Get your shovels ready and put on your torches, as Hit the Gold! takes us deep into dank mines filled with wild symbols, free spins, a hold-and-win feature and four fixed jackpot prizes.
We’ve played our fair share of hold-and-win games in the past. Unfortunately, most of them turned out to be barebones experiences with limited features and a win potential that isn’t particularly worth your while. But none of this applies to Hit the Gold!
Title:
Hit the Gold!
Game Developer:
3 Oaks
Release Date
2021
Layout:
5 x 3
Paylines:
25
RTP:
95.60%
Volatility:
Medium
Minimum / Maximum Bet:
₹25/₹6,000
Maximum Win:
2,000x
Bonus Features:
Wilds, Scatters, Bonus Symbols, Free Spins, Hold and Spin, Fixed Jackpot
3 Oaks manages to fit in wild symbols, scatters and free spins on top of a rewarding hold-and-win feature. With the slot’s medium level of volatility, we ended up triggering quite a lot of them, even hitting the hold and win bonus twice within our first 30 spins.
Wilds – The miner himself is Hit the Gold!’s wild symbol, stepping in for any missing pay symbols that could form a winning combination. He also comes with a maximum payout of 12x your stake for five identical symbols and although we never quite hit that level, the wild symbol still helped us put together some satisfying wins.
Scatters – As your key into free spins, you’ll need to put together three scatter symbols to access the bonus rounds. They’re not the easiest to land, but once you manage to land three scatter symbols, you’re rewarded with eight free spins.
Free Spins – These bonus rounds play out in the same way as the base game, with one big difference. All low-pay symbols are removed, so you can only land high-paying wins and three scatter symbols will add another eight free spins to your tally. We managed to get quite a few good wins here, even hitting ₹150,000 at one point, but these wins never came close to the hold and win’s offerings.
Hold and Win – Six bonus symbols trigger the hold and win bonus. We were quite lucky with this and managed to trigger it twice in less than 30 spins. As soon as the bonus hits, the reels are cleared, and the triggering symbols are stuck in place. You get three respins, during which you can land bonus symbols with up to 16x prizes. You can also land one of three jackpot prizes, or even a mystery symbol.
Jackpot – You can land a mini, minor or major jackpot symbol during the hold and win bonus, which awards you with 20x, 50x and 150x your bet respectively. You could also land a mystery symbol to reveal a random jackpot prize. But the biggest prize is the grand jackpot, earned by covering the reels with 15 symbols. We didn’t land anything above the mini jackpot but got our biggest win from a combination of eight bonus symbols with two mini jackpots that gave us a huge ₹450,000.
Hit the Gold! hits the nail on the head, with a great set of features that trigger quite often. It adds a hold-and-win mechanic with four jackpots on top of wild symbols and free spins, giving you plenty of action to look forward to. It made us feel like something big could happen at any given moment, and that thrill kept us pushing for bigger and better rewards.
So, ultimately, we’d recommend Hit the Gold! to both beginner and veteran video slot players. It’s easy enough to follow and has loads of win potential, with the grand jackpot awarding up to ₹12,000,000.
Big Time Gaming merges hold and win mechanics with Megaways reels in Apollo Pays. You get up to 117,649 ways to win, and a staggering maximum payout of 26,900x. RTP is also a bit higher at 96.56%, but so is volatility, which is clocked at a high setting.
Relax Gaming’s Money Train might just be the most popular hold-and-win slot out there. It comes with better RTP at 96.2%, as well as a high maximum payout of 20,000x your stake. But volatility is also increased, so don’t expect to be landing very frequent wins through this high setting.