Wanted Dead or a Wild Slot Review

Hacksaw Gaming publishes four different returns for Wanted Dead or a Wild, 96.38, 94.55, 92.33 and 88.42 percent, and its own game page lists all four in one line without saying which is which. I score it 4 out of 10, and almost none of that is about the game itself. It is about the eight percentage points between the best build and the worst, and the fact that nothing on your screen tells you which one you just opened.

This is a western themed slot on a five by five grid with fifteen fixed paylines, released on 29 September 2021. It became one of the most played games Hacksaw has ever shipped, and that popularity is exactly why the build question matters. A game this widely placed gets placed by hundreds of operators, and each of them picks a version.

Everything below is arithmetic you can repeat yourself, built from figures the studio and its own data sheet publish. No casino has paid to appear here.

Wanted Dead or a Wild at a Glance

These are the published figures. Where the studio prints nothing, I have written that instead of filling the gap with a guess.

The Score, and What Went Into It

Four criteria, each out of ten, averaged and rounded. The rating method is the same one I use everywhere on this site, and it scores what a game costs and what it discloses, not whether it is fun.

For contrast, Duck Hunters scores 7 out of 10 on these same four criteria, and it is not a better game. It is a game whose studio publishes the hit frequency, the bonus frequency and the odds of the top prize.

Four Wanted Dead or a Wild Returns, One Game

Most studios ship one return and leave it alone. Hacksaw ships four builds of this game, and the casino picks the one it wants to run. The game looks identical either way. Same reels, same bonuses, same artwork, same name on the tile.

Here is what that choice costs you. I have used the same model as my cost per hour table, six hundred spins an hour at fifty cents, which pushes €300 across the table in an hour.

The same fifty euros lasts a little over three times longer on the best build than on the worst. That is the whole point, and it is decided by somebody you will never speak to, before you ever open the game.

One more detail worth knowing. Game databases that track which builds actually appear in the wild list 94.55 percent as the version they see most often, not the 96.38 that every review quotes. Treat the headline figure as the best case rather than the normal one.

How to Check Which Wanted Dead or a Wild Build You Are On

You can find it, but not from the lobby. Open the game, open the information or paytable panel, and look for the return figure printed there. That number is the build the casino has licensed, and it is the only place it appears.

If the panel prints nothing, that tells you something as well. A casino running the headline build has every reason to show it. One running 88.42 percent does not.

Do this once per casino rather than once per game. An operator that chooses a reduced build for this title has usually chosen reduced builds across its whole Hacksaw shelf.

What Every Wanted Dead or a Wild Bonus Buy Costs

Three bonuses, three prices. The studio also publishes a separate return for each purchase, which is more than most studios do, and those three figures sit within about one tenth of a percent of the base game.

Note what that last line means in practice. If your casino runs a reduced build, the bonus buy numbers quoted in every review of this game, mine included, are not the numbers you are buying. Nobody publishes the ones you are.

The cheapest entry is eighty times your stake, so at the twenty cent minimum one purchase costs sixteen euros. That is the cheapest door into the feature, and it is already eighty spins of ordinary play.

How Wanted Dead or a Wild Actually Works

The engine is called DuelReels. VS symbols land on the grid and expand into full wild reels, two gunmen face off, and whichever wins applies its multiplier to that entire reel. That is the moment the game is built around.

Three scatters open one of three bonus games, and which one you get depends on which scatter landed. The Great Train Robbery turns wilds sticky so they keep paying on later spins. Duel at Dawn raises the chance of several VS symbols arriving together, so up to five reels can turn wild at once.

Dead Man’s Hand runs in two halves. The first collects wilds and multipliers, the second is a showdown where everything collected is dropped onto random positions on every spin. It is the most expensive to buy and the one with the highest published return.

The ceiling is 12,500 times your bet. At the twenty cent minimum that is €2,500. The studio does not publish how often it happens, so unlike a handful of its competitors there is no honest way to price that ceiling, and I will not invent one.

Three Things to Check Before You Play It for Money

First, the return in the game information panel, every time you open it at a new casino. It takes ten seconds and it is the difference between a 3.62 percent edge and an 11.58 percent one.

Second, whether bonus buys are switched on at all. Several markets ban them outright, so the eighty times entry simply will not be there, and the only way into the feature is to wait for it.

Third, how this game counts if you are clearing a bonus. Slots usually count in full, but a bonus buy is excluded under most terms, and buying one while a wagering requirement is open can void it. The wagering terms are where that clause lives.

Play Wanted Dead or a Wild Free

The demo runs the studio’s default build, so it is the 96.38 percent version rather than whatever a casino has licensed. That makes it the right place to learn the three bonus games and the DuelReels mechanic without paying a reduced return to do it.

Open the information panel while you are in there. Reading where the return is printed in the demo is the same habit you will need at every casino that lists this game.

Where to Play Wanted Dead or a Wild for Real Money

Every casino below was reviewed and scored before it appeared here. None of them publishes which Hacksaw build it runs, so check the panel yourself at whichever one you pick.

FAQ About Wanted Dead or a Wild

Who Wrote This

Srboljub Simunović

Responsible editor, Casinos.si. Six years reviewing online casinos, based in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

I score slots on what they cost and what they tell you, which is why a game this well made ends up at four out of ten. Wanted Dead or a Wild is a genuinely good piece of design. It is also sold in four versions that play identically and price very differently.

Every figure on this page comes from the studio’s own game page or from the data sheets that publish the release date and the buy prices it leaves out. Where nothing is published, I have written that rather than borrowing a number from somewhere that invented it.

info@casinos.siOur rating methodAll free slots

18+. Gambling can be addictive. At four out of five on the studio’s own volatility scale, long runs without a win are the normal behaviour of this game rather than bad luck. The published return describes millions of spins, not your session. If gambling stops being entertainment, stop and seek help.