Ride off into a Sunset of Wins in The Great Stick-Up Slot
A cowboy’s life in the Wild West must have been great. You had the great open plains, shots of whiskey at your local saloon, and night’s sky filled with stars to sleep under. Sure, you had to worry about saddle rash and the chance that a simple cut could kill you thanks to a distinct lack of antibiotics, but that would be a small price to pay for the freedom… right?
Give the cowboy’s life a try without the threat of an itchy crotch and festering wounds in The Great Stick-Up slot from Pragmatic Play.
What’s with the red light?
The classic western has gone out of fashion in the age of never-ending superhero movies. We had The Magnificent Seven in 2016, which wasn’t too bad, but since then, not all that much, which is a shame. It’s a great genre with a ton of versatility. Well, that’s what I thought, at least. Enter The Great Stick-Up slot.
A cowboy theme should be an easy one to pull off. You have a ton of reference material and some really great iconography. This is why some of Pragmatic Play’s choices for The Great Stick-Up slot are so confusing. The slot features symbols with a Sherlock Holmes hat, a smoking pipe, and a magnifying glass. It’s not really what you expect from a western heist theme. And then there’s the scatter symbol. It’s a red light like you would find on the roof of a police car, and I have no idea what it has to do with the Wild West. The whole thing just left me confused.
Gunfight at the Great Stick-Up slot corral
If you’re going to pull one over on the house, you’re going to need to grab three or more scatter symbols to unlock a round of seven free spins. If you manage to grab five scatter symbols, you won’t just unlock the free spins feature, but you’ll also win 100x your bet.
During a round of free spins, sticky mystery symbols will appear on the reels. Once they do, they will remain on the reels for the rest of the round. Following each spin, the symbols will be revealed to show a single symbol based on a progressive system. In other words, the first reveal will all be the lowest paying symbol and will continue to progress through all the symbols with each spin until the highest paying symbol. This gives you a chance for huge wins.
That’s not all, though. During free spins, a sheriff badge may appear in the corner of any symbol. For every two sheriff badges that appear on the reels, one extra free spin will be added to your total.
Is The Great Stick-Up slot a classic or just convoluted?
If you’re going to choose a theme for a slot, you need to stick to it. And cowboy themes are some of the easiest to create slots around. You create a few villains, a hero, and a dusty Wild West setting. Throw in a few guns and a bag of cash, and you’re done. It really is that simple. Well, The Great Stick-Up slot makes it look hard.
The slot’s symbols seem to indicate a Sherlock Holmes connection that doesn’t fit. The police light scatter symbol is also a strange choice for a cowboy-themed slot. I just don’t understand what they were going for here. It’s a bit of a mess.
That being said, the base of the slot is worth a look. It had some interesting bonus features, a 96.3% RTP rating, and a pretty healthy €400,000 max win. It does suffer from high volatility and a rather small 5,000x max multiplier, especially when you consider the size of the max win. All in all, solid, though. I just wish the theme was more consistent.
If you’d like to see how cowboy-themed slots are done, I recommend giving Wild Duel and Tombstone R.I.P. a spin.