Mining remains a popular theme for slots, and it’s easy to see why - think about how much of a gamble digging down through the bowels of the earth in the search of treasure is! Pragmatic Play has never been one to buck trends, which is why Gold Rush is its straightforward take on the genre. Here are 5 reels, 3 rows, and 25 paylines to form down the mine, together with dynamite wilds and a progressive free spins wild. Now get your pickaxes and helmets, it’s time to head down the mine in our definitive Gold Rush slot review.
Gold Rush sticks to the basic modern video slot setup with its 5 reels, 3 rows, and 25 fixed paylines. Paylines are formed the traditional way by landing 3 or more matching symbols on adjacent reels. Winning combinations always start from the leftmost reel, moving from the left to the right.
Pragmatic Play ranks the volatility of this slot game as 4/5, making it pretty high in our book. This means plenty of non-winning spins await, although there’s always a chance of a potentially larger win just round the corner.
The RTP is fairly generous at 96.5%, and it’s paired with wins that can reach up to 500x the stake during the free spins feature. As for the betting range this starts from as little as £0.25 to reach up to £125, satisfying all levels of players.
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Pragmatic Play has a reputation for good looking slots, and Gold Rush is no exception here. Admittedly we’re all familiar with the scene - a mine tunnel lit by lanterns, a bearded prospector, a donkey, a cart filled with gold nuggets - but it’s all nicely rendered and accompanied by appropriate banjo and harmonica music that gets livelier as you land winning combinations.
As we’ve mentioned the symbols on the reels should prove as familiar as the setting. On the high-paying side you’ll find the jolly prospector, a mine cart, his donkey, a lantern, and a pickaxe, while the low pays consist of the A, K, Q, J, and 10 card royals. The dynamite wilds can substitute for all symbols except the scatter, which features the entrance to the mine, and gold nugget symbol. The scatters are found on reels 2, 3, and 4, and landing all 3 triggers the free spins, which is when the nuggets come into play on the reels.
Since we’ve mentioned the symbols we might as well tell you how much each is worth in a winning combination:
Queen
3 - 0.2x bet / 4 - 0.8x bet / 5 - 2x bet
King
3 - 0.4x bet / 4 - 0.8x bet / 5 - 2x bet
Ace
3 - 0.4x bet / 4 - 0.8x bet / 5 - 3x bet
Pick Axe
3 - 0.8x bet / 4 - 2x bet / 5 - 4x bet
Lantern
3 - 0.8x bet / 4 - 4x bet / 5 - 8x bet
Donkey
3 - 1x bet / 4 - 5x bet / 5 - 12x bet
Mine cart
3 - 1x bet / 4 - 6x bet / 5 - 16x bet
Prospector
3 - 1x bet / 4 - 8x bet / 5 - 20x bet
There’s no point releasing a slot in this day and age if it isn’t compatible with mobile devices, so it’s good to know that Gold Rush is playable on just about anything that can handle a modern internet browser. This is thanks to HTML5, a technology that allows for the development of mobile-compatible games complete with rich visuals and sound. Better still, you don’t need to download any additional software to enjoy Gold Rush on the go.
Landing the 3 scatters found on the middle reels awards you with a round of 10 free spins. These add the gold nugget symbol to all reels. Landing a nugget awards you with a point, and getting enough points progresses by a level. There are 4 levels in total, with each adding more high paying prospector symbols to the reels. Here’s what the levels involve:
If you manage to get the number of points required to progress up a level on your last free spin then you’ll get an additional spin. You can also get more free spins by landing scatters, as each scatter that hits adds +2 free spins to the total. There is no limit to the amount of free spins you can get this way. It goes without saying but the free spins are played using special reels.
Play’n GO is a dependable name as far as slots go, and Gold Rush makes for a pleasant, if perhaps unexceptional, addition to its portfolio. It looks and sounds nice enough, and while regular spins can be lacking in excitement the free spins do have that fun progressive feature that proved very entertaining in our experience. The RTP is also solid at 96.5%, and the high volatility means the action brings its share of ups and downs. This is perhaps one for the mining genre fans, but as modest as it looks we had a good time with it.
Rating: 7.5
These are some questions we’ve been asked about playing the Gold Rush slot.