Pragmatic Play · 2020 · tested 2026-10-15
Wild West Gold
Sticky wilds kept their multipliers through free spins in the Wild West Gold demo, yet in the first run eight of fifty buys still closed at exactly USD 20, the bonus floor.
- RTP measured / declared 112.4% 96.51%
- Hit frequency 30%
- Max win · no bonus 114x
- Bonus buy · mean result 100x · 0.82x
- Free spins, natural 174 / 30,000
- Bonus frequency 5.8 bHz
In numbers: measured RTP 112.4% against 96.51% declared over 30,000 logged rounds in 3 runs; 30.2% of rounds paid; a natural bonus landed once per 172 rounds (174 in total) and a bonus round paid a median 30.8x the stake, mean 109.6x, trigger spin included; 150 bonus buys at 100x returned 0.82x of their price on average, 75% of them below the price; the biggest round paid 1,475.8x; the longest dry run was 28 spins.
Test card
30,000 spins · USD 2.00 bet · every request logged| Spins | 30,000 · 3 runs |
| Bet | USD 2.00 |
| RTP declared | 96.51% |
| RTP measured | 112.43% (approximate 95% CI 92.5–132.4) |
| Hit frequency | 30% · every 3.31 |
| Dead streak max / avg | 28 / 3.28 |
| Median hit | 0.70x |
| Max win (no bonus round) | 114.4x · run 1, round 6658 |
| Free spins, natural | 174 · 5.8 bHz · every 172.4 spins · mean bonus round payout 109.6x stake |
| Balance start → end | 100,000 → 107,460 |
- 012026-09-1010,000 rounds · 50 buysfiles & checksums ↓106.62%RTP5 files · SHA-256 ↓
- 022026-09-3010,000 rounds · 50 buysfiles & checksums ↓121.43%RTP5 files · SHA-256 ↓
- 032026-10-1510,000 rounds · 50 buysfiles & checksums ↓109.25%RTP5 files · SHA-256 ↓
each run keeps its own spin log, CSV and raw server journal with checksums; the figures on this card combine all runs
Play Wild West Gold demo
PRAGMATIC PLAY · official demo · same math as real play
United States
Wild West Gold available at Cafe Casino
Same reels, real payouts
Cafe Casino runs the same Wild West Gold with the same math and adds a welcome bonus for players from the United States:
300% up to $2,000 + 150 FS 18+ · T&Cs apply · the demo stays free
Bonus buy lab
150 buys × 100x · USD 200 eachmean 0.82x · median 0.453× price (USD 90.50) · 112 of 150 below price · best 9.64x · worst 0.10x
| Spins per bonus (avg / min–max) | 11.1 / 8–20 |
| Retriggered | 63% |
| Bonuses that paid nothing | 0% |
Two to five sheriff-star overlays during a feature add 4, 8, 12 or 20 spins; 95 of 150 purchases and 92 of 174 natural features extended beyond their eight starting spins this way, 29 and 36 of them in run three.
- Spent
- USD 30,000150 × USD 200
- Returned
- USD 24,451.6081.51% · approximate 95% CI 64–99%
- Net
- −USD 5,548.40−27.7 buys
- Break-even or better
- 38 / 15025%
- Paid 2× price or more
- 14 / 1509%
- Price in base spins
- 100natural trigger every ~172 spins
One ticket equals 100 ordinary stakes. Natural bonuses occurred once per 172 ordinary rounds in this sample. Stakes multiplied by this interval measure gross wagering, not the net cost of obtaining a bonus. Purchase returns above include the complete purchased round and are divided by the ticket price.
Risk profile
how much bankroll the 3 runs in sequence needed| 50 bets | bust at spin 107 |
| 100 bets | bust at spin 190 |
| 200 bets | bust at spin 645 |
The runs are played back to back as one series, one bet size. A different session can bust earlier or never; treat this as a measured example, not a rule.
How it plays
6 rules screens from the game
The original Wild West Gold arranges its 40 fixed paylines across five reels with four rows; it is a separate game from Wild West Gold Megaways. Matching symbols pay from the first reel towards the right, with only the highest combination paid on each line. A five-symbol sheriff line pays 20x the total stake before any wild multiplier, USD 40 at the USD 2 test stake.
Wilds appear on reels two, three and four, substituting for every regular symbol and carrying 2x, 3x or 5x. Only wilds included in a paying line affect that line. Their values add together: two 2x wilds give a 4x line multiplier, while 2x, 2x and 3x give 7x. The same calculation applies in ordinary play and free spins.
