The Bowery Boys (Hacksaw Gaming) Slot Demo & Review

Online game provider Hacksaw Gaming are a relatively new developer, licensed in Malta, though it’s unclear if that’s where they are genuinely based. Not that it matters – these guys know what they are doing when creating online games, and The Bowery Boys slot may just be the breakthrough game they’ve been looking for. There are no pay lines in this game – all symbols are scatters, making for a unique and interesting experience. The game is set up in such a way that each spin can pay a maximum of 10,000x your stake, though the bonus round can pay much more overall. The RTP is 96.41%.

The game is full of interesting mods and features—strongboxes that land at the same time as a key can add huge prizes to your win bar, bombs can multiply your total win by up to 100x, and three different bonus modes, each offering ten free spins, complete an elaborate, innovative set of tricks and tools for grabbing yourself some huge wins.

Has our intro managed to get your interested enough to find out more of what this Hacksaw Gaming slot can offer? Then let us tell you more about it in our full slot review which features a free The Bowery Boys demo slot you can try out with unlimited credits.

The Bowery Boys Slot
ProviderHacksaw Gaming
Reels6
Rows5
PaylinesScatter Pays
Bonus Rounds1
Bet Range0.20 - 100
VolatilityHigh
Max Win10,000x
Bonus BuyYes
RTP96.41%
Our Rating8.5

Casino Bonuses


The Bowery Boys Demo Slot


The Bowery Boys Slot Theme, Stakes, Pays & Symbols

The Bowery Boys Slot
The Bowery Boys Slot paytable

Upon first look, The Bowery Boys looks like it could be a game based on the smash hit BBC show Peaky Blinders. A deeper dive into the games setting, however, reveals that it is set in the neighbourhood otherwise known as Clinton – more commonly referred to a Hell’s Kitchen. This area of New York City was inhabited primarily by Irish Americans during the late 19th century, which explains the Peaky Blinders style symbols and overall look quite nicely. This is a great theme, and Hacksaw Gaming have clearly spent a lot of time on their responsive design here – the game looks even better on my tablet than on my laptop! The background music is well written, with natural rises and falls that transition swiftly into big win effects to keep the tension high. This is one where you’ll probably want to leave the sound enabled!

Because all symbols are scatters in the Bowery Boys slot game, the paytable is laid out a little differently than usual. Hacksaw has conveniently coded this part of the game so that prizes update according to your current stake – it’s these little touches that really show off the quality of a developer like this. It takes so little time to implement, yet some companies are still too lazy to do it, leading to confusion among players. The top symbol here is Daisy, who strongly resembles Polly Gray, which pays 100x your stake if you hit 15 or more of them on a single spin. This is followed by a symbol we might call “lovers” – perhaps Tommy and his wife? This pays 75x for 15+, with the remaining picture symbols – the Knife, Gun, and Gangster – all returning 50x your stake for the maximum number of symbols. The minimum number of symbols required for any payout at all is 8, and whilst the payouts are low for 8 symbols, the mods we’ll discuss in the next section demonstrate that any win can be valuable in The Bowery Boys slot game.

The betting range starts at €0.20 per spin and tops out at true nosebleed level – €100.00 per spin You’re going to need a huge bankroll to play at these kinds of stakes, but this is the kind of game I’d definitely consider putting a few big spins through after a nice win – more like €20.00 though, not €100.00!


Base Game & Modifiers

The Bowery Boys Slot
The Bowery Boys Slot base game

All gameplay takes place on a 6×5 grid, though as mentioned, there are no paylines in this game – just match symbols anywhere onscreen and you will be rewarded with the win. With 30 spaces on screen, this means you need to fill half the screen with identical symbols to score the biggest wins. I managed 13 matching symbols during my testing – it definitely feels like 15 would be possible with just a little more luck. The setup makes for an exciting slot, especially when you add in all of the modifiers:


Cascading Reels Feature

Yup. The Bowery Boys is yet another game that will remove your wins from the screen immediately, placing them in the win bar at the top of the reels. This is important because the new symbols that drop in may help you to increase the value of your previous cascading wins. Such as…


Strongbox Feature

Back in the late 19 century, a strongbox was one of the only places to store cash safely – these were dangerous times. The Bowery Boys features three different sizes of strongbox that can pay up to 5x, 25x, or 250x your stake… however, you are going to need a key. Quite often these keys will drop in when winning symbols are removed, allowing you to open strongboxes that were already on screen.


