Donny Dough
By Hacksaw Gaming
Donny Dough by Hacksaw Gaming invites you to spin the reels for a shot at winning 10,000x your stake. It has medium volatility and a solid default RTP of 96.23%. The payline set up is simple, with just 14 lines to win across. Though, there are possibilities to create bigger wins in the 2 free spins rounds, the addition of Multi-Dough symbols with massive multipliers is the easiest way to reach those higher wins in the base game.
| Game Name | Donny Dough |
|---|---|
| Developer | Hacksaw Gaming |
| Theme(s) | Wealth |
| Release Date | 14.08.24 |
| Rows | 4 |
| Reels | 5 |
| Paylines | 14 |
| Volatility | Medium |
| RTP Rate | 96.23% | 94.36% | 92.34% | 88.31% |
| Max Win | 10,000x |
| Min Bet | £0.10 |
| Format | 5-Reel |
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Review Scorecard
What Our Reviewer Says …
A slot that doesn't mess about - this game is about money, and big, big multipliers!
What We Like
- Fun gameshow style theme
- Chance build big, big multiplier wins
- Revealing multipliers go up to 500x in value
- Two free spins rounds to play for
What We Didn't Like
- Low RTP at some slot sites - check before you play
- The best features rarely drop due to high volatility
Theme and Design
On reading the title Donny Dough, I’ll be honest, I thought this was going to be a baking themed slot. However, on opening the game it’s clear that Donny is into dough as in money. He’s got dollar signs for eyes and a cane that looks like it’s been stolen from Snoop Dogg. The illustration style is kooky and cartoony, not unlike the cult favourite video game Cuphead.
The set up feels sort of like a gameshow, with spotlights and stage curtains. With Donny Dough himself as the compere and the player the contestant. Considering that ‘winning money’ might not at first seem a very inventive theme for a slot machine, this game has something about it. The design is all there, the colour scheme is dazzling, the character himself is captivating. It’s a winner.
RTP and Variance
Donny Dough boasts four available RTP rates: 96.23%, 94.36%, 92.34% or 88.31%. If you’re playing at the high end then that’s perfectly acceptable, but do check as the remaining three options are less than ideal, with the lowest being abysmal.
The volatility on this game is high, which isn’t surprising considering the pretty generous max win.
Maximum Win
The max win of 10,000x your stake is definitely tempting and combined with the default RTP it’s pretty generous too. If you’ve got a big enough bankroll to weather the losing streaks that sometimes come with high volatility then this slot could be a winner.
And if you want to stick with Hacksaw Gaming and play for more money you could try 2 Wild 2 Die (15,000x max win) or RIP City (12,500x max win).
Symbols and Paytable
Donny Dough features a 5 reel, 4 row setup with 14 paylines. Wins require at least three matching symbols on consecutive reels. Wins start on the leftmost reel.
The game has 10 pay symbols and a scatter, but interestingly no wild. The low value symbols include clubs, diamonds, spades, and hearts, each awarding 2.5x the stake for five of a kind. Premium symbols are coins, banknotes, a bag of coins, a safe, and diamonds, offering payouts from 5x to 10x the bet for five on a payline.
Features and Gameplay
Hacksaw Gaming are well known for their mathematical mechanics and Donny Dough is no different. Let’s take a look at how all of the features work.
Lootlines and Multi-Dough Symbols
Lootlines are those formed from the special Multi Dough symbols and they contain POWERFUL multipliers.
Donny's head acts as the special multi dough symbol with four variations. When these symbols form a win, their values are combined left to right. If the first is a multiplier, it’s treated as an adding value. Below are the values for each of the multi-dough symbols:
- Adding: Values range from 1x to 10x.
- Revealing Adding: Values between 15x to 500x, hidden until revealed.
- Multiplying: Values from x2 to x5.
- Revealing Multiplying: Values from x6 to x25, also hidden initially.
NOTE: Revealing symbols land with ?s first which reveal their multiplier values when the reels stop. They are potentially more powerful as you can see, making for moments of suspense!
Sticky Dough Bonus
This bonus round begins with 10 free spins when you land 3 scatter symbols. Multi-Dough symbols stick in place until they help form a win, then disappear on the next spin. You can earn extra spins (+2 or +4) by landing 3, or 4 more scatters.
Strike Gold Bonus
Triggered by landing 4 scatter symbols, this round begins with 10 free spins. Winning with Multi-Dough symbols lights up bulbs above the reels that had the win on them. If Donny's Hat lands, it triggers a respin, adding a set number of Multi-Dough symbols based on the lit bulbs. Donny's Hat is guaranteed to land on the last spin, with the additional chance to earn extra spins. And if you land more scatter symbols then you are also awarded more spins.
Final Verdict
Hacksaw Gaming have got to the very essence of slots gaming with the design for this slot - money. Whether we admit it or not, all of us play slots in some part at least because we love winning, though it seems there’s nobody who loves winning quite as much as Donny. This guy has donated his face to the cause, in the form of win-boosting multi dough symbols.
The remainder of the features are all flawless too, with the potential to create much larger wins. However, there’s a good chance of landing some decent wins in the base game as well. The lower RTP rates in this game could be a bit of a sticking point, but assuming you’re playing with the 96.23% RTP then you can’t go far wrong. The medium volatility is fairly budget friendly and that max win of 10,000x your stake hits right at the sweet spot.
Testing Notes
Test spins and results analysis by Mark Wadie.
Results from 250 spins for free on Donny Dough on Hacksaw Gaming’s test servers.
- Stake Size: 1
- Start balance: 5,000
- End balance: 4,885.40
- Hit Rate: 28.8% (72 winning spins in 250)
- Biggest Win: 18x
- Bonus Round: 0
Donny Dough proved to be as tight as you might expect a high variance Hacksaw Gaming slot to be. The win rate was good at 28.8%, so nearly 1 in 3 spins producing a win of some kind. However, they were generally small in value, so I still ran the balance down fast.
The name of the game here is building big wins across Lootlines with Multi Dough symbols that all carry multipliers that either add together or multiply. With values of up to 500x on the adding multipliers and 25x on the multiplying multipliers, things can go epic on a good day. It wasn’t to be this time though and the biggest win was an 18x from 4 multi doughs - a 1x, 2x, 3x and 2x. The first two were adders and the second two multipliers. So the win was 1x plus 2x = 3x, multiplied by 3x = 9x, multiplied by 2x = 18x. That’s the other thing about this game – you need to be a maths whizz to figure out the wins. That might put you off but those big multipliers will be worth hanging in for if that’s your thing.
Two other points – I rarely saw a revealing dough symbol (the ones carrying the higher multiplier values) and I didn’t get a sniff of the free spins round in 250 spins. I think that tells you all you need to know about how challenging this game might be.
Who Made Donny Dough?
- Name: Hacksaw Gaming
- UK License: 54059
- Total Games: 50 +
- Known For: Dark, high variance output and bonus rounds driven by combining multipliers
- Popular Slots: Hand of Anubis, Itero, Gladiator Legends, Break Bones
