Slingo!!
Slingo was the first free-to-play site with prizes that I joined. As such, I'll admit that I have a soft spot for it. *^_^* It's changed a lot over the years, but they're still a fun site!
Games
Slingo games aren't fancy. That isn't a big deal to me, because I view graphics like icing on a cake. If the cake is bad, no amount of icing is going to make it taste better. If the cake is melt-in-your-mouth delicious then it doesn't even need icing.
Games like Kenoka and Slingo Classic are melt-in-your-mouth delicious. ^_^ They're original and addictive!
Slingo Coins & Prizes
When you play Slingo games you earn Slingo coins. These coins are used to buy sweepstakes tickets! 5,000 coins will buy one ticket. Compared to other sites that may sound high, but Slingo gives away more coins in their games too. It balances out. ^_^
Slingo has four kinds of sweeps. A monthly sweeps for $1,000 (3 winners). A weekly sweeps for $200. A daily sweeps for $50 (2 winners). And a second weekly sweeps for Slingo merchandise (2 winners)!
Ready for math? This means that Slingo awards about $6,800 in cash prizes every month! Considering that this site is completely free to play and there are no membership options, that's excellent!
Another thing that Slingo does (which I love!) is limit the number of tickets any one person can buy for sweeps. You can enter up to 1,000 tickets in any one sweeps. This evens the playing field, which is a good thing. I've lost track of the times I've heard someone accuse a site of being rigged because they didn't win a prize, despite entering hundreds of thousands of tickets.
*Steps on soapbox*
Something you always need to remember is that even if you have 99% of the tickets, you're not guaranteed to win! The odds are in your favor, yes. But unless you have 100% of the tickets (which is impossible) there's always a chance that someone else will win.
*Steps off soapbox*
Limiting the tickets also gives new players a better chance at winning, since they won't have billions of coins stockpiled. And yes, it's possible to have billions of coins. In fact, the max amount any player can have is 99,999,999,999,999 coins!
Layout
The main page is colorful and easy on the eyes. But (and this may be the pot calling the kettle black), there's too much text.
Whoa..
I feel like I'm looking at a newspaper instead of a game site. Not good. :( You can minimize the link sections on the left. But as soon as you move to another page they open up again. And frankly, there are a lot of redundant links in that side bar.
Social Connections
The Slingo Joker is the mascot for Slingo, and he has a Facebook page and a Twitter account!
Community & Events
Slingo is the only game site I've found with their own forum. It's not terribly active, but people DO read it and leave comments. Every game has chat too, so you can talk with fellow Slingo addicts. ^_^
Also, twenty-five Slingo games have tournaments! A new round starts every 30 minutes, and it only costs 5,000 coins to enter. For each person in the tournament the pot goes up 10,000 coins! If you win, your rank will also increase by 2 points.
What is rank? Essentially it's a way for players to see how active someone is on Slingo. You earn rank points by playing games, making friends, joining tournaments, and much more! I'm a lowly level 15. Can you beat me? ^_^ (For a complete list of the ranks and how to earn points, go here.)
Another cool event is Happy Hour. Actually, there are four Happy Hours each day! During any Happy Hour, all games have double payouts! Go here to find out when the next Happy Hour starts.
That's not all! Slingo also has Weekly and Monthly featured games. Whoever plays the featured game the most will win a LOT of Slingo coins! (5 million coins for monthly. 1 million coins for weekly.)
Final Opinion
Layout issues aside, there's a LOT to do on Slingo! I hope to see it around for many years to come! And if you want to friend me I'm MiraHopes2Win at Slingo. All friend requests accepted! ^_^