The visuals and soundtrack accompanying Pragmatic Play’s Gold Oasis slot have a definite ‘Aladdin’ or ‘Arabian Nights’ kind of feel to them – but does its gameplay live up to its exciting title? First impressions provide a mixed bag – we do get a better-than-average maximum jackpot prize of 7,260x the total bet via a 243-pay way playfield. As for the RTP, the developer provides a figure of 96.06%, irrespective of the game mode used.
The feature set is also a little different from the norm; the first item of note to feature on the paytable is dubbed the ‘symbol duel’ and is a modifier that can occur during any random base game spin. When that happens, one paying symbol replaces all instances between two and ten of the other paying symbols – it’s a little bit like having mystery symbols, although far superior in my view. Bonus scatters are only present on three of the game’s five reels, and you’ll need all three of them to win five free spins. You can also collect additional scatters during the bonus round to win extra spins and symbol duels. A bonus buy facility is available with two options priced at 100x and 200x the total bet.
If I’m stuck in the desert, I think I’d probably like to find a real oasis with water a tad more than one made of gold – however, when it comes to online slots, I think that we can all agree that gold is king! You can give Pragmatic Play’s Gold Oasis slot demo a spin yourself; it’s available to play below:
| Provider | Pragmatic Play |
| Reels | 5 |
| Rows | 3 |
| Paylines | 243 |
| Bonus Rounds | 1 |
| Bet Range | 0.20 - 240 |
| Volatility | High |
| Max Win | 7,260x |
| Bonus Buy | Yes |
| RTP | 96.06% |
| Our Rating | 6.5 |
Gold Oasis Casino Bonuses
Gold Oasis Demo
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Gold Oasis Slot Theme, Stakes, Pays & Symbols
There have been a reasonable number of successful attempts to create online slots with this type of theme – take Red Tiger’s Ali Baba’s Luck, for example, which we scored at 7.5 in our review roughly 18 months ago. Pragmatic Play themselves also made a decent crack at it with their Book of Kingdoms online slot. Whenever a theme proves popular with slot players, developers have a habit of creating a few too many similar games in the following weeks and months – you only have to look at the endless flood of fishing-themed slots for a perfect example of this! Thankfully, the Gold Oasis slot is a well-presented example of the genre with a better-than-average jackpot, but it certainly won’t win any awards for originality.
Where things really begin to go a little haywire though is in respect of the game’s paytable – the top character symbols only have payouts of 6x, 4.5x, 3.5x, and 2.5x, which seem awfully low even for a 243-way machine. There are two further medium-paying symbols with returns of 2x and 1.5x, after which we’re only left with five standard royals paying between 0.75x and 1x for a full pay line of five-of-a-kind. There’s also a small payout for hitting all three scatter symbols; sadly, at just 2x, I almost feel like this does not even warrant a mention!
Many slot developers have begun to reign in the maximum betting limits offered by their slots, but Pragmatic Play is yet to join that trend. As such, Gold Oasis has minimum/maximum permitted stakes of €0.20 and €240.00 per spin, respectively, and the three-way bet selection setup makes it possible to choose from a wide range of intermediate values as well.
Gold Oasis Slot Base Game
The Gold Oasis slot utilises a traditional five-reel, three-row video slot layout with all 243 possible paths from left to right activated for winning combinations. Games that use payways rather than paylines make it much easier to see your wins, as you only require three or more matching symbols on adjacent reels starting from the left. Ways-based slots also tend to pay out more frequently, but the flip side is that those wins are likely to be much smaller than you might expect from a game that uses paylines.
Symbol Duel
On any base game spin, a duel modifier can occur at random. When that happens, one paying symbol is chosen for the paytable, and all instances of between 2 and 10 other paying symbols will be transformed to match the selected symbol.
Gold Oasis Slot Bonus Features
Hitting all three of the scatter symbols present on reels one, three, and five will award you a free spins feature that begins with five spins on your remaining counter.
Free Spins Feature
In this mode, all winning combinations – even those that consist of just three or four symbols – will still pay as a five of a kind. Additionally, any scatters that land whilst the feature is in play will be collected at the top of the screen. For every two scatters collected, a duel will occur between two paying symbols; the winning symbol of this duel will replace all instances of the other symbol on the reel strips for the remainder of the bonus round.
A maximum of 10 duels can occur during a single free spin feature. The first five duels will add two extra spins to your remaining total, whilst the following five duels will award one additional free spin.
Bonus Buy
The bonus round can be triggered directly from the base game by purchasing it. You can opt to pay 100x the current stake to trigger the regular free spins, whilst a higher fee of 200x will guarantee that the higher value symbol will always win any symbol duels that occur.
Pros
- Higher than average jackpot of more than 7,200x the total bet.
- Well-presented graphics and sound.
- The duel feature can produce extremely valuable reel strips during the bonus round.
Cons
- Super bonus mode is only available via the bonus buy facility, making it inaccessible to some players.
- Regular paytable prizes are unimpressive.
Final Thoughts
I’m not sure this has much more to offer than previous games from Pragmatic Play with a similar theme, but it’s still a fun slot with a decent jackpot and a reasonable feature set. It’s a shame that the regular paytable prizes are so low though.
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