Best Mining Themed Slots
For different reasons, mining carries an attraction that you simply cannot find in other games. Fruits, magic, and ancient cultures might have their huge fan bases—but the fan base of mining slots is no less proliferated. Uncovering hidden gems and unlocking rewards such as free spin rounds or innovative bonus games, mining-themed slots give you everything. There is a lot of scope in establishing a narrative within moderation. Whereas you are quite limited in fruits or ancient myths and have seemingly unlimited freedom in magic or the Wild West, mining gives you just the right amount of creative freedom to create a realistic and flexible game.
What are Mining Slots?
Mining slots or mining-themed slots are slot games where the game provider has introduced elements and mechanics resembling underground mining, tunnelling, or looking for gold/diamonds/gems in one way or another. These games often follow the narrative of a central character or protagonist, the “miner.”
The symbols can range from tools such as shovels to gemstones. As for the accompanying music and the style of graphics—every provider has plenty of chances to innovate and be interesting about it. There is no decided taste you have to go with. For example, Big Time Gaming’s Bonanza Megaways is based on gold mining and offers an underground look with gold-rimmed symbols for a classy look. Pragmatic Play’s Gems Elevator keeps things simple and offers a rock-solid, neatly arranged grid with little decoration.
In fact, you can even take a cartoonish take, make the game all about a miner’s journey through the layers of earth, or make it an interesting adventure with multiple gemstone-awarding bonus games.
Why Should You Play Mining Slots?
So, why should you play these mining-themed slots? Well, the best way to explain that is to tell you why they are so popular.
The main reason is that developing a mining slot is an excellent experiment for any slot developer. It offers just the right balance. On one side, it is grounded in reality—mining has to offer gemstones or gold as a reward, for example. On the other hand, there is ample scope to set the story anywhere, replace gold with diamonds and gemstones, or make the miner poor or generally unlucky while featuring mining tools instead of gemstones!
A game based on ancient Egypt, for example, is limited by what powers Anubis is supposed to have. A fruit machine slot has no creative freedom or scope for a narrative. A slot about a magician, on the other hand, can be totally wacky and otherworldly, which can make it unpalatable for many
But mining is different. There is a realistic, grounding element here that makes it relatable. But it has a lot of scope for creative freedom, which the top game providers in the world have rightfully utilised. It is the same thing that happens with fishing-themed slots, which are incredibly popular as well—relatable enough with plenty of scope for exploring different storylines, narratives, features, and symbols.
And that is why you should play mining slot games on online casino sites! They offer a balanced enjoyment that will be long-term, much like fishing-themed slots. One man’s cliched, populous slot theme is another man’s gold—literally in the case of mining-themed slots!
Top Mining Slots Online
With so many mining slots on the market, it can be tricky to find the best ones. At Gambling Zone we have played countless titles and highlight our top picks here.
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Favourite Mining Theme Slots Games
Now that we have discussed what mining themed slots are and why they are popular or why you should play them, here are our top recommendations for the best online slots based on a mining theme that you can find on online casino sites in the UK today.
Bonanza Megaways
Bonanza Megaways by Big Time Gaming is our top recommendation. This game marks an important turn in the history of slot gaming. Though this is not the first game to feature the Megaways mechanic, which kind of replaced the earlier 243-payline system back in the day, it is the game that is still considered the first popular Megaways game. Bonanza quickly became a staple of online slot streamers who, it felt, were almost exclusively streaming only this game. It was quirky and the proper definition of “unexpected” back then.
With 2-7 expanding rows, 6 reels, 117,649 paylines, and a flat 96% RTP, this Megaways slot is the very definition of the mechanic for many. With a 12,000x max win potential, a high volatility, and a £0.20 to £20 bet range, this is sure to be a fantastic game for anyone to play.
1849 Gold Bonanza
Armadillo Studios came up with this beautiful banger of a slot with some hits and a few misses. It is a well-rounded slot game with a central quest line and amazing cash prizes. Traditional to its core, you will find Wilds, Scatters, free spins, bonus buys, and multipliers here as you grind your way through a world more akin to the Gold Rush theme than mining.
With a medium-high volatility, 94.07% RTP, and 20 betways, this is a decent slot game to play for fans who crave a little bit of Wild West in their typical mining slot games.
