Vegas Diamonds Slot – Free Demo
Provider:
Elk Studios
Three diamonds anywhere on this 3x3 grid get nudged onto the middle row after they pay, and three fortune wheel symbols open a wheel that climbs from Bronze to Golden. Over 350 spins at 1.00 that wheel came round once, paid 123 times the stake and never stopped on Free Spins.
Play Vegas Diamonds demo
What 350 spins at 1.00 bought back
Anyone who has ever played a 3-reel slot will immediately grasp, merely by viewing the image above, what's about to unfold. My session ran 350 spins at a stake of 1.00, and the 350.00 wagered brought back 277.10, a return of 79.2%.
With its 5 free spins and 5x multiplier on all wins, the operation of the free spin round itself is straightforward. Instead, the developers have concentrated on bringing about a fairly fresh feel with the aid of the Fortune Wheel on offer, and I'll get to that afterwards in the write-up. Route 777, also from Elk Studios, is another 3-reel game with a Fortune Wheel bonus.
Players can wager between 0.20 and 100 per spin, and the 96.0% RTP is comfortably within the reasonable bracket. Only 74 of my 350 spins paid anything, 39 of them less than the stake, and the longest run without a win lasted 17 spins.
Diamonds that nudge to the middle row
The game is run on a reel set with 3 reels. Each displays 3 symbols across 5 paylines. All wins start on the leftmost reel and pay left to right on consecutive reels, with only the highest win on each payline paid.
There's a diamond symbol featured as well, apart from the regular symbols, and three diamonds anywhere in sight will nudge the reels to line all three up on the centre row. That can result in additional paylines as well. NetEnt's Grand Spinn is a 3x3 classic built around nudges.
Bronze, Silver and Golden wheels
The Fortune Wheel round is triggered by getting 3 fortune wheel symbols anywhere on the reels. That hands you 3 Fortune Wheel spins. The wheel can also be triggered during Perfect Match Respins, in which identical symbols on the first two reels lock those reels for 3 respins of the third. A strike on the wheel's Free Spins section grants 5 free spins with a 5x multiplier. The bonus game ends early if the maximum win is reached, and its winnings are paid out only once it is over.
An arrow segment on the Fortune Wheel lifts the wheel up one tier, from Bronze to Silver to the Golden Wheel. It awards an additional spin on the new tier. If the trigger spin also lands identical symbols on the first two reels, the wheel spins come first and the Perfect Match Respins follow. The single Fortune Wheel round I activated in my session returned 123 times the stake but never reached the Free Spins section, and other punters may, naturally, have a different experience. That round came on spin 29 and paid 123.00, taking the balance to 5,098.60.
Every fortune wheel symbol arriving on the reels during the free spin round contributes one Fortune Wheel spin. It is taken after the free spins conclude. Outside the wheel, my best win was 30.50 on spin 48, which put the balance at its session peak of 5,118.20 against a 5,000.00 start.
The Minty Summary: 123.00 of the 277.10 the game returned came from one wheel round on spin 29, so the 79.2% I measured is mostly a story about a single trigger, and nowhere near enough play to test the 96.0% on the label.
Is the wheel enough for a 3x3?
When all is spoken and completed, this is yet another standard 3-reel slot, so nothing new on the western front, though the arrangement of the Fortune Wheel does lend it a touch of a wrinkle.
But admittedly I would like to have seen a rather more inventive application of the 3-reel layout.