Great Gold

Theme and Design

Great Gold has a retro design style and a classic art deco feel. The mix of golds and browns and angular shapes mixed with sweeping curves looks like something out of the 1930s – think Gatsby and the jazz age. The backdrop to the game itself is just stacks and stacks of gold coins with no apologies as to what the slot is about. And on the reels themselves its all classic fruit machine icons including fruits, lucky 7s and clovers.

Like the game’s features that we will come onto, it doesn’t sound that interesting, but Red Tiger have done a great job of building atmosphere by mixing in a superb up-beat and funky soundtrack that comes to life when you start spinning, then drops back behind the noise of a crowded casino floor when you pause for any length of time. It’s a really effective way of creating a sense of being immersed in the reels once you start playing and it’s one of the reasons we enjoyed Great Gold.

RTP and Variance

Great Gold slot has several RTP settings: 95.66%, 93.68% or 92.04%. The level you play at will be decided by your casino. We checked three popular sites to find out what setting they were running the game on. This is what we found:

• BacanaPlay (Skill on Net): 92.4%
• Temple Nile (White Hat Gaming): 93.68%
• PlayGrand (White Hat Gaming): 93.68%

None of these sites were offering Great Gold at its optimum 95.66% RTP but the White Hat sites offered the best return on your wagering. Wherever you choose to play we recommend that you check the RTP in the game info screen before spinning so you know what to expect.

Overall, the optimum RTP of 95.66% is under the average for UK slots. If you are looking for better value from your wagering with Red Tiger you could try Zeus Lightning Power Reels (97.73%) or Mystery Reels Megaways (96.18%).

As for the variance, this online slot has a high volatility. So you can expect an uneven win distribution. In testing wins were relatively frequent but we did not see anything over a 20x in 100 spins.

Maximum Win

The maximum win in Great Gold is 7,608x. That is not bad, and most likely only achievable  in the bonus round with free spins and sticky wild reels. Many high variance slots these days offer a better maximum payout. For those looking for still bigger wins from Red Tiger you could try a game like Gonzo’s Quest Megaways (21,000x) or Wanted Wildz (15,000x).

Symbols and Paytable

Great Gold is a five reel slot with four rows on each and 10 fixed paylines. There are just eight basic pay symbols and a Wild to form wins from.

It’s as simple set up but Great Gold offers good value across the paytable.

The four low value symbols are the fruits, cherries, lemons, oranges and plums. They are valued at between 0.5x for three cherries up to 7.5x for five plums. The higher value symbols are the clover, star, crown and triple 7. These are valued at between 1x for 3 clovers and 50x for five triple 7s.

The Wild, as well as substituting in to complete win lines, also pays out 50x for five on a line. These symbols are a big part of the gameplay as we shall see.

Features and Gameplay

Great Gold is a fairly pacey game once you start spinning. Wins were pretty regular in testing with the occasional wild or two helping to complete win lines.

It gets more interesting when the Wild Activator feature launches. It can happen any time in the base game or free spins round. Between 4 and 8 wilds are added to the reels during an animation which sees the wild symbols rain down from the top of the reel set.

Once the wilds are added your spin takes place. Essentially it means you have greater odds of winning with this spin. We triggered this twice during testing and it produced mediocre wins of 20x. However, the potential is there for much bigger when these wilds combine with symbols in the high end of the paytable.

There is also a free spins round where wilds are again a significant feature. Firstly, you need to trigger it. This is done by landing three or more scatters across reels 1, 3 and 5. This will get you 10 spins. The fun part is the progressive element which takes the form of four light bulbs that now sit at the top of each reel. To light each up you need to land a Wild on the reel beneath it. It’s a race to light all four bulbs atop any reel before your spins run out. Because once you do, you get 2 extra spins and that reel will turn fully wild AND sticky for the rest of the bonus round.

Of course, if you trigger the Wild Activator during free spins, by adding another 4 to 8 wilds to the reels you will increase your chances of completing a set of lights and turning a reel sticky wild. In fact, there is the potential to turn ALL reels wild in this way to give you that maximum 7,608x win.