Action Bank Slot – Free Demo

The whole paytable is four symbols

Constructed using 5 reels and 20 paylines, this medium volatility release is all about the free spins mechanic where up to 30 spins can be gained. The Vault Pick itself never grants more than 25, so the 30 exists only at the top of the gamble ladder. The sturdy structure is backed by an RTP of 96.08%, which is typical. That is also the figure printed on the game's own legal page.

To get even more technical, Light & Wonder have added a setting known as Turbo Mode which accelerates the spins. This allows for a faster session and has no influence on the outcomes. Standard pace is also provided if the player favors it, and turbo is shut off automatically whenever free spins are granted.

On the graphical side of things, I'm neither wowed nor repelled. Founded on the vault of a bank, this slot is assembled out of a plain assortment of fruit machine symbols. Altogether, there aren't that many symbols here - only four of them pay - which makes the artwork come across as a bit crude. The four are the red 7, the BAR, the red X and the joker wild; the O and the VAULT are there for other work. But then again, that fits the theme quite nicely with the reels being packed with 7s and BARs and all.

On the reels, you'll spot the red X and the BAR as well as the red 7 and the O. The most lucrative of all symbols, however, is the red 7 which hands you 25 times your wager for a combination of five across a complete payline. Three of them return the wager once and four return it five times over. The BAR is worth half a wager for three and five wagers for five, while the X, the weakest of the set, tops out at two and a half. A joker acts as the wild - it shows up on all reels and stands in for all paying symbols, and it pays as much as the red 7 does. The O is the scatter, and it is also the symbol that can become a VAULT.

Five vaults in view, one of them opened

There's not much happening in the base game in terms of mechanics, so I'll leap straight to the Vault Pick instead. It comes into play when 5 VAULT symbols emerge anywhere in view - the O symbols drop on all reels and each one has a possibility to change into a VAULT symbol, with only 1 per reel able to do so. Choosing one of the 5 vaults grants either free spins or the Big Bank Bonus, never both - 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25 free spins are on offer. The Big Bank Bonus is a separate pick of 15 vaults, available in the base game only, where sapphire, ruby and diamond prizes are turned over until three of a kind land; sapphire pays between 25 and 250 times the wager, ruby between 50 and 375, and diamond between 100 and 500. Across 350 spins at a wager of 3.00 it never came up once, so that whole upper range is untested here. Choose free spins and you're handed a gamble as well, a 50/50 for the next rung up the ladder of 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30, with everything forfeited if it slides all the way down to zero. The ladder closes when the player collects, when it arrives at 30, or when it empties. It's also feasible to retrigger the round with up to 25 additional free spins per retrigger. A retrigger arrives through the same Vault Pick, though no second gamble is handed over and the Big Bank Bonus is off the table for the duration. All four of my picks turned up free spins, on spins 45, 183, 201 and 285, worth 15, 30, 10 and 10, and not one of them retriggered.

Reel 1 stops holding wilds and starts holding doubles

The free spin round is all about hitting stacks of red 7 symbols and wilds, though wilds no longer drop on reel 1. To assist you along the way, DOUBLE symbols have been added. Every paying symbol has a matching DOUBLE symbol and it drops on reel 1 only. If a DOUBLE symbol is part of a winline, it doubles the payout for that line. In effect, a winning line is converted into a doubled line. My first round showed how lopsided the arithmetic of that can be. Ten spins in it had returned 6.00 credits, two wagers; the twelfth then dropped stacks of wilds across reels 3 and 4 behind a DOUBLE 7 on reel 1, and line 4 alone paid 150.00 credits, with two further lines adding 30.00 apiece. The round shut at 459.75 credits, 456.00 of it out of that single spin.

114 paying spins, 61 of them under the stake

Action Bank is not all that poor. Sure, visually, it may seem a bit unpolished, and there's nothing that shines about it either. There are no genuine shocks, inventive mechanics, or anything I haven't witnessed before. In that respect, the game is quite ordinary. My own 350 spins bear that out: 1,050.00 credits wagered against 1,198.65 won, a return of 114.2%. At the same time, Action Bank has everything you as a player could ever long for - 20 paylines that are always live (you don't have to keep track of switching them on), an RTP of 96.08% for sturdy value, medium volatility for the excitement, and potential of up to 500 times your wager. Arriving anywhere is choppy work, though. Only 114 of those spins paid at all, 61 of them for less than the wager, and one stretch of 18 in a row returned nothing before it broke on spin 219.

Action Bank is not a game I'm going to hurry to play and it's improbable to draw much notice within the gambling community due to the absence of x-factor. The four rounds were spaced 138, 18 and 84 spins apart, which is not a rhythm anyone can plan around. Then again, far plainer slots have become player darlings and technically speaking it's indeed a capable slot. It is also a slot that lives on its rounds alone: they produced 699.75 credits between them, 58% of everything the session won, and the balance peaked at 1,444.75 on spin 45 and never came near that again, bottoming at 968.80 and closing at 1,148.65. Whatever the case, Light & Wonder is certainly a supplier I will be keeping an eye on for sure.

Safe Cracker runs the same twenty lines

Be sure to look at Action Bank Safe Cracker as well which is also created by Light & Wonder. Played using a 5 reel, 20 payline layout, it delivers wins of up to 500 times your wager!