Gold Pile: Tigers Pride Slot by Playtech

That purple dial to the left of the reels is the control you actually care about. It's the Gold Meter, and it runs from 10% all the way to 100%. Push it higher and gold-tinted symbols start landing more often on reel 5, though every notch also raises what you pay per spin. It's an ante bet you set yourself, and where you set it is most of the decision-making this game offers.

Reel 5 is where the money hides. Land a five-of-a-kind win that includes a gold symbol on that final reel and one of three prizes fires: the Mini at 40x the bet, the Maxi at 160x, or the Grand Jackpot Chase. The Chase is a pick round handing you three shots at the Grand, worth 4,000x and the largest thing Tigers Pride ever pays. Dialling the meter up is how you force gold onto reel 5 and open those three prizes more often.

Three jade paw-print scatters award 8 free games. They run with extra wilds stacked on reel 5 and improved odds on a jackpot, so the free round works as a cheaper second route at the gold prizes rather than a payout feature in its own right.

Strip out the gold and the base game is fairly bare, a plain 25-line spinner with a majestic tiger wild that shows up large and stacked on reel 5, a green jade guardian lion, then an incense burner, a jewelled tiger-claw pendant, a jade ring, a pink lily and card royals underneath. It all sits against a blazing orange sunset over a golden temple gateway, two enormous stone tiger guardians either side of a deep-purple grid edged in gold Chinese fret. This is the second entry in Playtech's Gold Pile jackpot line, sharing its engine with siblings like Gold Pile: Orangutan. Handsome to look at, and built entirely around one lever: how far you're willing to crank that meter.