Recent years have seen a wave of consolidation in the online gambling industry. While big acquisitions and mergers, like Amaya’s purchase of PokerStars or the merger of IGT and GTECH, have grabbed the headlines, many smaller firms have also been gobbled up to become a part of larger conglomerations.

Such is the story of Ash Gaming. Founded in 2002, this small developer prided itself on making custom solutions for specific clients, with the goal of making games that would keep customers happy while still deriving profits for operators.

But after nearly a decade as an independent developer, Ash was picked up by one of the biggest names in the industry: Playtech. The acquisition made sense for Playtech, as it gave them access to a number of new operators and expanded their games portfolio.

Today, Ash Gaming operates as a Playtech subsidiary, producing their own games and sharing most of the same licenses as their parent company. You’ll still see a small but vibrant collection of slots from this provider, with new games being released on a semi-regular basis. And with their head offices located in London, it’s no surprise to find their offerings at many of the top UK casino sites.

Ash Gaming may not be the most prolific developer in the industry, but over their many years of creating games, they have built up a collection that includes more than 100 titles in total. The vast majority of these games are slots, some of which include licensed games that are connected to popular properties.

These games aren’t just quick attempts to slap a famous name onto a basic game and call it a day, however. The provider has gone a long way to using strong art, animations, and sound elements to really connect the gameplay with the look and feel of each license. In addition, special features are typically crafted to really fit these themes, rather than simply just having a generic line of machines with different titles.

One quite relevant example in the UK market is Britain’s Got Talent, a machine based heavily on the reality television show. The five-reel, 20-payline slot is packed with special features that try to emulate aspects of the programme. For instance, the Live Show Bonus gives you the opportunity to take a musical, dance, or novelty act onto television for the chance to win up to 1,125 times your initial bet by making it through the initial auditions and potentially making it all the way to the finals. Free spins bonuses and more flesh out this feature-rich creation.

In a similar vein, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire goes to great lengths in order to evoke the dramatic feel of the game show it is based on. There are several special features, including one that offers up a progressive jackpot if you can make it all the way up the show’s famous ladder of prizes. During a free spins round, you’ll see shifting wilds that improve your chances to win, and a “final answer” prize picking game offers instant prizes.

Not all of Ash’s best games are based on licenses, however. Slots like Full Moon Fortunes offer excellent versions of classic themes: in this case, the always popular werewolf horror genre. This is much more of a straightforward slot than the ones above, but the presentation is every bit as enjoyable, and the bonus rounds still aim to please players: for instance, a free spins game offers multipliers of up to 25x on your wins, potentially opening the door to some massive prizes.

If you truly want to play for the biggest prizes available from this developer, you’ll want to check out their line of progressive jackpot games. The one with the biggest ever prize was Chests of Plenty, which paid out more than £1.3 million to one lucky player earlier in 2016. However, many other machines also give players the chance to win hundreds of thousands of pounds, including Adventures in Wonderland, Chests of Plenty, and Leprechaun’s Luck.

Outside of their slots offerings, Ash has also created a reasonable number of table games as well. While several favourites are included in this package, roulette is the clear focus, as there are at least eight different options available for players to choose from. This includes some offbeat, unusual versions of the game that you may not have seen elsewhere.

Of this group, our favorite might be Lucky 8 Roulette. Featuring an extra large wheel, this game has numbers from 0-49, along with a “Lucky 8” space that offers players the opportunity to compete for a progressive jackpot. With more numbers on the wheel than ever before, the odds have changed significantly, as have the potential payouts, making this a great variant for action players.

Another unusual offering is Three Card Brag.  Based on the traditional British game, this is essentially an offshoot of the more widely-known Three Card Poker (which can also be found throughout Ash Gaming software platforms). Other options include Vegas Solitaire, which provides a real money way to play everyone’s favourite pre-packaged Windows game, as well as Keno, a scratch card game known as The Big One, and some casual parlour style games like Darts.

There’s nothing that stands out as particularly innovative or ground breaking about the software and games provided by Ash Gaming. The variety of options is sufficient: better than companies that specialize on only slots, but not with quite as many games as a huge developer like Microgaming or IGT. There are no real holes in their collection, though they don’t have the widest selection of table games in the industry, either. If you’re into live dealer games, Ash doesn’t offer them (though parent company Playtech does), but when it comes to traditional Internet casino fare, they should have you covered.

Where Ash truly stands out is in the quality of their individual games, particularly when it comes to their slots. Few companies put more effort into blending form, function, and theme to create fun and entertaining products in the way this provider has been able to do. That makes their collection a welcome addition at any casino site, and one that we can heartily recommend to our readers.