Shamrock Holmes Megaways Slot – Free Demo

A deerstalker in a mushroom wood

The slot in question here began with Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary investigator, veered off somewhere into Irish legend, and has circled back around at Shamrock Holmes Megaways. I played 430 spins of it at a stake of 20, putting 8,600 credits through the game for 7,932 back.

In practice, Shamrock Holmes Megaways blends the deerstalker-and-magnifying-glass affair of Baker Street with the shamrocks and sprites of a woodland distant from London, and this renders Shamrock Holmes Megaways a six reel, 117,649 ways to win Megaways slot, with a short list of features. Of those 430 spins, 84 paid something, and 43 of the 84 came back with less than the stake. The reels contain 2 to 7 symbols each. The ways count moves with those heights from one spin to the next, so 117,649 is the top of a range rather than a standing figure, and a base game grid can sit at a few thousand ways instead. A level supplementary reel above the grid supplies additional symbols into it. That reel is also where the symbols sit that decide which version of the respins three Scatters open. All41 Studios has dressed the slot in toadstools, tweed, pipe smoke, and naturally, a green-cloaked investigator positioned beside the play area, to enter the detecting frame of mind. There are further Irish slots around. Irish Luck and Lucky Leprechaun Clusters are two more Irish-themed slots on the site.

What 430 spins at a 20 stake gave back

It carries a theoretical RTP of 96.44% and a highly volatile maths model that has been graded 5 out of 6. The longest stretch I had without a win ran 22 spins and ended on spin 397. The max win rests at 28,000 times the bet. My own 430 spins returned 92.2%, with the balance peaking at 101,800 on spin 223 and bottoming out at 97,840.

Rolling Reels cost nothing in the base game

Wins are attained when three or more identical symbols arrive side by side, beginning from the leftmost reel. The Scatter pays nothing by itself and exists only to open the features. The highest premium, Shamrock Holmes himself, is reported to pay from two. Winning symbols are afterwards cleared, and fresh symbols fall in to possibly form new wins, the sequence continuing on for as long as each substitute pays; this is the Rolling Reels mechanic, and it is live in the base game as well as in the features, while Wilds stand in for any of the paying symbols, with the exception of the Scatter and the symbols that set off the respins. That chain costs nothing extra in the base game, where each cleared win is simply paid as it stands and the multiplier that rewards a long chain belongs to the free spins alone.

Both features hang off one symbol

Shamrock Holmes Megaways does not arrive with a lot of features. In fact, it employs two additions, and both of them are suspended off the Scatter symbol. Three of them take one route and four or more take the other.

Magic Forest Respins at 10,000, 32,400 or all of them

Three Scatters in the base game set off a respin. I had two of these across the session, on spin 139 and on spin 269. The symbols resting next to them on the supplementary reel determine how many ways to win the respin is played with: a sprite yields 10,000 ways, Shamrock Holmes yields 32,400 ways, and both jointly yield the entire 117,649 ways. The first of mine ran at 32,400 ways and paid 26.0x the stake; the second ran at 10,000 and paid 6.8x.

A multiplier that opens at x2 and only climbs

Four or more Scatters anywhere grant 10 free spins, with 2 additional spins for each Scatter beyond the fourth, and the round opens on a x2 win multiplier. Three rounds came in over the session, on spins 175, 222 and 360. Every Rolling Reels win lifts it by 1, with no declared limit, and free spins can be retriggered. The middle of my three retriggered and ran to 12 spins; the other two ran their 10 and finished.

An engine dropped onto a rewritten detective

All41 Studios has guided players an odd path to arrive at this stage: what began as a Victorian investigator transformed into an Irish one, and the entire thing was afterwards tipped into the Megaways engine to yield this version. As far as Irish themed slots go, Shamrock Holmes Megaways is not the most conventional around.

The free spins take the base game, heighten the potential, and adjust the maths to raise the risk to reward ratio, and it chiefly achieves this through the rising multiplier, which opens at x2 and adds 1 on every Rolling Reels win. My three rounds paid 178.0x, 54.0x and 34.0x the stake, 5,320 credits between them and two thirds of everything the session gave back. Apart from this piece and the visuals, everything else is typical Megaways, including the max win, which peaks at 28,000x the bet.

The pieces that are there are welcome inclusions. The slot is as playable as any other Megaways or Megaways influenced slot.

Our Minty Verdict: Three free spins rounds carried 5,320 of the 7,932 credits my 430 spins won back, and the base game between them was a long flat walk with 43 of its 84 paying spins landing under the stake. The multiplier is the only part of the build that pays for a Rolling Reels chain, and it is locked behind four Scatters.