New Online Slot Review: Rakin’ Bacon!

If the current industry shutdown has done anything, it’s put new emphasis on the value of real-money online gaming sites. Let’s check out a couple of popular games from the AGS portfolio.

Thousands of slot games are available online, including many of the titles you’ve enjoyed at land-based casinos. In this recurring iGaming Player feature, we give you specifics on the top games available on New Jersey’s iGaming sites.

See below for some basic definitions. But first, here are a couple of top online games from top manufacturer AGS.

Rakin’ Bacon!

This game is one of the most popular AGS offerings in physical casinos, and it’s easy to see why. The theme is loads of fun, with games centered around a cherubic pig character in a coin-filled room.

The base game is a five-reel ways-to-win offering with high volatility leading to periodic exciting wins. As wins add up, the golden pig character gets fatter and fatter. When the free-game bonus is triggered, the golden pig explodes, revealing a pick screen.

The player then is given the chance to choose the volatility of the free-spin round, by manipulating the number of symbols on each reel in the array on which the spins will occur: 15 free spins with three symbols per reel, for 243 ways to win on each spin; 10 free spins with four symbols per reel, for 1,025 ways to win per spin; or five free spins with five symbols per reel, with 3,125 way to win on each spin.

Finally, there’s a four-level progressive jackpot on this game. It’s triggered randomly on any base-game spin when a wild symbol lands on the reels. The screen transforms into a field of icons, which hide symbols corresponding to each progressive. You pick until matching three symbols for a guaranteed prize. This can be up to a maximum jackpot of $200,000 if you’re playing at the maximum stake level.

Watch a brief demo reel here:

Rakin’ Bacon!: Five-reel, 243-ways-to-win game (up to 3,125 ways to win in free games); free-spin bonus event; four-level progressive picking bonus
Denomination: 0.01, 0.05, 0.10, 0.20
Max Bet: 880
Payback Percentage Range: 89%-95%
Hit Frequency: Approximately 33%
Top Jackpot: $200,000 reset

Golden Wins

Another popular AGS casino title, the Asian-theme Golden Wins, features a four-level linked progressive jackpot won through a picking bonus featuring the “Fu Babies,” fun characters that are popular in the casino version.

The game is highly volatile, but playing it is definitely worth a few dry spells—the payback percentage is 96.05%, one of the highest return-to-player figures you’ll find anywhere.

The base game is a five-reel, 243-ways-to-win slot game. During base-game play, three or more Bonus or Wild symbols on consecutive reels triggers 10 free spins. Ten more free spins are triggered if the Bonus or Wild symbols land on a free game.

The progressive is won through a randomly triggered picking bonus game. The screen transforms into a field of gold coins, and you touch them until you collect three matching Fu Baby symbols for a guaranteed win of one of the four progressive jackpots. This can be up to a maximum jackpot of $200,000 if you’re playing at the maximum stake level.

Here’s a brief demo:

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Golden Wins: Five-reel, 243-ways-to-win game; free-spin bonus event; four-level progressive picking bonus
Denomination: 0.01, 0.05, 0.10, 0.20
Max Bet: 880
Payback Percentage: 96.05%
Hit Frequency: Approximately 33%
Top Jackpot: $200,000 reset

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A few definitions:

“Payback percentage”—also known as return to player or RTP—refers to the percentage of wagers that are returned to all players over the active life of a game. A 94% payback percentage doesn’t mean you’ll get 94 percent of your money returned to you every time. It means there’s a 6% house edge on the game. (Even a 100% payback doesn’t guarantee you’ll win—it means there’s no house edge. It’s like the flip of a coin.) Manufacturers offer operators a range of percentages, and it’s up to the operator to pick which to offer players.
“Hit frequency” refers to the percentage of all spins that will result in a win of some kind. Remember that these wins can often be less than your bet. (If that happens too often, you should find another game!) Some manufacturers don’t provide this statistic; in this case, we estimate based on the volatility of the game program.
“Volatility” refers to the manner in which wins are distributed on a slot machine. Low volatility means there will be lots of little hits, with wins of some kind very frequently (again, watch for too may wins less than your bet). High volatility means the hits are fewer and farther between, but there are many more huge wins—the kind that can turn a losing session into a winning session.
“Ways to win” refers to a game in which there are no paylines. In this style of game, adjacent like symbols on the screen register wins, and the number of spots on the entire reel set determines how many ways the player can possibly win on each spin.
“Cost to cover” refers to the level of wager required to activate all the paylines on a screen. The good advice was always to wager enough to activate all the paylines, but these days, most games use this figure as a minimum bet. (Too may people were betting a penny on a penny game in the past.)