Hit the Gold!: Hold and Win

Overview Hit the Gold!: Hold and Win

3 Oaks Gaming is back with another one of their favourite format Hold and Win slots. This latest edition to the canon of this tremendous series of slots is themed around the story of a miner and his dog looking for rich gold deposits in the belly of the earth. At first, you might be fooled into thinking this is a Scooby Doo-themed slot because the dog is the spitting image of the eponymous pooch. However, this is instead just another simple mining game. The main attraction here come from a selection of jackpots that can be won.

Features for this game include a wild bonus (look out for the male miner character) this symbol can substitute for all other regular symbols to help form new winning combinations. In addition, this game also has a free spins game that offers players 8 free spins when they manage to land 3 or more scatters on the reels. In this bonus game, the low-value symbols are removed from the reels, meaning that wins that are generated are generally much more valuable than in the base game. However, this game is about the Hold and Win bonus which gives you access to the jackpot amounts.

Theme and Symbols

As we have discussed, this game’s theme is based on mining, gold mining to be exact. In this sense, the theme looks very much like if the Golden Nuggets cereal had been turned into a slot game. Even the titular mining character with his Stenson and full blonde beard looks exactly like the Golden Nuggets mascot. 3 Oaks Gaming games were probably looking for some sort of new angle on the mining gimmick, so brought in a dog character to change things up a bit. The whole thing would look pretty shabby if it wasn’t for the high quality of the graphics and dynamics.

The background for Hit the Gold!: Hold and Win is the dark mineshaft that the daring duo is exploring, hoping to find the motherload of gold to take home. Mining, very much like playing a slot can be tedious but very rewarding if you are lucky. Behind the board, we have a corridor of hewn rock. Its texture and the way that the light from the mining lamp reflects off it makes the backdrop feel a little more realistic than some mining themed slots.

The board for this game hasn’t got too many design features apart from the gold-coloured borders which visually play very nicely with the other gold accents across the gaming screen. Atop the board is a massive pile of gold and gems, this is obviously what players and miners alike are aiming to find.

The symbols for Hit the Gold!: Hold and Win are split into low-paying, high-paying and special symbols. The lowest paying symbols in this game are the A, K, Q and J in card royals. Up from these in value are the premium symbols which are the bags of gold, gold pans, pickaxes and the faithful pooch. The most valuable symbol in this game is also the acting wild, this is the miner himself. The other specials are the free spins scatter which is an image of the entrance to the mine. The other special is the gold nugget which represents instant cash bonuses and the scatter to trigger the Hold and Win Bonus game.

Game Play

Hit the Gold!: Hold and Win is played on a 5-reel 3-row game board with 25 fixed pay lines. To achieve wins on this slot, players must match 3 of a kind on a pay line or use the special symbols to make combinations. Each combination made must start on reel 1. The betting range for Hit the Gold!: Hold and Win is 25p to £60.

To adjust their bet levels, players can toggle their stake up and down using the coins tool located to the right-hand side of the reels. Information about the slot, including the paytable and the auto spins options, can be found via the information button on the very top right-hand corner of the reels.

The volatility rating for Hit the Gold!: Hold and Win have not been disclosed by the provider. The return to player percentage for Hit the Gold!: Hold and Win also haven’t been released. The biggest payout that players can win on one spin is 2,000x their total stake on one spin.

Features

The first and simplest of the bonus features is the wild bonus. The wild for this game is the miner symbol, it can replace all regular symbols, helping players to form new combinations and wins.

The free spins feature is triggered by landing 3 or more of the mine entrance scatters anywhere on the reels on the same spin. This will provide you with 8 free spins. Landing an additional 3 or more scatters will retrigger the feature. In the free spins round, all low-paying symbols are removed from the board.

The next feature is the Hold and Win Bonus round. This feature is triggered by landing 6 or more of the golden nugget symbols. The triggering icons remain frozen to the game board while the rest of the positions spin 3 more times on their own. For every new bonus golden nugget that lands, the spins counter is refreshed to 3, with these new icons also being frozen in place.

At any time during this feature, a new mystery symbol may enter the game. This special symbol can transform into a Mini, Minor or Major symbol, which relate to the different size jackpots which can be won. The biggest jackpot, however – the Grand jackpot is won by filling all 15 positions on the board with nugget symbols.

Conclusion

3 Oaks Gaming enjoys this type of slot game, and it has worked for them in many different themes and guises before so why not a mining theme. It offers the same selection of features as Hold and Win slots usually do and has a similar top payout to games of the same design. The design quality however is high and the chance of coming home with one of those higher jackpots is always going to be a draw for players.