Sunset scatters appear on reels one, three and five, and landing all three starts eight free spins. During the feature, wilds remain where they land and keep the multiplier first assigned to them. Sheriff-star scatter overlays can then appear over any symbol, including a sticky wild: two, three, four or five overlays award another 4, 8, 12 or 20 spins. These overlays are different from the three sunset symbols that start the feature.
The rules set a 10x-stake minimum award for the free-spins feature. That is USD 20 at the USD 2 stake. Buying the eight starting spins costs 100x, or USD 200, so the minimum return covers only one tenth of the purchase price. All 50 statistical purchases used this standard option.
On this build, help states 96.51% theoretical RTP, a USD 0.20–240 stake range and a 10,000x maximum win. At that limit, the round stops and any unused feature spins are lost. The same screens label the game low volatility; that label is reproduced in the specifications. The measured risk panel describes the much less even path of this particular test.
Wild symbol
Sticky symbol
Multiplier
Scatter symbol
Free spins
Retrigger
Bonus buy
Bet range USD 0.20 – 240 per spin · payouts read from the game's paytable at bet USD 2.00
Gallery
8 frames from the demo session
Verdict
Sheriff stars stretched 36 featuresSheriff stars extended 92 of the 174 natural features logged over 30,000 USD 2 rounds, 36 of them in run three, where one feature ran to twenty spins; features arrived once per 172 rounds, 5.8 bHz (one natural trigger per thousand rounds), and their rounds supplied 56.5% of all money returned, USD 38,146.90, at a 30.75-stake median. Forty-nine of the 174 stopped at the USD 20 floor, fifteen of them in run three, and 64 paid under 20 stakes.
Three runs returned 106.62%, 121.43% and 109.25%, 112.43% pooled (approximate 95% CI 92.50%–132.37%, which bounds the mean's precision, not the next session) against the 96.51% profile; every run finished above the profile, and the largest round, 5985 of run two at 1,475.8x, explains only part of the margin, since the other 29,999 rounds returned 107.52%. Ordinary screens peaked at 114.4x, 61.25x and 50x by run, and 20,949 rounds of the 30,000 came back empty.
Purchases total 150 tickets at USD 200 and have brought back USD 24,451.60, 81.51% of cost, with a USD 90.50 median, 112 under price and 33 at the USD 20 minimum; 95 of the 150 were extended beyond eight spins. Ticket 36 of run three, USD 1,927.80 over sixteen spins, is the first of the 150 past five times its price, and run three's batch at 95.01% is the best of the three after 83.61% and 65.90%.
- All three runs finished above 96.51%: 106.62%, 121.43% and 109.25%
- Ninety-two of 174 natural features gained spins from sheriff stars, 36 of them in run three
- Twenty free spins came out of round 4636 in run three, the longest natural feature so far, worth USD 998.20
- USD 1,927.80 from ticket 36 of run three, the first of 150 purchases to pass five times its price
- The USD 20 minimum closed 33 of the 150 tickets, twelve of them in run three
- Purchases have returned 81.51% of cost over 150 tickets, 95.01% at best in run three
- Under 20 stakes came from 64 of the 174 natural features, 49 of them at the USD 20 floor
- Nothing without a feature passed 50x in run three, round 5388's USD 100 the best
Run 01·2026-09-10·106.62%
The eight USD 20 returns are easy to find in the purchase list: buys 3, 7, 14, 23, 28, 39, 40 and 50. Each cost USD 200. Together those entries spent USD 1,600 and paid USD 160. The minimum award kept the losing results above zero, while still leaving USD 1,440 unrecovered across those eight purchases.
Thirty-four purchased features ran past their eight starting spins. The longest two reached 20. The best purchase, number 42, was one of those 20-spin features and returned USD 846.90. The series nevertheless ended at USD 8,361.30 paid from USD 10,000 spent; six purchases doubled their price or better, and none reached five times the price.
Ordinary play told a different story. Round 1412 paid USD 2,320.40 with a natural feature lasting 16 spins, a payout larger than the whole series profit of USD 1,324.90. With that payout subtracted and all recorded stakes left in place, the arithmetic would show a USD 995.50 loss; the largest peak-to-trough fall along the way was 815.6 stakes.
The rules and the log agree on the detail that makes the feature interesting: held wilds can participate in more than one later line win, and their line multipliers are added. All 7,409 logged winning lines containing wilds passed a separate payout calculation. The sticky-wild sequence is the part worth watching in the footage; the eight USD 20 tickets are the part worth remembering.