3 Lucky Minecarts Hold and Win
Prospect Gaming’s take on mining is a tad bit different. It has a Hold and Win mechanic as well as free spins. The bright, animated visuals surely take a departure from the gloomy, dark underground settings of a lot of other mining-themed slot games. The Hold and Win feature gives you three jackpots—Mini, Minor, and Major worth 15x, 50x, and 150x your stake, respectively.
The game has a 95.25% max RTP (slightly lower than the industry average of 96%) and 25 paylines. The max win potential is 15,000x and the bet range is £0.20 to £25.
Gem Elevator
GameArt’s Gems Elevator is a pay-anywhere game with a substantial 20,000x max win potential and a decent 96.39% RTP. This is a fairly new game and has been quick to capitalise on the hype of mining slots. Featuring an array of shiny gemstones and fast-paced action, the game is quite modern in its bonus features and mechanics.
Set inside an elevator in a gold mine shaft, the game carries a high volatility, a 6x5 layout, an accommodating £0.2 to £200 bet range, and plenty of bonus features/mechanics starting from avalanches, a pay-anywhere mechanic, multipliers, and hold and win to a cash collector, random prizes, Scatters, Wilds, and bonus buy.
Mining Rush
Pragmatic Play’s take on the mining theme is another excellent example of how to do it right. Mining Rush is, on the surface, the same formulaic approach to mining games—games that we have plenty of. You spin the reels to tumble the rocks underground hoping to extract something shiny. But there is a catch (would have been the perfect pun for a fishing-themed slot), the Nugget. This Nugget is a sticky feature that can give you cash prizes on your tumbling reels.
Mining Rush is set on a 7x7 grid and features the cluster pays mechanic. The RTP is 96.56% (95.49% and 94.51% variants also exist). The max win potential is 10,000x your bet, the volatility is high, and the bet range is from £0.20 to £240.
Mining Pots of Gold
The mining themed version of Pots of Gold, typically the territory of lucky leprechauns, from Gameburger Studios (a partner of Games Global) is quite something. It takes courage to find two of the most cliched slot game themes (leprechauns and mining) and marry them. The offspring? An overload of mining and leprechaun paraphernalia with bonus prizes and some neat tricks.
Mining Pots of Gold by Gameburger is a 5-reel, 3-row game with 20 paylines. It comes in three RTP variants of 96%, 94%, and 92%. With a high volatility and an 18.84% hit frequency, the max win is 4000x your bet and the bet range £0,20 to £60 in this fairly new slot game.
Fire in the Hole xBomb
“Why not mining?” That must have been how this game originated in a brainstorming session over at NoLimit City when the higher-ups were deciding which theme to tackle for their next star game. NoLimit City is well-known for going beyond the ordinary and delivering a highly enjoyable experience to players. With Fire in the Hole xBomb, they have done that again. It is not a run-of-the-mill mining themed slot game, but an innovative title with some massive win potential.
The game has 6 reels and 3-6 variable rows. The paylines range from 486 (3 rows) to 46,656 (6 rows). There are three RTP variants—96.06%, 94.11%, and 90.02%. With excellent bonuses and gameplay features, the game carries a whopping 60,000x max win potential, high volatility, and a moderate £0.20 to £50 bet range.
Top Mining Slot Machine Providers
Almost all major game providers have a mining-themed slot. Here are our top picks for providers who have truly innovated in this category:
Pragmatic Play
Pragmatic Play has not done anything groundbreaking in this genre but constantly improved on its offerings across the board. In terms of graphics, features, mobile responsiveness, soundtracks, bonus games, and RTP—they have only improved their mining games time and again. This makes Pragmatic Play a top contender among the top mining slot machine providers.
Big Time Gaming
Big Time Gaming’s Bonanza was the mining game that took the world by storm and introduced (in a practical sense) the Megaways mechanic. Even after that, BTG has continued to offer excellent slot game titles in the Gold Rush or mining themes, helping you collect gold and gems with the latest and greatest types of bonus features and mechanics.
NoLimit City
NoLimit City has been on a spree, with little discontinuation, to deliver excellent experiences. It is naturally likely that when they work on a theme, they have an incentive to do it really well. NoLimit’s Fire in the Hole xBomb and its sequel Fire in the Hold 2 with a 65,000x max win have changed the description of what mining-themed slots can be all about—in a good way.
Mining Slot Theme FAQs
Here are the most common questions we get asked about Mining Theme slot games.
