Wild Bounty Showdown slot: wild multipliers up to x1024

A grid that bulges in the middle, and the wilds that live there

The columns run 3-4-5-5-4-3, three symbols tall at the edges and five in the middle, which gives up to 3600 ways when the screen is full. Wins are counted as chains across adjacent columns from the left, so the tall middle reels decide almost every round: a symbol that occupies one of them multiplies the number of chains it can join.

• The wild is the whole game. It carries a multiplier printed on its face, expands to fill the column it landed in, and the multiplier grows as it expands.
• Several expanded wilds on one screen combine their multipliers before the win is paid, and that is how a small chain turns into a large number.
• The bounty poster is the scatter and opens the free spins from three on the screen.
• The sheriff, the outlaw and the saloon girl head the paying symbols; the card suits behind them pay the small change that keeps a session alive.
• PG Soft builds portrait first, so the tall columns fit a phone screen properly, and I have played this one almost entirely on a phone.

The theme is a cartoon western and the animation is loud. Nothing about the presentation tells you anything about the math, and on this game the presentation is doing a lot of work to keep you watching while the wilds stay away.

Free spins that open at x8 and climb toward x1024

The round is where the ceiling of this game lives, and the entry is straightforward. Everything that matters about it fits in four rows.

The important line in that table is the third one. In the base game a wild starts low and has to earn its way up inside a single spin; in the round it opens already high and keeps whatever it climbed to. That difference is the entire reason the 5000x ceiling is reachable at all, and it is also why the base game feels thin by comparison. You are playing the base game to buy a ticket to the round, and the game knows it, which is why the buy button sits in the corner looking reasonable.

RTP 96.75%, and what the high label costs

Start with the figure nobody prints on a banner: the published hit frequency is 29.04%. Roughly seven spins in ten return nothing at all, and a good share of the remaining three return less than the spin cost. Now set the declared 96.75% beside it and the high rating beside that, and the numbers stop arguing with each other. The return is real; it simply arrives in a few large pieces, and the pieces come from the round.

On a game with this profile the floor of the slider is worth more than it looks. A session that survives long enough to see two or three rounds is a session with a chance; a session that spends the same money in forty spins is a coin toss with extra steps. Pick a stake that leaves room for the silence.

What you can stake, and what the 5000x is counted from

The ceiling is a multiple of the spin. Lines and ways have nothing to do with it: whatever the slider says, 5000x is that amount multiplied by it, and no bet size on this grid buys a share of a larger number than any other. Stakes run 0.2-100 EUR, the lobby converts those borders into your account currency, and every figure on the paytable moves with the slider in lockstep.

Two conditions hang off that ceiling, and both are worth knowing before you plan an evening around it. The first: it is assembled, never won in one go. A single expanded wild gets nowhere near it. The figure comes from several wilds opening on the tall middle columns inside the free spins and adding their printed multipliers on the same screen, in a round that starts at x8 and can reach x1024. Outside the round, with the multiplier starting low every spin, the arithmetic simply does not reach that far. The second: the 75x button moves none of it. What that price buys is the entry, at the stake you already set; the limit above the round is identical whether three scatters let you in or you paid for the door.

No Wild Bounty Showdown demo from PG Soft, and the way around it

PG Soft keeps its practice versions inside partner lobbies, so the window at the top of this page carries a note and a way into the casino. The free reels do exist at Vavada, on the Hit tab, and finding them is easier here than on any other card in that tab: this is the only PG Soft title in it, so searching by the studio name leaves a single cover on the screen out of forty. The demo label sits on the card itself. If the lobby asks for a login first, the sign up form is the whole obstacle.

Play money runs the same generator and the same multiplier ladder, so the practice session is honest about the only thing worth testing: how long the gaps are between rounds at your stake. Twenty spins will not tell you. Two hundred will, and they cost nothing.

When the reels turn for real, one house rule is worth spending on this card in particular. The 100 free spins that land after registration run at minimum stake in any slot and carry an x20 wager on what they win, and a game this dry is a cheap place to meet: the stake is not yours, the silence costs you nothing, and if the round does show up it shows up with the multiplier already at x8. The deposit wagering, the turnover and the caps are on the bonuses page, and the free spin races are on the tournaments page.

The 75x buy button, and the mistake it invites

Buying the round costs 75x of your stake, and the arithmetic of that price is worth doing once, slowly. At the floor of the stake box it is pocket money. At the top of the box a single purchase is most of a session, and on a game rated high a bought round can return a fraction of what it cost while the game behaves exactly as designed.

What annoys me about this button has nothing to do with the price. It is that the button removes the only discipline a high volatility game gives you: the wait. Sitting through the dry stretch is how you find out whether your stake is too big. Paying to skip it means you learn that at the end, all at once. If you buy at all, decide the number of purchases before the first one and stop at that number even when the third round is the one that was obviously about to pay.

Three westerns, and the one that suits your temper

The Hit tab carries two more games in a dusty street, both from Hacksaw Gaming, and they split cleanly by what the round does. Wanted Dead or A Wild is the famous one: multiplier wilds again, three separate free spins rounds to choose between, and a ceiling well above this card. Duel at Dawn takes the other road, with a lower declared return and a base game that pays more often, built around a duel reel that carries the multiplier.

This card gives you one round to aim at, on a grid built for a phone. The Hacksaw favorite is the pick if choosing your own round appeals more than aiming at a single one. And the duel suits anyone who cannot sit through the waiting and will trade return for a busier screen. The rest of the Hacksaw catalog in that tab, and everything that never goes near a desert, is listed on the Vavada slots page.

Do you ride out for this one?

Yes, at a stake small enough to sit through the quiet, and no if you came for a busy evening. The moment this game exists for is narrow and specific: two wilds expanding on the tall middle columns at the same time, their numbers adding together while the counter runs. I have seen it happen perhaps four times, and each time it paid for a long stretch of nothing. Whether that trade is a good one depends on how you feel during the nothing, and only two hundred spins on the free version can tell you that.