Run 02·2026-09-30·121.43%
Round 5985 ran its eight spins into sixteen and paid USD 2,951.60, 1,475.8x, the largest round on this page, and it was one of fifteen features over 100x in the run: 732.9x on round 9529, 654.05x on 8669, 636.6x on 3833, the spin right after the balance's low of 373.7 stakes down, 428.5x on 5765 and 354x on 2172 among them. Twice a trigger followed a trigger, round 616 paying 294.3x right after 615's 17.35x and 1357 paying 258.35x right after 1356's 243.55x, and 55 features in all arrived one per 182 spins, 5.5 bHz, their rounds paying USD 14,819.00, 61.0% of the run's return, 134.72x on average and 42.45x at the median. Nineteen paid under 20x, fifteen of those at the USD 20 floor, 31 were extended by sheriff stars, 25 to twelve spins and six to sixteen, and the longest wait was 859 spins, from round 8669 to 9529.
Without a feature, no round passed 61.25x, on round 499, so the ordinary reels contributed the remaining 39.0% in small change: paying spins on 29.48% of rounds, a 0.7x median, 7,052 empty rounds and blank stretches of 25 spins from round 1021 and 21 from 8260. The balance first rose above its start on spin 19, fell to 373.7 stakes down on spin 3832, peaked 2,302.8 up on spin 9651 and closed at USD 104,285.20, 2,142.6 stakes ahead, 121.43% of USD 20,000, with 2,000-round blocks of 103.0%, 105.2%, 179.5%, 80.3% and 139.1%; a 50-stake bankroll ran dry on spin 109, a 100-stake one on 278 and a 200-stake one on 491.
Fifty tickets, USD 10,000 in all, came to USD 6,589.70, 0.659x of price or 65.90%, the weaker of the two batches, with a USD 108.45 median: 39 tickets paid under the price, eleven above it, two passed 2x, buy 7 at USD 570 and buy 12 at USD 516.30, and none reached 5x. Thirteen tickets stopped at the USD 20 minimum, buys 4, 5, 6, 10, 13, 21, 23, 25, 27, 28, 37, 43 and 49, five more than run one's eight; 32 of the fifty extended beyond eight spins, 28 to twelve, three to sixteen and buy 48 to twenty.
Run 03·2026-10-15·109.25%
Sheriff stars extended 36 of the 65 natural features: 31 gained four spins, four gained eight and one, round 4636, gained twelve and ran twenty spins for USD 998.20. The run's largest round, 5396, took its twelve spins to USD 1,472.60, 736.3 stakes, with USD 316.90 on spin nine and USD 387 on the final spin; round 7224 followed at USD 1,359.50. Natural bonus rounds supplied USD 12,444.20 of the run's USD 21,849.50, 57.0%, while the best screen without a feature, round 5388, paid USD 100.
The 10,000 USD 2 rounds returned 109.25%, with paying rounds at 30.7% and no blank stretch longer than 20 rounds. Fifteen of the 65 features stopped at the USD 20 floor, 22 paid under 20 stakes, and none paid zero; the median feature returned 32.35 stakes. Fifty USD 200 purchases paid USD 9,500.60, 95.01% of cost: twelve tickets closed at USD 20, 36 fell under their price, the median was USD 74.10, and ticket 36 reached USD 1,927.80 over sixteen spins, USD 1,176 of it on spin fifteen. The other 49 tickets returned 77.27% of their price.
Test record
3 runs · 30,000 rounds · 150 buys · open data · closed rigThis game has been through 3 separate test runs on the official demo server, each a fresh session of 10,000 rounds at a fixed bet. Every figure on this page combines the runs into one sample, as if they were one long session; the record below keeps each run apart, with its own numbers and its own downloadable log.
- 30,000rounds, all runs
- 30%rounds that paid
- 1,476xbiggest round
- 1 / 172natural bonus rate
- 0.82xmean of 150 buys
- 28longest dry streak
01run Run 012026-09-10 measured return106.62%+10.1 pts vs declared
- 95% band
- 73.9–139.4%
- rounds that paid
- 30%
- biggest round
- 1,160x · round 1,412
- longest dry streak
- 28
- natural bonuses
- 54 · one per 185 rounds
- bonus buys
- mean 0.84x · median 0.461x · 74% below price
- balance start → end
- 100,000 → 101,325
- deepest drawdown
- 816x
02run Run 022026-09-30 lab note measured return121.43%+24.9 pts vs declared
- 95% band
- 80.4–162.4%
- rounds that paid
- 29%
- biggest round
- 1,476x · round 5,985
- longest dry streak
- 25
- natural bonuses
- 55 · one per 182 rounds
- bonus buys
- mean 0.66x · median 0.542x · 78% below price
- balance start → end
- 100,000 → 104,285
- deepest drawdown
- 738x
On 30 September run two came back at 121.43% after 106.62% on 10 September, 114.03% pooled over 20,000 rounds against 96.51%. Free spins came 55 times against 54 and their rounds paid 134.72x on average against 100.78x, with the page record moving to 1,475.8x on round 5985; the fifty tickets fell to 0.659x of price from 0.8361x, and 13 of them closed at the USD 20 floor against eight.
