of the game are populated by theme-related symbols. Even the low values scream summer. You will get smaller payouts for lining up popsicles, ice cream and other delicious desserts that can melt on the sun. For higher wins, make sure you collect symbols of the sunbathing girl, the surfer and the diver.
The treasure chest is the Bonus symbol, whereas the Scatter is represented by a sandcastle. The only symbol left is the sun symbol, which functions as the Wild. It can assume the role of any other symbol if that means the winning combination will be complete. Of course, the other two mentioned special symbols are excluded from this mechanic – it only applies to base game icons.
Sun-kissed by special features
While chasing the jackpot across the beach, you will encounter some pretty attractive special feature action. Beach Life developers didn’t shy away from including a bonus feature in the game, but they opted from something different than just free spins. In Beach Life, you can trigger the Sunken Treasure Bonus by collecting 3-5 treasure chest bonus symbols. They only have to land somewhere on the reels on a single spin to activate the round in which you will get to pick from a variety of treasure chests to determine your cash prize. The more chests you land, the more picks you will get – meaning better chances of winning a tremendous payout.
The sandcastle Scatter doesn’t trigger any features, unfortunately, but you will receive hefty payouts every time you collect at least two of them on a single spin. Their wins are multiplied by your total wager instead of by line bets.
Biggest Jackpot Wins
With Mega Moolah and Mega Fortune being two of the most famous progressive jackpot slots in online casino history, Beach Life isn’t talked about enough. If you are considering the possibility of playing it, you should know that there have been substantial wins on this Playtech game in the past years. Here are some examples that Beach Life promises the chance of a life worth dreaming of.
UK player wins a massive £3.7 Beach Life jackpot
“Beach Life player surfs up £3.7m jackpot win” was the news titles published on the Playtech website when a BGO casino player with the username “Hilton” reset the jackpot countdown and bagged £3.7m. The jackpot winner was playing 50p per line which translates to £10 per spin. It was just enough to unlock the chief prize by collecting five sunshine symbols on the 20th line. The payout was worth 379,904 times the player’s stake and covered 142 times the average UK salary at the time.
The fortunate bloke chose to remain anonymous, but he shared that the part of the plan he thought of concerning spending his newfound wealth was securing a nice future for his nieces and nephews and buying a bungalow for his parents.
Link: https://www.playtech.com/news/beach-life-player-surfs-37m-jackpot-win
Beach Life player cashes in on a £5.1 million jackpot
A lucky Scot in his 20s, living in a modest flat in Ayrshire staked just a pound on Beach Life and hit a massive £5.1 million jackpot. Apparently, the player was woken up one night by the sound of a dog barking and couldn’t go back to sleep so he decided to go online and have a few spins. Smaller wins motivated him to continue playing and it paid off, big time. Minutes after, the lucky punter bagged £5.1million. As simple as that. Even though the winner himself did not give any statements, people close to him confirmed that he’s a nice guy and everyone around him was over the moon about what happened.
Link: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/sleepless-punter-scoops-massive-51m-1116997
Canadian player scoops more than $4 million on Beach Life
Canadian player Sylvia P. joined Joyland casino in August 2008. It was three weeks later when she won $4,188,719.98 playing the Beach Life progressive jackpot slot. She obviously experienced her fair share of beginners luck! Afterwards, the lucky lady admitted to being attracted to the casino’s user friendly look and feel and smooth operation. She also added that the games were fun and easy to play. Beach Life is a colourful game which can attract both with its visual style and big jackpot. Beach Life and Sylvia were a perfect fit.
Link: https://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/08/prweb1255094.htm
Biggest Beach Life payout peaked at $8 million
When Beach Life progressive jackpot was approaching $8 million in 2012 and about to pop, everyone was paying close attention to it, anticipating a gargantuan win. The jackpot finally landed in mid-February, totaling $8,211,488. The jackpot was hit after 281 days of growing from its seed value of 50,000 coins. Many commented on how players’ hearts were broken seeing the prize restart a couple of days before Valentine’s Day, but one player’s heart must have been filled with excitement.
Bet365 player wins Beach Life £1.5 progressive jackpot
Beach Life progressive slot turned out to be very lucky for another player. This time, the jackpot win happened at Bet365. A user with a nickname “MattC” landed a payout worth more than £1.5 million and became a Richie Rich overnight. At this point, the player has been a member of the casino for over a year, mostly betting on sports. Switching on progressive jackpot slots was obviously a smart move! The winner revealed that he was playing Beach Life with the sound turned off, so it took him a while to realize that he had won the progressive jackpot.
The screen lit up and the rest was history. When asked about any plans to spend the money he’d won, MattC said that he would like to invest some of it and spend the rest on his dream car.