Gladiator: Mega Cash Collect Slot by Playtech

The layout is the first thing to get straight. Reels 1 and 5 stand three symbols tall and work as the Cash Collect frames. The three middle reels run four high, and that extra row exists to hold the special symbols: the coins, the Diamond, the boosters and the Wilds the whole game feeds through. Land a Cash Collect disc on reel 1 or 5 (or both) and it sweeps up every coin value on screen and pays the lot.

Coins come in two kinds. Gold cash coins carry fixed amounts from 5.00 up to 15.00, and blue booster coins add +3, +4 or +5. A Sticky Cash coin freezes and doubles its own value each time a Collect fires on it, climbing x1, x2, x4 and on to x16, at which point it flips into a purple Diamond. That Diamond is the jackpot trigger. Drop one alongside a Cash Collect and you take one of four fixed prizes, Grand, Major, Minor or Mini, picked at random.

Around that core sits a heap of extras. Dropping Wilds spill a stack down from the middle reels, and overlapping Wilds carry a multiplier up to x3. The Cash Spreader scatters loose coins across the tall reels. The gladiator himself turns up at random to add Wild stacks, plant an extra coin or Collect, or bump the values already on the board. It is a lot of moving parts, and most of them do the same job, get more coins on screen so a Collect has more to grab. Fun, but the seams show.

Free Games come from those blue booster coins. Collect enough of them on reel 1 or 5 and you win spins equal to their summed numbers. Inside the round the Cash Collect discs walk down one row each spin, and a Key symbol unlocks the locked extra reels from the bottom up, opening more space the longer it runs. The dressing is standard gladiator stuff, a silver helmet premium, a sandy arena behind the reels, gold on everything. Under the Roman paint it is the same Cash Collect engine Playtech has run through Football and Robocop, so if you have played one of those you already know the rhythm here.