Le King: Slot Overview
He’s strolled the boulevards of Paris, felt the oppressive history of the Pharaohs, and chugged mead in Valhalla; now, Hacksaw Gaming‘s furry friend Smokey is hitting the bright lights of Spin City. The slot is Le King, and it’s a high-powered upgrade of the original Le Bandit, with extras thrown in, such as a new collector symbol and a potentially controversial jackpot system. If you’re ready to find out whether this is exactly what the ‘Le’ range needed or whether what happens in Spin City should stay in Spin City, it’s time.
Spin City, being a play on Sin City, the nickname for the infamous gambling town Las Vegas, means Le King is a big, bright, neon lights illuminating hotels, casinos, and resorts type game. Smokey’s there, to the side, looking as irritated as ever (unless he’s winning), dressed this time like Elvis, mic in hand, hence the name, Le King. After seeing Smoky go Parisian, Egyptian, Norse, and now Vegas, it’s hard to think of any situation the gruff chap couldn’t effortlessly slide into and make his own.
Le King is a cluster pays game held on a 6×5 grid, and like the previous Le slots, this one is medium volatile. It has a maximum RTP of 96.14% and boasts the largest max win of the lot. Players may stake a minimum of 10 c to a maximum of $/€100 per spin, and four feature buy options are available – not the top tier bonus round, though; that’s one of those Hidden Epic Bonuses Hacksaw Gaming likes to tease with.
Winning combinations are created when 5 or more matching symbols are connected to each other vertically or horizontally. Le King’s super cascade mechanic not only removes winning symbols but also all symbols of the type that were part of a win, dropping new ones down to fill the spaces. The pay symbols are 10-A royals, watermelons, dice, microphones, chips, and roulette wheels. Payouts range from 0.1x to 1x for 5 OAK up to 0.5x to 25x for 12+ OAK. Wilds substitute for all symbols on the paytable.
Le King: Slot Features
Le King retains the Golden Squares feature that worked so well in previous games while offering three bonus rounds, feature buys, and a new Jackpot Markers feature.
Golden Squares
When a winning combination occurs, the positions behind winning symbols are highlighted as Golden Squares. If a Neon Rainbow symbol is on the reels, it activates all Golden Squares after winning combinations have been awarded. Activated Golden Squares reveal Bronze, Silver, or Gold Coins, Treasure Pots, Green Clovers, Gold Clovers, or Jackpot Markers. Coins represent multipliers of the bet. Bronze Coins have values of 0.2x-4x, Silver Coins have values of 5x-20x, and Gold Coins have values of 25x-500x.
After Golden Squares have revealed something, Clover symbols activate. The Green Clovers multiply adjacent Treasure Pots or Coins by x2 to x20, while Gold Clovers multiply all Coins or Treasure Pots by x2 to x20. After Clovers have applied multipliers, Treasure Pots activate, collecting the values of all Coins and other Treasure Pots to store their value. They do not collect Jackpot Markers. When the last Treasure Pot has activated, all other Golden Squares activate again by revealing new symbols to repeat the process.
Jackpot Markers
Jackpot Markers may land or be revealed by Golden Squares. They are the 10x Mini, 100x Major, 1,000x Mega, and the 20,000x Max Win. Jackpot Markers are activated if they land with a Neon Rainbow, awarding their values after any Coins and Treasure Pots have been awarded. Only one of each Jackpot can appear at the same time.
Spin City Bonus Game
This feature is triggered by landing 3 FS scatters in the base game and comes with 10 free spins. It keeps the mechanics of the base game, plus all Golden Squares remain on the reels until a Neon Rainbow activates them. In all bonus games, landing 2 or 3 FS scatters awards an extra +2 or +4 free spins, respectively.
Jackpot of Gold Bonus Game
Hitting 4 FS scatter in the base game triggers 10 free Jackpot of Gold spins. This bonus has the same mechanics as the base game, plus Golden Squares remain on the reels even after being activated.
Viva Le Bandit Hidden Epic Bonus Game
This feature requires 5 landed scatters in the base game to trigger and awards 10 free spins. It’s the same as Jackpot of Gold, except every spin guarantees a Neon Rainbow, and revealed Coins are always Silver or Gold.
Bonus Buys
The bonus buy is where players can activate BonusHunt Feature Spins for 3x the bet to make each spin 5 times more likely to trigger a bonus, or Shamrock & Roll FeatureSpins for 60x to guarantee at least one win and a Neon Rainbow land on each spin. Spin City costs 80x to buy, while Jackpot of Gold has a 250x price tag.
Le King: Slot Verdict
Le King is an interesting one, in a bunch of ways. Whereas Le Pharoah or Le Viking made fairly notable changes to the gameplay by introducing things like sticky redrops, bonus choices, or a respin mode, Le King largely loops back to the original Le Bandit. There are changes, to be sure, but it was a slight surprise to see how closely the two games function. A bigger surprise was the new jackpot element, since jackpots aren’t usually something you get in Hacksaw Gaming slots. There was The Haunted Circus way back in 2020 when the studio was still on the up and up, hungry to make a big name for themselves in the slot biz after causing a splash with scratch cards. But since then, the team has generally relied on mechanical trickery to entice and entertain players rather than tantalise them with jackpots.
Perhaps it was the Vegas influence, who knows, but this approach does put a question mark on who Le King may or may not attract through the gate. Since its features are so similar, Le Bandit fans may be pulled back, and the new Gold Clovers, which multiply everything, not just adjacent symbols, should be an enticement. The Golden Squares flow is as good as ever, too, capable of triggering excellent sequences of events, going from reveal to multiply, to collect and repeat. Amplifying the effect is the way the three bonus rounds take the concept and add something extra the further up the bonus ladder you can make it. The icing on the cake is provided by higher than ever for a ‘Le’ slot, winning potential of 20,000x the bet.
Furthermore, this amount is instantly scorable when a Max Win Jackpot Marker has been activated by a Neon Rainbow. This might be a deal breaker for those not enamoured with local jackpots, which may put off some players, feeling more like an RTP drain than a feature – especially with its all-or-nothing nature and frequent low-tier payouts. On the other hand, players partial to these sorts of rewards and entertained by Hacksaw Gaming’s previous ‘Le’ slots should be thrilled by the upgraded Le Bandit experience with a jackpot element layered over the top.
Write a comment