Vikings Way Slot Review
In 1898, a Swedish-born farmer named Olof Ohman dragged a 200-pound slab of stone out of his field near Kensington, Minnesota. It came up tangled in the roots 🌳 of a poplar, cut with runes claiming a party of Norsemen had camped there in 1362.
Scholars called it a forgery almost on sight, and they've kept calling it a forgery for 125 years. Alexandria, Minnesota built a museum 🏛️ around it anyway and stood a 28-foot fiberglass Viking named Big Ole out front.
The town has been selling tickets 🎟️ ever since. I'd buy one, and I'd stand next to Big Ole for the photo.
This is Vikings Way slot, and it comes from Endorphina. Its runes came out of a design file, which nobody is going to argue about for 125 years.
Gameplay
Endorphina has set the reels inside carved timber pillars cut with rune engravings, against a rocky mountain pass under an overcast sky.
The 5x3 grid carries 20 paylines, all fixed, the RTPRTP stands for “Return to Player.” The RTP describes the total bet amount that a game returns to players over millions of spins, and that figure is represented by a percentage. Table games, such as Roulette, typically have higher RTPs than many slots.
RTP needs to be considered in conjunction with a game’s volatility rate. is 96%, volatility is low/medium, and the max multiplier is 1,200x. The max win is $384,000, with bets running from $0.20 to $320.
At the bottom of the paytable, the A, K, Q and J symbols pay identically: 4.5x for 5, 1.5x for 4, and 0.25x for 3 apiece. The Horn does a little better at 10x, 2.5x and 0.75x for 5, 4 and 3.
The Winged Helmet and the Necklace split the middle, both at 25x for 5, 5x for 4 and 1.25x for 3.
Then there's the Woman, at 125x for 5, 12.5x for 4, 2.5x for 3, and 0.5x for 2. She's the only thing on the paytable that pays from 2 of a kind, and she's worth 5 times the next-best.
The Wild lands on reels 2, 3 and 4 only. It stands in for everything except the Scatter and expands vertically to finish combinations, and it carries no payout of its own.
The Scatter pays on its own, though: 1x for 3, 5x for 4 and 25x for 5.
Features
FREE SPINS:
Land 3 or more Scatters anywhere on the grid to open the round, and 3, 4 or 5 of them award 10, 15 or 20 Free Spins, respectively. And Free Spins retrigger.
A Wild is guaranteed to appear during the round, and as the Wild can expand, that’ll help rake in those bucks.
GAMBLE:
Any win can go into the card round. The dealer turns 1 card face up, you pick 1 of 4 face-down cards, and beating the dealer doubles the win. You can go 10 attempts deep.
Pick a card of the same value as the dealer's and it's a draw, so the win stands and you get another attempt. The Joker beats every other card, and the dealer can never be dealt one. The "Take Win" button quits and collects.
The dealer winning any round takes the whole accumulated win and ends it. Keep risking regardless of what's face up and you land on an 84% average.
Card by card, it's 162% against a 2, 121% against a 3, 113% against a 4, and 101% against a 5.
A 6, 7 or 8 pays exactly 100%, and then it slides: 92% against a 9, 78% against a 10, 69% against a Jack, 66% against a Queen, 64% against a King, and 42% against an Ace.
Performance
Now, I'll point fingers at a game that doesn't distinguish itself in terms of design or ingenuity, but I do like my games to perform exactly the same way, which is reliably. Actually, that's exactly what we had here.
Maximum Win
The max multiplier of 1,200x at the top bet of $320 produces the max win of $384,000. The minimum bet is $0.20.
Conclusion
The slot's money comes from the expanding Wild on reels 2, 3 and 4, which turns a 3-symbol Woman line into a 5-symbol one.
Free Spins is where that Wild’s guaranteed to show up, but there’s no quick way to gain entry; you have no choice but to sit and wait for Scatters.
Now about that 1,200x max multiplier (which isn’t all that great at the medium end of the volatility). The best 5-of-a-kind on the paytable is 125x, so the top prize needs several lines paying at once across the middle 3 reels stuffed with Wilds to achieve that end.
It also needs a Free Spins round that has retriggered at least once. That happens to somebody - definitely not to me.
The Gamble is the only shortcut and at 84%, it's a paid one. Doubling 10 times deep is the only route from a small win to a large one, but that means beating the dealer 10 times running at an average return below break-even.
Use the Gamble against a 2 through 5, where the printed math is on your side, and hit "Take Win" the second a 9 or higher turns up - that would be my strategy.
Slot Details
Game Provider: Endorphina
Game Type: Video Slots
PaylinesPaylines are preset lines that run across the reels, and when you land matching symbols on them, that will result in a payout. The more paylines, the more ways you can win, but also the higher your bet per spin.: 20
RTPRTP stands for “Return to Player.” The RTP describes the total bet amount that a game returns to players over millions of spins, and that figure is represented by a percentage. Table games, such as Roulette, typically have higher RTPs than many slots.
RTP needs to be considered in conjunction with a game’s volatility rate.: 96%
Volatility RateSlot games can have low, medium, high, or extremely high volatility rates (or a combination thereof).
The less volatile the game, the more often it should pay out, but the lower the amount, the less the payout, as this is in keeping with the risk you’re taking. Volatility rate should be considered in conjunction with a game’s RTP.: Low/Medium
Bonus Round: No
Progressive: No
Free Rounds: Free Spins
Max Multiplier: 1,200x
Max Win: $384,000
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