Gold Trio: Mariachi Bonanza Slot by Playtech

The scene is a Mexican street at golden hour, ochre and terracotta colonial houses leaning in over the reels with papel-picado bunting strung between the rooftops. Off to one side a moustachioed mariachi in a red charro suit and a big cream sombrero strums his guitar. The paying symbols keep the fiesta going, a smiling señorita, a red rose, a potted cactus and a sombrero of their own. It's a warm, loud, familiar sort of look, and on its own the base game is fairly thin. Everything worth chasing here rides on the coins.

Land one, two or all three of the Coloured Coins on a main-game spin and the Gold Trio Respins open up, the coin hold-and-win round every title in the Gold Trio series is built around. Five coins lock to start you off, and locking more coins wins more respins. Once you're inside, the reels stop dropping regular symbols. Only cash prizes, Mystery Prize coins and the Coloured Coins land now. Cover every position with coins and you take the Grand, worth 1,000x.

Each Coloured Coin is tied to its own pot and only acts during the respins. The blue EXPAND coin, shaped like a sombrero, stretches the reels to make more room. The purple MULTIPLY coin, a chili, doubles the value on every coin in view. And the green COLLECT coin, a stepped pyramid, gathers all the cash prizes on the board and pays their combined total in one hit. Those cash prizes run up to 5x your bet, while Mystery Prize coins pay one of three fixed jackpots, the Mini at 10x, the Minor at 20x or the Major at 50x. None of the four tiers are progressive, so a coin is always worth exactly what it shows.

The mariachi works both sides of the game. On a base spin he'll add Wilds or drop extra Coloured Coins for a shot at the trigger. Inside the respins he switches jobs, bumping a cash coin up to a higher value, turning one into a Mystery Prize coin, or converting it into one of the three active Coloured Coins. Don't feel like waiting? The Buy Feature drops you straight into the respins with one, two or three Coloured Coins already in play. The Wild stands in for every symbol except the coins, which figures, since the coins are the whole game.