Light & Wonder casinos & slots 2024

Best Light & Wonder Casinos

Given the fact that Light and Wonder produces some of the most well-known slot game titles in the business, it should come as no surprise that their games are available at hundreds of real money casino sites across Canada. As a result, it can be a bit tricky to figure out which sites are actually worth your time and more importantly, your hard-earned money. 

For this reason, we at InsideCasino have established a convenient online casino finding tool that includes our carefully selected list of reviewed online casinos. Each suggested site has been independently vetted by our team of experienced reviewers and has been found to give an exceptional gaming experience for players of all budget levels.

Light & Wonder Games

Even though Light & Wonder is well recognized in the industry as one of the most prominent makers of land-based gaming machines, they should not be taken lightly when it comes to their presence in the CA online casino market. Light & Wonder’s game selection should not be overlooked, especially considering the fact that the firm has many studios under its belt in addition to its first-party portfolio.

We’ve provided a few samples of their most well-known slot games in the section below.

Rainbow Riches

Rainbow Riches is widely regarded as one of the most iconic slot machine brands in the history of the gaming industry. Since then, there have been dozens of sequels, refreshes, and spin-off titles with gimmicks like Megaways and progressive jackpots over the years.

James Bond

Prior to the rebrand, Scientific Games was able to ink a landmark franchise deal with a MGM and Eon Production license, so you can play slots online with the James Bond brand at Scientific Games casinos. At the time of writing, the series of slot machines with the James Bond brand have covered most of the franchise’s most iconic movies, including Goldfinger, Live and Let Die, Diamonds are Forever, and of course, Casino Royale.

Blazin' Hot 7s

This series of slot games harkens back to the analog slot machines of old with classic fruit symbols and the titular sevens. However, the Blazin’ Hot 7s series introduces a variety of gimmicks and mechanics to really turn up the heat.

What Is Light & Wonder?

Light & Wonder is the new name for Scientific Games Corporation, an American supplier of gaming hardware and software. With its roots going all the way back to the 80s, Scientific Games has amassed a wealth of experience and expertise in various sectors of the gambling industry, from horse race betting to slot machine strategies and just about everything in between. This expertise has allowed them to excel in their latest push into the online casino market, which is bolstered by their growing roster of innovative software developers. 

The name Light & Wonder signifies the starting point of a new era for Scientific Games, being the culmination of a major strategic shift and rebranding process that began sometime in 2021 and completed in the second quarter of 2022. This naming scheme is meant to reflect the corporation's change in vision to focus on providing industry-leading software solutions for both online and land-based casinos. 

To gain a better understanding of the reasoning behind the name change and rebrand, we will need to go into the company's long and colourful history. 

History of Scientific Games / Light & Wonder

As we already know, Light & Wonder previously did business as Scientific Games. However, before Scientific Games, there was a firm by the name of Autotote Systems, which the corporation notes to be the actual beginning point of the corporation's history. Autotote was a firm that was established in 1979 that manufactured totalizators for horse race betting. These devices, which were commonly referred to as 'tote boards,' were giant displays that computed and presented information on both odds and payouts. 

The Scientific Games name would not enter the story until the year 2000 when Autotote bought and merged with the firm to form Scientific Games Corporation, ditching the old name for all of their client-facing branding. The original Scientific Games company was a manufacturer of machines that made instant lottery products like scratch cards. 

Despite a number of high-profile accidents and controversies over the years, the racing branch of the corporation would go on to dominate the race betting hardware industry in the United States and other places around the world.

Shifting Tides

However, when player preferences began to evolve throughout time, the gaming business underwent a transformation. While horse racing continued to be a key component of the industry, it was evident that casino gaming and sports betting were quickly becoming the most popular new online gambling options.

Scientific Games, in response to this growing trend, made a number of strategic acquisitions in an attempt to break into and dominate the land-based casino market. The company acquired several key companies in order to build up both the talent and the technology necessary to make an impact on the market.

A few of the key firms that were acquired as part of this push included Barcrest, manufacturer of the well known Barcrest fruit machines.  They also bought NYX Gaming Group, the parent company of OpenBet, a highly prominent online ; Bally Technologies, a veteran name that was one of the pioneering manufacturers of physical slot machines; and Authentic Gaming, a software supplier specializing in live casino games. 

The original Autotote firm, which served as the foundation for the organization, was sold off later in 2010. 

The Rebrand

Fast forward another decade or two, and the online gambling industry finds itself on the verge of seeing yet another major trend in gambler preferences.

In particular, online and mobile casino gaming has skyrocketed in popularity amongst gamblers, who liked the convenience of being able to play their favourite casino games from just about anywhere in the world so long as they had a mobile device and a decent internet connection. 

The rise in popularity was helped by advances in mobile technology, which gave modern smartphones and tablets the capability to run these online casino games with little to no loss in performance compared to their desktop counterparts. 

Another major contributing factor to the rise of casino gaming was an overall shift in tone towards the sector from the legislative side. Canada was one of the most recent regions to experience such a shift, with the province of Ontario being the first in the country to open a fully-regulated market for online gambling that allowed third-party operators to obtain licenses to serve players in the region. Given the success of the Ontario online gambling market launch in April, other provinces in Canada are expected to follow suit with their own markets. 

And indeed, Light & Wonder has laid out a release roadmap as part of their planned entry into the market during 2022.

Light & Wonder CEO Barry Cottle said of the rebrand: “We are thrilled to introduce the world to Light & Wonder, a company that will build great games and franchises that offer players a seamless experience across gambling platforms. Our powerful new strategy required a powerful new identity to distinguish us and our unique offerings and capabilities. Our new name and identity are born from our winning strategy to be the leading cross platform game company and will inspire our people to make great products for our players.”

"We already have a world-class team powered by the brightest game creators in the business and in transforming into a growth company who invests in our people and products, we will serve our players even better wherever and whenever they play."

So what changed?

For the most part, Light and Wonder operates in a similar manner that Scientific Games did previous to the rebranding effort. Nonetheless, several adjustments have been made in the course of pursuing the aforementioned shift towards the online gaming sector.

One of the most significant changes that will occur as a result of the branding will be the sale of specific sectors of the business in order to minimize the amount of debt that the firm owes.

This included the sale of NYX Gaming Group, the company's sports betting business to the Endeavor Group, as well as the sale of the company's lottery operation to Brookfield, a holding company.

The previous Scientific Games marketing materials will become obsolete on any online casino that has not changed their information, but all of the games produced under the Scientific Games label will continue to function precisely as they did before the rebranding was implemented.

Scientific Games' iGaming sector, formerly known as SG Gaming, will move to the new LNW.com domain, which will also serve as the central portal for all of the corporation's land-based and online gaming products moving forward. 

In addition, it is also worth noting that, while the main firm will be rebranding, the subsidiaries of the corporation (each of which has its own distinct theme and identity) will not. This means that all of the other game creators that fall under the Scientific Games umbrella will be able to continue to release their games with little to no interruption.

Our Final Thoughts on Light & Wonder

With everything that we now know, the final question remains: what does the Scientific Games rebrand to Light & Wonder mean for a players in Canada like me?

All things considered - not much. The rebranding to Light & Wonder will only be noticeable to those who are already privy to what goes on behind the scenes in the corporate world of the gambling industry. For those who aren't concerned with the quagmire that is the corporate side of the industry, there will only really be a change in the name of the developer behind some of your favourite games.

In order to get started playing Light & Wonder games, you may do so by reading our evaluations of Light & Wonder casinos, which you can find right here on InsideCasino.