Sticky Bandits 3 Most Wanted Demo: Five Cowgirls, One Safe

Nine lines, five cowgirl wilds and a doubled bonus

The board is five reels of three symbols with 9 lines that pay from the leftmost reel. Line wins come from ten regular symbols: a money bag, a horseshoe, dynamite, whisky and a bandana in the middle tier, with A, K, Q, J and 10 below them. Above those sit six wilds with identical pays: the five cowgirls of the gang and a gold bull skull. The scatter is a steel safe marked BONUS, and it pays anywhere on the screen.

The paytable is printed in euros for the current stake, here €1.08. At that stake two scatters pay €2.16 (2x the bet), three pay €4.32 (4x), four €27.00 (25x) and five €2,700.00. A line of five wilds is worth €180.00, about 167x, and five money bags pay €120.00.

That €2,700.00 is the 2,500x the intro screen promises for five scatters; its other claim, wins of over 22,000x, fits the demo server's 22,468x. A producer quote on Quickspin's game page attaches the 2,500x to a line of five cowgirls instead, but the paytable gives it to five scatters.

Three or more scatters in one spin start 12 free spins, and every win inside them is multiplied by 2x. A cowgirl wild that lands during the bonus sticks in place for the rest of it. If each of the five reels holds at least one stuck wild, the round adds 5 extra free spins; Quickspin's game page says this can happen once per round, a limit the in-game pages we captured do not repeat.

Our 500 spins at €0.90: a slow leak

We played 500 paid spins on the demo server and logged every one. 130 of them paid something, and the median win was 1.6x the stake, so an ordinary hit more than paid for its spin. Hits were rare, though, about one spin in four, and the longest losing run lasted 21 spins.

• 500paid demo spins at €0.90
• 26%of them paid something
• 24.44xbest single spin
• 2free spins bonuses triggered

The highest balance of the whole session, €4,999.10, came after spin 1, and the line never got back to €5,000.00. The low of €4,844.90 arrived on spin 462 and we finished on €4,850.90: the spins returned €300.90, 66.9% of the €450.00 we staked.

Both natural bonuses started with exactly three scatters, the minimum, and both stayed at 12 free spins because no five-reel set of sticky wilds formed. The one on spin 319 returned 6.9x including its trigger, the one on spin 478 returned 8x. Our best spin, 24.44x on spin 297, came in the base game, and nothing in the session reached 50x. Over 500 spins, a return this far from 95.82% describes our sample, not the game.

What 60x buys, and what our bought round showed

The buy sits to the left of the reels as a BONUS safe with its price printed on it, and the rules allow it in the base game only. For 60x the bet, the game plays one base spin that lands three, four or five scatters at random, pays no line wins on that spin and then starts the free spins.

Our media session bought the bonus once, at the client's €1.08 default rather than our €0.90, so the menu shows the price for that stake.

The paid spin landed the minimum of three scatters, a €4.32 scatter win, and 12 free spins.

The recording below runs from that spin to the payout.

The wilds piled up on the middle three reels and never reached reels 1 or 5, so the 5 extra spins did not come.

The round paid €48.96, about 45x the €1.08 stake and roughly three quarters of the €64.80 price. One bought round says nothing about the long-run return of the buy, and Quickspin has not published one.

Most Wanted against the 2017 Sticky Bandits

The Sticky Bandits review covers the first game, from August 2017: a 5x5 grid with 30 lines, a game sheet that rates its volatility 4.10 of 5, an RTP of 96.58% and a 100x win once in 1,630 spins. It has no bonus buy.

Most Wanted shrinks the board to 5x3, cuts the lines from 30 to 9, runs a lower RTP of 95.82% and adds the 60x buy. The top win is where the two part ways: 22,468x against 968.33x in the demo server's simulations. The original also has a Quickspin game sheet; the sequel has none.

For another Quickspin game on a 5x3 board, the Big Bad Wolf review covers a 2013 slot with 25 lines and a 97.34% sheet RTP, but a top win of only 1,225x.

Who the Most Wanted gang will suit

This is a plain nine-line game with three things on top: a scatter that pays 2,500x for five, a bonus that doubles every win and keeps its wilds, and a buy for 60x. Our 500 spins were a grind, with two small bonuses and no win above 24.44x. Without a volatility rating or 100x odds, the demo is the only way to judge whether the pace suits you.

• Sticky Bandits review
• Big Bad Wolf review
• Golden Glyph review

Sticky Bandits 3 Most Wanted questions

Answers from the in-game paytable, Quickspin's demo server and our own logs.