Cash Stax Slot Machine
If the new online slot release from Barcrest looks vaguely familiar to regular game players – it’s with reason – both the visual style of this game and the gameplay itself are very similar to the existing Barcrest title Action Bank. Worry not however if you have already played Action Bank, Cash Stax is bringing some variations which may prove to your liking.
A key feature of this and several other Barcrest titles is the staggered RTP – I recently reviewed Wild Knights Kings Ransom which also features this same bet structure. Bets placed can vary from 0.10 Credits to ‘big bets’ of 10 credits and ‘super big bets’ of 20 credits, what becomes interesting about the larger wagers is that they affect the games RTP, which increases as you place bigger bets.
For those who haven’t played the related titles or need a refresher Cash Stax uses our childhood favourite time-killer noughts and crosses as its base theme. How many hours have been spent in a rural caravan park on a Sunday afternoon with this game I don’t know, what I do know is I would have been keener to play had there been the same cash rewards on offer as this game has rather than a Mars bar to the winner!
Theme
Barcrest have been accused of being a little behind the times with their theme design, whether the critics approve or not there are many players out there who still seek a simply no thrills slot game without the 3D bells and whistles. Cash Stax is perfect for this purpose, a standard 5x3 structure with 30 pay-lines which couldn’t be easier to play.
The backing music needs to be quickly dealt with by the mute button, the game has around 5 total sound effects – plug in your iPod, throw YouTube on in the background, but don’t let it run for more than 30 seconds before you do. Unless of course 80’s style fruit machines are your thing, if that is the case let the music play!
No shocks with the symbols either – noughts, crosses, bars, sevens, and a Wild Jester being your major icons on offer though it is the gold nought scatter you will be keeping a watchful eye out for as the reels spin on the metallic game background, no need to hit the pay-table button at all with so few icons to remember.
Features
The key to stacking the cash on this game is twofold, starting with the games staggered RTP which is affected by your bet size across three tiers and essentially allows the player the choice of how much volatility they want to play with:
- Bets up to 2.0 Credits play on 10 of the available lines and offer an overall long term pay-off of 94.12%
- Bets larger than 2.0 credits increase the lines you can play to 20 and up the long term result to 96.02%
- Last option is the games ‘big bet’ and ‘super bet’ which will be familiar to players of other Barcrest Titles, betting either 10.00 or 20.00 for 5 bets in a row will grant you the max 30 lines of play and a fantastic RTP of 98.14%!
In the traditional board game whoever goes first has the greatest chance of winning, on Cash Stax the big winners are those who find the golden nought free spin rings. Above each of the reels there is a blank chamber, golden rings when either dropping from above onto the reels or randomly shapeshifting from standard nought symbols are transferred into these chambers. Get one on each reel and the total number of rings is now the number starting spins for the bonus round. I say starting spins as each time a gold ring hits the reels during the spins it is stored up above, drop one ring on each reel at the same time and you retrigger the spins, with all stored rings from above transferring to the spins meter. Max the meter out with 20 accumulated rings to receive a 5x multiplier on all free spin wins!
Summary
Given the relatively small number of features but high potential RTP, the game is a strange mix, on the one hand you are rewarded financially for playing long and hard. On the other the lack of interesting symbols, features or theme may mean you don’t play it for all that long.
Overall given that Action Bank proved popular with an even simpler format it seems likely Cash Stax will do just fine, by the way, it is only available in real money mode so you will be piling high real cash stacks if you are winning!