03run Run 032026-10-15 lab note measured return109.25%+12.7 pts vs declared
- 95% band
- 80.6–137.9%
- rounds that paid
- 31%
- biggest round
- 736x · round 5,396
- longest dry streak
- 20
- natural bonuses
- 65 · one per 154 rounds
- bonus buys
- mean 0.95x · median 0.371x · 72% below price
- balance start → end
- 100,000 → 101,850
- deepest drawdown
- 738x
Run three came in at 109.25%, between run one's 106.62% and run two's 121.43%, with the most natural features of the three, 65 against 54 and 55, and the most extensions, 36. Purchases improved to 95.01% of cost from 65.90%, and ticket 36's USD 1,927.80 is the first ticket of 150 to pass five times its price.
3 test runs combined into one sample (2026-09-10, 2026-09-30, 2026-10-15): 30,000 ordinary rounds, including naturally triggered features, at a fixed USD 2 bet; 150 bonus buys at USD 200 each (100x); recorded on the official Pragmatic Play demo server (jurisdiction 99, RTP profile 96.51%); every request and response logged.
The test rig plays the official demo build over the network and records every server round: bet, win, intermediate steps (cascades, respins), free spins, collect. Screenshots and video were captured in a separate browser session and are not part of the statistical samples. The text was read against the log by an editor before publication. How we test →
FAQ
8 questions · answered from the logCan the bonus minimum cover the price of a purchase?
No. The floor equals ten times the underlying spin stake, not ten times the purchase price. At USD 2 per spin the minimum is USD 20, while the purchase costs USD 200. Thirty-three of the 150 buys across three runs returned exactly USD 20: eight in the first, 13 in the second and twelve in the third.
Why does this page say low volatility when the balance swings are large?
Low volatility is the label shown in help on this build. Risk measurements describe the recorded samples instead: the largest peak-to-trough fall was 815.6 stakes in run one, 738.1 in run two and 738.3 in run three, and the biggest natural-feature rounds paid 1,160.2x, 1,475.8x and 736.3x.
Is this Wild West Gold or Wild West Gold Megaways?
This is the original five-reel, four-row game with 40 fixed paylines. Its rules show all 40 line patterns. The separate Megaways game uses a changing reel layout and has its own review on Slotester.
Do several wild multipliers multiply each other?
No, their values are added within each winning line. For example, 2x, 2x and 3x make 7x, not 12x. Round 291 in the first ordinary series contains that exact combination; a USD 0.50 line paid USD 3.50 before other lines were added to the spin total.
How are extra free spins awarded?
During the feature, sheriff-star overlays can appear over the reel symbols. Two overlays add 4 spins, three add 8, four add 12 and five add 20. Across three runs 95 of 150 purchases and 92 of 174 natural features extended beyond their eight starting spins; run three's round 4636 gained twelve extra spins and ran twenty, the longest natural feature on record here.
What maximum win does the tested version allow?
Rule screens two and five specify 10,000 times the total spin stake and end a round when that cap is reached. The biggest complete round across three runs was 1,475.8x, on round 5985 of the second, including its 16 natural free spins. No test has come near the declared cap.
Are the video and the purchase ledger the same session?
No. The ledger holds the 150 purchases that went into the calculations, fifty per run. The footage was recorded on its own at the same USD 2 stake and USD 200 purchase price, and what happened on camera is counted in neither series.
Which rounds paid the most across the three logs?
The top remains round 5985 of run two: a natural feature lasting 16 spins paid USD 2,951.60, 1,475.8x the stake, ahead of round 1412 of run one at 1,160.2x. Run three's best, round 5396, paid USD 1,472.60 over twelve spins, 736.3x. Without free spins, the biggest results were USD 228.80 on round 6658 of run one, 114.4x, then 61.25x on round 499 of run two and 50x on round 5388 of run three.
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Field notes
0 notes