Buck Stakes Entertainment is a new software house formed in 2021 by a group of South African programmers. The company quickly obtained an exclusive license to publish their games via Microgaming’s platform, ensuring that their 9 Skulls of Gold online slot should be widely available by the time you read this. We’ve got 20 fixed pay lines, a 96.33% RTP, and no cap on your winnings – a reasonably good start, but things get much more exciting when you check out the feature set.
The game features a “Firepot” feature awards cash prizes and free spins in return for landing the bandana-wearing skull scatter symbols, as well as a second set of scatter and golden scatter symbols that award a free spin bonus round. The bonus round begins with a bonus wheel that determines the number of spins and multiplier, up to a maximum of 30 spins at 3x. All re-triggers will award the same number of spins you initially hit on the wheel, which should make those large numbers of spins even more valuable than you initially suspect.
Do you think you have what it takes to collect nine skulls and take home the maximum Firepot of 2,000x your bet? If so, maybe skip straight to playing this slot for real … or you could always stick to our free demo slot of 9 Skulls of Gold instead, available below:
| Provider | Microgaming |
| Reels | 5 |
| Rows | 3 |
| Paylines | 20 |
| Bonus Rounds | 1 |
| Bet Range | 0.20 - 125 |
| Volatility | High |
| Max Win | 2,000x |
| Bonus Buy | No |
| RTP | 96.33% |
| Our Rating | 7.4 |
9 Skulls Of Gold Slot Casino Bonuses
9 Skulls Of Gold Slot Free Play
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9 Skulls Of Gold Slot Theme, Stakes, Pays & Symbols
9 Skulls of Gold is another pirate-themed online slot, although the theme isn’t so overdone as to tempt me into talking like a pirate this time… perhaps I’m just having an off day? Many other pirate-themed games are much more extreme with their swashbuckling vibes – think ELK Studios’ “Wild Seas”, Leander’s “Blackbeard”, or Playtech’s “Captain’s Treasure”, for example. This game reminds me a little more of machines such as Chests of Plenty, but there are still plenty of pirates dotted around the reels if you enjoy that kind of thing.
The Firepot prizes top the paytable; during the base game, these start with one and five free spins for three and four skull symbols, respectively, and max out at 2,000x your bet for all nine skulls. Things work similarly in the bonus round, except for swapping out the small free spin rewards for small cash prizes. The wild symbol will pay you more than anything else, at 125x the bet for a full pay line of five-of-a-kind, much more than the highest-paying regular symbol, the triple lucky sevens, which have a return of 37.5x for all five. There are a few surprises to be found in the regular symbols – many combinations award free spins rather than cash prizes, just as we saw earlier with the Firepot prizes. Three of the triple lucky sevens will award three spins, for example. The double lucky sevens will pay you 20x your bet for a full pay line of those, followed by 7.5x for the single lucky seven or 2.5x for any combination of different lucky seven symbols. There are four low-paying symbols, represented by characters rather than the more typical (and boring) royals or playing card suits, but unfortunately, the payouts of between 1x and 2x your bet are not very exciting!
The betting range is particularly wide, starting at a minimum of €0.20 for each spin and maxing out a more than sufficient €125.00 per spin at the other end of the scale. There are plenty of intervals along the way and several quick bet buttons.
Base Game & Modifiers
The base game uses a regular 5×3 playfield, a reasonable size for a game with 20 paylines, with most winning combinations being awarded for hitting three or more matching symbols from the left of the screen. There are a handful of exceptions, most notably the Firepot prizes shown in a secondary paytable on the left of the main reel set.
Spins Feature
Naming a feature as the “spins feature” seems like an unusual choice for an online slot – after all, what else would you do with an online slot but spin it? What Buck Stakes Entertainment is getting at with this is that you can win spins by hitting regular symbol combinations, which is somewhat unusual.
The lower paying symbols can award one or two free spins, while the higher paying symbols can award three or five, depending on the exact combination. The Firepot symbols award either one or five free spins for the lowest number of paying symbols.
9 Skulls Of Gold Slot Bonus Features
The 9 Skulls of Gold slot game includes a handful of bonus rounds and features; I couldn’t decide if the Firepot prizes should be listed under the base game section or this one but decided on this one in the end as the Firepots can be won both in the base game and during the free spins’ bonus round.
Firepots
A symbol of a skull wearing a bandana can appear in both the base game and during the free spins and will award you either a cash prize or some free spins depending on the number of symbols that appear together.
Three or four Firepot symbols during the base game will award one or five free spins or 1x or 5x your bet during the free spins bonus round.
The higher combinations award 2000x, 500x, or 100x your bet for nine, eight, or seven skulls, respectively, during both the base game and free spins.
Free Spins Feature
Three “free spins” scatter symbols appearing during the base game will send you to the bonus wheel, where you will get to try your luck at winning as many free spins, and as big a multiplier, as possible.
During the bonus round, chests can land on the reels, which may contain golden scatter symbols – these will add five free spins to your remaining counter. Additionally, you can win a full re-trigger of the same number of spins you hit on the initial bonus wheel by hitting three more scatters whilst the bonus round is in play.
The scatters only appear on reels two, three, and four, so there is no opportunity to hit additional ones for a better bonus round. There is a small cash payout of 2x your bet when triggering the bonus round as well.
9 Skulls Of Gold Slot Review Final Thoughts
I can see why Microgaming liked this game – it’s a fun pirate-themed adventure with reasonably high payout potential. Whilst this is not the best slot you’ll play this year, it’s definitely worth a blast, and I will be intrigued to see what this developer comes up with in the future – there are certainly lots of potential here.
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