Arthur’s Gold is Gold Coin’s first shot at the iGaming market, although it must be said that the team behind it is by no measure new to the industry. In fact it comes with a wealth of knowledge and experience as one of the driving forces behind Gold Coin was formally the vice president of a very prominent gaming company whose interests also included lotteries and social gaming. In addition, this project is a joint venture in collaboration with Microgaming who is one of the major players in the field of online gaming and certainly needs no introduction. So let us take a closer look and see what this joint effort has brought to the table, or perhaps, more fittingly, to the round table.

Arthur’s Gold by Gold Coin

At a glance the first thing one notices about this slot game is that the interface is almost as stark as the dashboard of a German car, no frills no nonsense it’s all in your face. I am not in any way implying that there is absolutely anything wrong with the dashboards of German cars, but they are designed more so for their functionality rather than aesthetics. On the other hand one could also claim that the interface is a reflection of the style of that medieval period. The 3 row on 5 reel grid portrays the images of some of Arthur’s clan, complete with name tags which identify the characters since apart from Merlin and the King himself, are depicted in their house clothes. These constitute the higher value symbols and they come in the shape of King Arthur, Merlin, Lancelot as the male contenders, and Guinevere and Viviane are the ladies of the reels. All winnings require a minimum of 3 of a kind. It is not clear. However, what the value difference among them is, but it would be safe to assume that King Arthur will enjoy the top value of the lot, as for the rest, it’s not too clear. The indications are that these pay out 2.5 the stake for a row of 5. However the twin symbols of the characters-meaning symbols with 2 identical faces, would be the equivalent of ten of the symbols when you land 5 which puts a different complexion on things-excuse the pun, and raises the winnings anywhere between 50x and 125x the stake. The lesser value cards are the black jack symbols from jack to ace which presumably are divided into lower and higher house values.

Two Wilds

This game comes with two wild cards. A standard wild which substitutes for any other symbol, except the scatter, to create or complete any winning combinations during the base game and another that only appears in the bonus game. The standard wild is understood to be worth 2x, 6x, 20x and 500x the bet placed when you manage to land between 3 and 5 of them on the reels in addition to counting as double cards whenever they substitute for winning combinations with any of the higher value cards..These few but effective features are capable of dishing out some truly rewarding payouts. Well, sort of.

Scatters of Gold. The bonus Feature

This is probably the best way to get your hands on some of the bigger payouts this slot game has to offer. This feature is triggered when a minimum of 3 or more scatters appear on your reels that will effectively reward the player with a 2x, 5x or even a 10x payout plus a number of free spins during which the special wild may land on reels 2, 3, and 4 and subsequently expand to award a further respin. And it doesn’t stop there as any additional special wilds during the bonus game will stick and  trigger a free spin up to a limit of 3 consecutive times. However, scatters do not appear during the bonus game which means it cannot be retriggered. But......

Double or nothing feature

This is probably more appropriate for those do, or die gamblers who would risk it all and get it right 50% of the time. It figures, the question is ‘Am I ok with what I know I have, or should I take the risk?’ Well, this slot lets you decide for yourself whether, or not you want to chance losing, or doubling what you have made during the base game, or the bonus game. The choice is yours and a flip of the coin will soon determine how much you take with you, if anything at all. It’s all down to how lucky  you feel.

Conclusion? No merely an opinion

It seems that Gold Coin are after a piece of the action and are just testing the waters with a slot that does not offer much that isn’t already there, or better odds than the multitude of slot games currently available online. A modest entrance to the jungle of cloned slots and dwindling odds. To be fair, one would have to have spent some time trying it out before jumping to any conclusions, so let’s take a look at the stats. This is rated as a high volatility slot with 20 pay lines and an RTP of 96.19%  which cannot be criticized since most games do not boast any better than that anyway. The payouts are relatively modest but rather frequent with a factor of almost 1 in 3 which can be helpful to stretch one’s outlay but does not raise much hope for bigger rollers since the gross win is 4000x and the top bet is of that of 50 coins. An interesting betting range as the smallest stake is a minimum of 0.20 coins. As far as the mechanics are concerned Arthur’s Gold hosts an  array of features, some of which are less common and somewhat intriguing like the double symbol and more so, the double or nothing feature that will surely play on the intuition of the more impulsive punters. This slot is set to be on line in a month’s time and I am eager to see for myself what the literature cannot portray.