Western Gold 3 Slot Review
On every ranch, the one job nobody wants is the wrangler. The poor dude who has to catch, break, and herd the horses 🐴 that the rest of the crew won't go near. It's almost always the new guy.
Out of pure boredom, someone started betting on how long the new guy could stay on the back of a bucking horse.
The rodeo was born into existence because ranch hands needed something to do between cattle drives and a way to initiate the newbies.
Western Gold 3 slot, from Quickfire, lifts the name for its random in-play trigger, the Wrangler Spin, and stacks a row of horse-headed Bonus symbols behind it so you can't miss the reference.
Behind the reels a lone rider drifts across a sunset prairie, a cowboy hat 🤠 sits down among the cheap symbols, and a giant gold Horseshoe 💰 carries the whole prize ladder on its back.
Gameplay
The reels sit against that sunset prairie with the rider silhouetted off in the distance, boxed in by an ornate gold scrollwork frame. The prize ladder wears an "Epic Strike" logo on screen.
Down at the bottom you've got crossed pistols, a cowboy hat, a pair of boots and a hand of playing cards. Above them sit 4 tiers of chrome BAR symbols, then a blue 777 and a gold coin stamped with a big W at the top.
Scatter Horseshoes and 4 Bonus characters fill out the rest: a bearded cowboy, a black horse on green, a white horse on blue, and a paired black-and-white horse on pink.
The game runs on a 5x4 grid with 40 fixed paylines, paying left to right on adjacent reels. 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 96.05%, and the volatility is very high.
The max multiplier reaches 10,000x for a max win of $250,000.
Bets run from $0.20 to $25 a spin, and you're on FIAT only here, with the Japanese yen locked out.
That gold W coin doubles as the Wild symbol, and it shares the top of the paytable with the blue 777. Both pay 20x for 5-of-a-kind, 6x for 4, and 1.5x for 3.
The chrome BARs handle the middle: triple Bar up to 10x, double Bar up to 8x, single Bar up to 6x, and the mixed Bar icon up to 2.5x, each stepping down for shorter combinations.
The bottom tier barely registers. Crossed pistols and the cowboy hat pay 1.5x for 5-of-a-kind, while the boots and playing cards manage 1x.
Wilds substitute for everything except the Scatter and Bonus symbols, and they'll pay on their own line too. Every Wild that lands in the base game gets collected, feeding the Wrangler Spin.
That Wrangler Spin hands out a cash prize anywhere from 5x to 10,000x, or drops you into the Stack Bonus, Cash Bonus or Double Bonus mode. Each Wild you've banked shortens the odds of it firing.
Land 4 or more Scatter Horseshoe symbols on a single spin and you're paid off the Base Game Prize Ladder, which starts at 1x for 4 and climbs all the way to 10,000x if you fill 15 positions.
A Stack Horseshoe counts as 2 to 6 regular Scatter Horseshoes on that ladder, and a Cash Horseshoe carries a random value up to 1,000x that's added onto whatever ladder payout it joins.
The 4 Bonus symbols split up by reel. The bearded cowboy shows on reels 2 and 3, while Cash Bonus, Stack Bonus and Double Bonus horse heads live exclusively on reel 4, each opening a different mode of the Free Spins round.
Cash Bonus and Stack Bonus symbols also drop tokens into their own running pots whenever they land, and Double Bonus symbols top up both pots at once.
Features
FREE SPINS:
You get in by landing a Bonus symbol on reels 2 and 3 alongside one of the 3 special Bonus symbols on reel 4. It can also fire at random when a special Bonus symbol turns up on its own.
Level 1 starts you with 3 spins on a 5x4 grid and a 2x prize, which isn't where you want to finish.
Collect enough Scatter Horseshoe symbols inside those spins and you climb a level, which resets the spin count back to 3 and adds a row to the grid. Level 8 tops out at 5x10.
Levels 2 through 7 pay 5x, 15x, 25x, 50x, 100x and 1,000x, respectively, and Level 8 pays the full 10,000x. Run out of spins before you climb and the round closes at whatever level you're standing on.
Stack Bonus:
A Stack Horseshoe symbol counts as 2 to 10 regular Scatter Horseshoes toward the level total in this mode.
Cash Bonus:
Cash Horseshoe symbols carry a random value from 1x to 100x, added to every level prize except the one being won on the spin it lands.
Double Bonus:
Double Bonus runs the Stack Bonus and Cash Bonus mechanics together in the same round.
BUY BONUS AND BOOST:
The Horseshoe Frenzy Buy Bonus costs 10x your current bet and guarantees at least 4 Scatter Horseshoe symbols on that spin, so you're paid the Base Game Prize Ladder's bottom tier at worst. It can't trigger the Wrangler Spin or the Free Spins round.
The Boost toggle costs 1.5x your current bet per spin and more than doubles your chance of triggering the Free Spins round.
Performance
The game ran without a single issue across the whole test session.
Maximum Win
The max win is $250,000, reached through the max multiplier of 10,000x at the top bet of $25. The smallest bet you can place is $0.20.
Conclusion
The slot's top prize comes out of one mechanic you can reach 2 ways: piling up Scatter Horseshoe symbols all at once in the base game, or collecting them level by level through the Free Spins round.
Hitting every Scatter you need on a single base-game spin, across 20 symbol positions, is a lottery ticket with cowboy boots on.
Climbing the Free Spins ladder to Level 8 is still a grind, but the grid grows each time you clear a level, so you're given repeated chances to collect instead of needing one perfect spin.
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. of 96.05% supports longer sessions, and the very high volatility sits alongside a max multiplier right at the top of what that risk tier tends to offer.
The Horseshoe Frenzy Buy Bonus guarantees a Base Game Prize Ladder payout, but it shuts the door on both the Wrangler Spin and the Free Spins round, the 2 routes to the real money, so anyone chasing the ceiling should leave it alone.
The Boost toggle is the better spend, more than doubling your odds of triggering the Free Spins round for a fraction of the cost.
Big-bet, high-variance players with the patience to grind that level ladder are the target audience here, while cautious, low-bet players should skip the slot, given the very high volatility and how thin the low and mid-tier paytable is.
Slot Details
Game Provider: Quickfire
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.: 40
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.: 96.05%
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.: Very High
Bonus Round: Yes
Progressive: No
Free Rounds: Free Spins
Max Multiplier: 10,000x
Max Win: $250,000
Published by
BitStarz, award-winning Bitcoin Casino
