Hot 81 Slot Review

The Hot 81 slot is an online video slot from Amatic Industries. It has a retro look and feels both cool and energetic. This slot is also a fruit machine, featuring some of the well-known vitamin boosts, such as oranges and cherries. BAR symbols are also present. It’s a super classic game, with Expanding Wilds strongly reminiscent of Book of Ra and Book of Dead. Furthermore, you won’t find any bonus games, making it a straightforward choice for those exploring slots outside GamStop restrictions. The best possible prize is set at €8,100, which is a pretty decent 810 times the bet.

Amatic is never entirely clear about the Return to Player (RTP) and therefore also about the exact house edge. We assume it’s 96%, but we don’t know if that’s accurate to the decimal point for this 2016 game. The variance is also on the high side, meaning that winnings in the Hot 81 slot are certainly not frequent. A slot that closely resembles this slot is Hot 27.

Advantages and disadvantages of Hot 81

Advantages

• High maximum profit
• Wild Star feature
• Gamble feature

Disadvantages

• No bonus game
• No exact RTP known
• High variance

How does Hot 81 work?

The playing field, with its 5×3 symbols, isn’t particularly surprising for a slot machine. However, this time the game developer has temporarily set aside the paylines to make room for winning ways. There are 81 of these, a remarkable number. A striking detail is that a winning combination can only consist of four identical symbols, no more, no less. This does pose a limitation. To place a bet, you choose an amount between €0.10 and €10 per spin.

Hot 81 Payouts and Symbols

It’s actually an unwritten rule that cherries are the lowest-paying symbol in an old-fashioned fruit slot machine. This also applies to the Hot 81 slot machine. Three cherries don’t exactly win you much, with a maximum payout of €1. Lemons and oranges pay out double this amount, up to €2. Eggplants, bells, and 7s complete the regular symbols, with cash prizes of €10, €25, and €50, respectively.

Hot 81 bonus features

There are two bonus features in the Hot 81 slot that provide extra excitement and chances to win: the Wild Star and the Gamble feature. These features offer the opportunity to win more money in real money non GamStop casinos.

Wild Star

The Hot 81 slot’s Wild Star is the Wild. It substitutes for symbols and pays out prizes of up to €100 when you spin four Wilds as a winning combination. Furthermore, the Wild expands itself if it lands on a location where it has one or more symbols underneath it. If the Wild lands anywhere on the second reel, only the one directly below it transforms into an additional Wild. If the Wild Star lands on the first reel, it logically transforms the entire reel into a single Expanding Wild.

It’s an art, but if you manage to form a 5-of-a-Kind with Wilds on the first row, you’ll win the top prize: up to €81,000.

Gamble feature

We often long for the days when Amatic added a Gamble feature to their slots. Fortunately, there are still older versions to entertain you. The Hot 81 slot also features this. This feature adds extra excitement to the game. You only have to choose whether to choose red or black, which gives you a 50% chance of winning.

If you win, you cash in double your stake. If you also guess the correct suit, which is optional, you’ll receive a multiplier of 4. However, with one wrong choice, you’ll lose your previous winnings in one go.

Conclusion

Amatic’s Hot 81 slot is only appealing to players who appreciate simple, no-nonsense gameplay, but with the potential to cash in on great prizes. In that respect, this slot scores well. If you’re looking for more excitement and enjoy extensive bonus features and interesting themes, you might want to skip the Hot 81 slot.

The expanding symbols are, of course, a common rip-off, but we appreciate that Amatic has managed to put their own spin on them. In the Book of Ra and Book of Dead slots, you first have to trigger this bonus game with scatters. Then, a base symbol is chosen, which acts as the expanding symbol.

There are also casino slots in the range of game provider Amatic that have adopted this feature as an exact clone. Think of slots like Book of Queen or Book of Aztec. These various slots can also be played at non GamStop casinos, where players can usually enjoy a wider selection of casino games.

The Wild Star symbol can, by the way, yield some pretty nice prizes if everything works out well for you. That’s why we give this game a solid pass mark.