Gold Hit: O'Reilly's Riches Slot by Playtech

There's not much to the base game here, and it doesn't pretend otherwise. Five reels climb in uneven steps, short on the left and eight symbols tall on the right, throwing matching symbols across the board from the leftmost reel. But the coins, the wheel, the jackpots? None of that exists yet. The whole base game is a hunt for five pot-of-gold Bonus symbols, and landing all five is the only way in. Do that and you get 15 free games, which is where every mechanic that matters finally switches on.

Two kinds of coin drop once the free games begin, and both lock where they land for the rest of the round. Cash Prize coins show a plain cash figure. Mystery Prize coins are the ones to watch: each hides either a cash value or one of four fixed jackpots, Mini at 20x, Minor at 50x, Major at 200x and Mega at 500x total bet. You don't know which until the round settles up. The top prizes ride inside those mystery coins, not on a separate pick screen or a climbing prize ladder, and that's what separates this one from a plain coin-collect.

Fill an entire reel with coins and a wheel spins to multiply every prize on that reel by up to x10. Here the stepped shape starts to bite. The two short left reels take only four coins to complete, while the tall right-hand tower needs eight, so the fattest multiplier target is also the hardest column to pack. When the free games run out, everything still on the board, cash coins, mystery coins, multiplied reels and all, pays in one hit.

The Irish meadow setting leans into every leprechaun cliche going, cheerfully so. Green hills roll out under a rainbow, sheep grazing across them (one wearing sunglasses, as a symbol), red toadstools and four-leaf clovers scattered about, and a grinning ginger leprechaun in a green suit stands beside the reels doffing his hat. Symbols run from him through a smoking pipe, a golden horseshoe, a clover and a ladybird down to the royals. And there's no buy button to skip the wait, no ante toggle to shorten the odds, so you land those five pots the slow way or you don't play the good part at all.