Play The Wizard of Oz demo
A yellow brick road paved by KA Gaming
I'd rather assess something novel and original, but I'll have to settle for this. The Wizard of Oz comes from KA Gaming, which also makes Ghostbuster and Three Little Pigs. So here we go. I played 330 spins at a stake of 180.00, starting from a balance of 100,000.00.
Available from 0.36 to 36 credits, The Wizard of Oz has a traditional layout of 5-reels, 3-rows and 36 paylines. Line wins count for 3, 4 or 5 matching symbols on a payline.
What the Scarecrow and Dorothy are worth
Symbols on the reels comprise card rank symbols 9, 10, J, Q, K, and A as well as 4 high-paying character symbols. Those characters are the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Lion and Glinda. The Scarecrow is the most lucrative, paying 13.89x for 5 of a kind. Five Tin Man symbols pay 8.33x the stake, while five Aces pay 1.39x. The game also comes with a Dorothy wild symbol, and it awards 3 times the win if it helps form a payline. Dorothy stands in for every symbol except the scatter, and in the base game any line she completes has its win tripled.
Ruby red shoes and a spare Wild on reel three
So it all boils down to the free spins, and the game grants 10 free spins should 3 or more ruby red shoes scatter symbols appear on any reel. The shoes also pay on their own, with 3, 4 or 5 of them worth 2x, 10x or 20x the stake. Moreover, it adds an additional wild to the centre reel on every spin. The feature cannot be retriggered, so every round runs to exactly 10 spins. It awards 6x for wins with a wild. I triggered it on spins 15, 19 and 215, and the three rounds paid 32.0x, 44.0x and 10.0x the stake, 30% of everything I won.
Minty’s Expert Conclusion: Over the 330 spins I wagered 59,400.00 and won 50,928.00, a session return of 85.7%, with the balance peaking at 117,586.00 on spin 60 and finishing at its lowest point of 91,528.00.
Why 91 paying spins out of 330 felt slow
I got thoroughly bored playing this. That was not necessarily because of the weak paytable. Only 91 of the 330 spins paid anything, 55 of those paid less than the stake, and the longest run without a win lasted 15 spins. It was because the game feels sluggish and tired, and despite the extra 6x wild wins in the bonus, the game lacks thrill.