Wild Gambler Video Slot review
Wild Gambler is an Ash Gaming video slot game with an African wildlife theme that has 5 reels and 20 paylines. Wild Gambler boasts features never seen before in a slot game and caters to high stake players. It features a free spins bonus feature as well as a feature where you can choose to keep wilds from 1 spin to the next. Wild Gambler can be played from 20p to £200 a spin.
The Lock & Spin feature is unique and a brand new feature where you can lock Wilds so they remain for the next spin. Keeping wild symbols will obviously increase your chance of winning so the cost of doing this is higher. You will see the cost displayed in the Lock & Spin button and will vary depending on where the wilds are on the reels.
If the cost for the spin goes up a lot, a warning message will appear asking if you want to continue – this will happen on the first time you select Lock & Spin. There is also a checkbox asking if you want to automatically lock new wilds for the next Lock & Spin. You can also keep selected wilds. If new wilds appear and are locked, the stake will increase accordingly. There is a greater chance of wins though. You can also reduce the cost of the Lock & Spin feature too if you like.
The Wild symbol is the Lion symbol and if you get 5 of them on an active payline, you will trigger the 1,000 coin jackpot – that’s a cool 2,000 times your stake. What’s good about the wild is that if they appear in the free spins feature, they will remain in place (i.e. sticky)
Moving on to the Free Spins Bonus feature – getting 5 Meerkat symbols will show 5 letters (to spell Bonus) which will in turn trigger the bonus round. You will get 8 free spins and any wilds that were on the reels to trigger the bonus round will remain in place for the free spins. As mentioned, any new wilds that appear will also be locked and remain throughout the free spins. The only negative is that free spins cannot be retriggered.
Wild Gambler is a little strange to me and I consider it a medium variance slot. I quite like the Lock & Spin feature but I rarely seem to make a decent return long term. Ash Gaming have released Wild Gambler 2 (Arctic Adventure) so it must be popular but it’s just not for me. I prefer some of their other titles like Leprechaun’s Luck. If you’re looking for animal-themed slots, you can’t go wrong with Piggy Riches by NetEnt which is a classic.
