The Gold Rush was basically a 19th-century get-rich-quick scheme with pickaxes. Thousands of people abandoned perfectly sensible lives, traveled across a continent, and started digging holes because somebody somewhere had found a shiny rock. Most of them did not become rich, of course. The people selling shovels, boots, booze and wildly overpriced beans did. So in that sense, Silicon Valley did not invent anything. It just replaced dysentery with venture capital.

While a Silicon Valley Gold Rush slot could be fun, Relax Gaming went the more traditional route with its new Nugget Ridge slot.

Are you ready for a gold rush?

The Nugget Ridge slot features 40 paylines spread across five reels. Betting starts from just $0.10 a spin and tops out at $20 a spin. If you’re betting at that top end, you’ll have a shot at $200,000 in winnings thanks to the 10,000x max multiplier.

With medium volatility, the slot will offer a balance between small, consistent wins and the rare large one. The slot’s expected RTP is 96.36%.

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Landing two scatter symbols in the base game will activate the Respin feature. Once activated, the triggering scatter symbols will be converted into sticky wilds and remain on the reels for the duration of the feature. Any additional wild symbol that appears will also become sticky and award another respin, allowing the sequence to continue for as long as new wilds keep landing.

When a TNT detonator symbol lands on the reels, it will explode, expanding upwards, and revealing wild symbols in its wake.

A round of the slot’s free spins feature is triggered with three or more scatter symbols. Three scatter symbols will award 7 free spins, four will award 9, and five will award 11.

Once a round of free spins starts, the scatters that triggered the round are stored in the positions where they land. Any further Scatters that appear during the free spins are also stored in their respective reel positions.

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On the final free spin, all stored scatter symbols are transformed into wild symbols. When more than one scatter symbol has accumulated in the same position, the resulting Wild carries a multiplier equal to the number of symbols stored, up to a maximum of 5x. If more than one multiplier wild contributes to a winning combination, the multiplier values will be multiplied together.

In addition to triggering free spins with three or more scatters, you can also choose to purchase a round at a cost of 60x your bet amount.

Is the Nugget Ridge slot worth the dirt under your fingernails?

The Nugget Ridge slot is perfectly okay. The issue is that it’s hard to escape the sense that you have seen all of this done better before. The respins and expanding wilds give the base game an occasional pop, while the free spins round has a neat way of building tension by storing those scatter symbols that are then converted into wilds. The problem is that others have executed essentially the same mechanics and theme with far more personality and character. It’s a fine slot, but I don’t think it’ll have me coming back again and again.

I give Nugget Ridge a six out of ten.

If you’re looking for a few Relax Gaming slots that I would recommend, try Money Train 4 or Epic Dreams.