Golden Miner Slot Machine

Golden Miner Overview

In 1849, the news of gold discovered in California brought over 300,000 settlers to the west. Lured with the promise of quick riches, these miners became known as 49ers, and would become an iconic part of American history.

Gold mining and slot machines have a lot in common. Both offer the opportunity for fast wealth, and both need you to have luck on your side.

Golden Miner gets you right into the Old West mood. Its background features mountains and valleys done in greens and blues, and a snaking trail leading you to adventure.

The area behind the reels is sky blue.

Below the reels is a farmstead scene, complete with a forest in the background, barns, and fencing.

The color scheme of the game is dark blue, green, red, and of course gold.

The soundtrack for Golden Miner is what you'd expect for a western-themed slot-in a good way. Acoustic guitars and light drums provide the main track of music, and they never overpower the proceedings. They play on a long loop, but they are innocuous enough to disappear into the background after a while.

At other times, a Native American-themed track plays. It uses flutes, wind chimes, and synths to create a mystical ambiance.

While not being too heavy on the music, the game is full of sound effects.

A game show announcer comes on when you've made a big win, when you win free spins, or when you get to play the bonus game. The backing music for the announcer makes him sound like he's part of a Seventies game show. This breaks with the theme of the game.

Other sound effects include a nice reel sound, chimes, and a shotgun loading when you change any of the bet options.

The game has few animations, due to it being older. What few it does have are all related to rewards.

When you win any prize, coins empty from the winning pay line and bounce across the screen.

The screen goes dark for both bonus rounds, with fireworks erupting off of the logos that explain what you've won.

Golden Miner Pay Table and Graphics

Golden Miner has many symbols, from the 10, J, Q, K, and A, to more inventive ones like a dog, a mule, and a bandit.

For the three jackpot wins, we wish we could tell you if the 5 symbols have to be in a win line or they have to be anywhere on the reels. We've never gotten more than 2 or 3 of each symbol in a spin before.

Being an older game, Golden Miner doesn't have amazing graphics.

When you strike a win line, all the symbols pulse a few times. The 10, J, Q, and K will flip in addition to pulsing, and so will the box of dynamite. Special symbols will pulse and have a blue background appear a few times.

The one symbol that does anything different is the pickaxe, which shows light glinting off of its edge when it's eligible to pay out a prize.

Golden Miner Slot Bonus Features

This game gives you a lot of ways to win besides the regular gameplay mode.

Its bonus features include a free spin feature, triggered by the miner symbol. This doesn't happen often, and when it does, it pays out in an average manner as compared to the rest of the game.

The bonus mini game happens more rarely, and in that game, you're given a choice of rocks to strike with your pickaxe. The rock you choose gives you a random amount of money.

Golden Miner also offers a scatter feature, which gives a multiplying bonus. This happens more frequently than the other bonus features, though it doesn't happen often.

Betting Options

In Golden Miner, you'll find multiple ways to bet.

First, you can bet on different numbers of win lines. With so many win lines in the game, you might think that you can bet on any number from 1 to 50, but you can only bet in multiples of 10.

You can bet by increasing or decreasing coin value per win line. This value can go from $.01 per line to $1.2 per line, with intervals at $.05, $.1, $.2, $.5, $.7, and $.9. Golden Miner doesn't allow for individual lines to have different bet amounts.

With these figures, the minimum amount you can bet per spin is $.1, if you only bet $.01 per line on a 10-win line roll. The maximum amount you can bet is a huge jump, all the way up to $60.00.

The game also lets you use an auto spin feature, with intervals at 10 spins, 20 spins, 30 spins, 40 spins, 50 spins, and infinity (or until your money runs out).

Although there's a handy Max Bet button located by the auto spin feature, you might want to avoid it. Because of the way this game pays out, we don't recommend going all in on a spin.

Scattered all over the game board are some other options. Volume control is in the top left. It only controls volume, not whether you can choose to keep sound effects or music individually.

The pay table button lies in the middle of the screen underneath the reels. You'll see all your winning options there, though it doesn't include a rules section. It also doesn't include any RTP figures.

A Lobby button sits in the top right corner. In our version of the game this takes us to a black screen, but in casino versions, or in multi-game versions, this may take you to the main menu.

Our average win frequency was 3 to 4 times per every 10 spins. These weren't big wins, our average win amount being between $40 and $50 on a max bet of $60.

The frequency of free spins, scatter, and bonus games are harder to determine. With free spins, we got them anywhere between 2 out of 10 times to 2 out of 100. The scatter feature is around the same odds as the free spin, and the bonus game happens more rarely.

The bonus game, when it does happen, gives you good odds to win a nice prize-in our case we got over $4,000.00 playing one bonus game. The bonus game also happens often enough to make staying at the slot for a while worth it.

This is a game where a $300.00 win on a $60.00 bet is a big win. Plan your strategy accordingly.

This game doesn't list its RTP on its paytable screen. The closest thing we could find to an actual figure is that it "has a high player return in the 90s."

We're guessing low 90s, based on the win payouts we received.

One thing that's lowering RTP is that the 10 and the J have the exact same payout. If they eliminated the 10, RTP would raise a little, while still giving the game a healthy profit margin.

Game Rules

This game is like other 5-reel slots but has a few different rules.

The main differences are in the bonus game rules, where the pickaxes net you a turn at the mini-game if they show up anywhere on reels 3, 4, or 5.

Another difference we noticed is that the win lines don't have to start on the left of the reel board. They can start in the middle of the board. A line of 3 connecting symbols wins you a prize, whether those symbols are at the end of the line or at the beginning of it.

Scatters and Free Spins don't have to appear in win lines.

Conclusion

Golden Miner has its high points and its low ones.

For us, its high point is the bonus game. The bonuses are always worth it, and they always pay out.

The low points are in its win payout. This game offers a classic case of losing by winning.

This is not an extra-generous game, but if you're willing to wait it out for a while, chances are you'll get rewarded a bonus game.

This game, like the gold rushes that it's based on, requires some luck for you to be successful.

But also like the gold rushes, you'll get a handsome reward when you strike a vein.