Bomb Multiplier Feature

If you are really lucky, several bombs may land on the screen at once, or you may even get some additional bombs dropping in when cascading symbols are removed. Why would you want a bomb? Each one has a multiplier value of up to 100x, and this will be applied to your entire win bar total including the value of any strongboxes! Unfortunately, bomb values are added together rather than multiplied – that would have been extremely generous, wouldn’t it! Therefore, two 100x bomb means your win bar total wll be multiplied by 200x. The biggest bomb I saw during testing was a 75x one, and the result win was enormous.


The Bowery Boys Slot Bonus Features

The Bowery Boys Slot
The Bowery Boys Slot free spins feature

The bonus symbols can come thick and fast in the Bowery Boys video slot – just one bonus symbol will award ten strongbox free spins, whereas two will award ten Daisy’s Dynamite free spins. Finally, hitting three scattered bonus symbols will reward you with the ultimate bowery savings bank free spin feature, where the biggest wins can be found. My very first entry into this final feature resulted in a hit of 4,786x my stake – how I wish I had been playing for real money!


Strongbox Storage Free Spins

In these free spins, strongboxes are stored if you don’t happen to hit a key symbol at the same time. Up to five strongboxes can be stored, and a single key will unlock all of them as well as any that land on the reels at the same time. Get lucky and you might get to open five, ten, maybe even fifteen or more strongboxes in this round – and if the bomb multiplier lands along with your key… who knows how big your win might be?


Daisy’s Dynamite Free Spins

Daisy doesn’t mess around with keys, she just uses dynamite to blow open storage boxes instead. Dynamite multipliers will be added to the reels, and each one you score without a detonator will be stored for later. When a detonator lands, all your dynamite multipliers will be added together along with any wins from that spin, and a single huge explosion will multiply your win by up to 1,000x! You’ll need to collect lots of dynamite to achieve this huge multiplier, but you can bet people will be shooting videos of these wins for YouTube over the coming weeks.


Bowery Savings Bank Free Spins

Here’s where things get crazy – all of your wins accumulated during the Bowery Savings free spins are not only awarded to you instantly, but also stored in a separate vault as well – doubling their potential value. If a dollar symbol lands, the amount stored in your vault will be added to your win bar. The bomb multipliers are still here, but additional dice symbols are also added to the reels which can multiply the value of your vault by up to 12x by rolling two six-sided dice.

Unfortunately, it’s not all happy days – sometimes the police will arrive, represented by a badge symbol on the reels. These corrupt cops will expect between 10% and 50% of your stash in the vault to leave you alone, and obviously it is better to pay the bribe than go to jail. It’s a real downer when you have a huge vault total, but not to worry – bonus symbols award additional free spins, and you can always rebuild your vault total before the bonus ends. Just pray for a dollar symbol on your last spin to make sure you collect the money in the vault!


Bonus Buy Feature

All three features can be bought provided you live in a jurisdiction that permits this functionality. The three features cost 100x, 200x, or 300x your current stake to play, and in my experience, these are bargain prices for the features on offer. If you would rather just wait for them to appear naturally though, that is fine too, but note that using the bonus buy feature does slightly increase the RTP of the game from 96.41% up to closer to 98%.


Pros

  • Stacks of features to uncover.
  • Great combo of max win and RTP.

Cons

  • The theme might not be to the taste of all players.

The Bowery Boys Slot Review Final Thoughts

Damn, hacksaw – what a monster. This game deserves to be a smash hit, and if it isn’t, then slot players have lost their minds – this is exactly the kind of slot we need in iGaming, not more Megaways clones. If you enjoyed the Money Train series, especially Money Train 3 and Money Train 4, be sure to give this one a try – it’s a future classic.

8.5

Top-Notch


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