Wild Gambler Slot Review & Free Play

Wild Gambler: Wake Meerkats for 8 Sticky Turns

Of all the wildlife slots, Wild Gambler is at the top of my list for visuals. Playtech wraps its five-by-three grid and 20 lines in a rope-lashed bamboo frame on the savanna. Card letters wear leopard spots and tiger stripes, and even the buttons turn into a buffalo skull, a log and stones.

Back in 2011, someone actually drew all of this. As the name suggests, the features circle around the wild, an imprisoned and tamed lion that wants to break free.

My enthusiasm for the looks wore off early, when the base game gave me nothing to survive on in the wild. Wins came every five to 10 spins, almost exclusively at 0.25x my bet.

It's a shame, because the game knows how to pull you in. Whenever a lion lands, you can keep him caged for the next spin, and auto-lock does that for any new ones by default. If the reels don't hand you any, click whichever spots you like and build your own pride. 

That freedom has a price, though, and the lock button keeps a running tally as you add or remove lions, so three of them pushed my next spin to 4.83x my regular bet. I landed my fair share of wilds to play with, but never got anything worthwhile out of them.

You can also land free spins, but they're hard to trigger. One to five meerkats can pop up at random on any spin, and it takes all five to earn 8 free spins, which I never once saw in more than 100 spins. Here, every lion locked at the start stays put, and new ones lock in place too, so the lions you paid for ride along for free.

Overall, it's a pity that a game with such beautiful design and feature variety turned out so unprofitable, but all you can do is play again.