Route 777 Slot – Free Demo

A roadside fruit machine with a dot matrix

Route 777 slot is a 3-reel, 3-row slot with 17 fixed paylines in the base game, and it takes stakes from 0.20 to 100.00 a spin. With only three reels, every line win is three matching symbols, read from left to right starting on reel one. When booting up the slot, the first thing that crossed my mind was an aged roadside fruit machine. Perhaps that is because the 7s and the cherries are heavily linked with those. Or it could be the overall appearance of the slot with the dot matrix display along with the retro symbols.

Behind the reelset is a biker road trip. The feature list follows the same idea: Overtake Re-Spins in the base game, then free spins, then the Route 777 Fortune Wheel. That is what the studio is after when it calls this "a classic slot machine with a modern dot matrix". The slot carries a retro 7s and fruit theme with a feelgood mood to it. Toro 7s and DJ Wild are Elk Studios games as well, if you want more from the same studio.

Route 777 slot employs 4 low paying symbols and 4 premiums, and the low paying symbols are depicted by the conventionally drawn Bar, watermelon, lemon and cherries. The premiums are depicted by blue, red, silver and crowned 7s. Silver 7s were the ones that treated me best outside the bonus, 84.00 credits on spin 164 across a pair of paylines. The crowned one, as customary, is the top symbol, and it grants a 70x win if you land 3 of a kind. My four largest base game wins all came off the blue, silver and red 7s instead. The low value symbols only pay if you manage to land 3 of a kind and are worth nearly nothing on this slot.

The Scatter symbol is depicted by a Skull in a biking helmet, and no wild is mentioned anywhere. With nothing standing in for anything else, every win has to be three genuinely matching symbols.

Overtake Re-Spins and the road to the Fortune Wheel

But hold on, there's more — there are also Overtake Re-Spins. Identical symbols on all three positions of reels one and two award 5 re-spins. Reel three is the one that has to miss for the trigger to count. Those two reels lock and move one position downwards on every re-spin while reel three keeps spinning, and Skulls can land along the way. My three runs were worth 15x, 20x and 31x the stake.

So you're left with no option but to pursue the bonus naturally, and 3 Skull scatters anywhere on the reels triggers the Bonus round, handing you 5 free spins. Five is the whole award unless more Skulls turn up inside the round. The bonus round is a distinct thing from the Fortune Wheel that can follow out of it. The wheel is a way out of the free spins rather than something you can reach directly.

During the free spins, 2 Skulls landing on the reels add a random 5 to 15 additional spins. My one round drew no extra Skulls and ran the five spins it was given. 3 Skulls unlock the Route 777 Fortune Wheel, the arrangement then turns 4x3 with the wheel above it, and the wheel spins until three matching 7s have been collected or the Stop symbol lands. I never saw it open. The win is the total of the three collected symbols.

The Minty Breakdown: 450 spins at 6.00 credits handed back 60.1% of what went through them, and one free spins round carried 13% of everything the session won. The three Overtake Re-Spins runs were the part that kept the balance moving between triggers, and the Fortune Wheel stayed shut the whole way.

What 450 spins gave back

The Route 777 slot is yet another high variance brute from Elk Studios. That is something that is more or less anticipated by now, and the main game is not that exciting to be honest, but the re-spins do keep it going. Three of my five biggest wins came out of a re-spin run. This, in my view, makes the Route 777 slot seem a bit less well balanced than a three-reeler normally is. In other words, Route 777 is all about the free spins, and that of course raises the variance. The single round I got paid 216.00 credits of the 1,622.40 I won in total, about 13% of it.

The bonus is not simple to trigger, and initially I chose to do a 100 bonuses article. One trigger in 450 spins is what that plan ran into. I ditched the plan after having played 450 spins attempting to trigger bonuses. That works out at 2,700.00 credits wagered at 6.00 a spin. The first arrived on spin 118 and payed 36x - the only one I saw. It moved the balance from 4,689.20 to 4,899.20. Merely 95 of those 450 spins paid anything at all, and 44 of those paid less than the stake, which left me at 60.1% return on the session. The balance closed at 3,922.40, which was also its lowest point.

Route 777 is simplistic in styling but a monster under the hood, and it's a bit like flinging dynamite around. The high point came early, 5,060.00 on spin 3. You know it can detonate any second, which is a joy mingled with dread. The main game can admittedly be a bit sluggish - my longest stretch without a win was 20 spins. That run ended on spin 315.

The locking reel feature is not a new thing in the world of iGaming, but it functions very well here. The Overtake Re-Spins ran three times for me, on spins 48, 133 and 378, and the last of those was worth 31x.