Hit Bar: Gold PowerPlay Jackpot Slot by Playtech

The gold HIT BAR coins carry two jobs at once. Land five or more on the reels and they lock everything in place for a respin. Collect them steadily and you climb the tall prize ladder running down the left side, one rung per step. The bottom five rungs are flat cash, worth 5x, 10x, 15x, 20x and 25x your total bet. Above those sit three coloured Wheels of Luck. And at the very top are the fixed jackpot steps: Mini at 100x, Mega at 250x, Grand at 1,000x.

You don't have to climb the ladder to reach the wheels, though. The BONUS wheel-icon symbol brings them in straight from the base game. Three BONUS spin up the blue wheel, four the purple, five the red. Blue pays x10, x30 or x50 and hands you 8 or 12 free games. Purple runs x20 to x60 with 10 or 15 spins. Red goes x25 to x75 with 12 or 15. Every wheel prize is measured against your total bet, and any of the three can also drop you into a shot at the Grand Prize game.

The free games carry their own separate ladder, this one ten levels deep. Inside, you keep collecting HIT BAR coins, only now each one pays cash and adds extra spins. Level up and you win more free games on top. Whatever prize you've reached when the round ends is what you walk away with, so a strong run keeps compounding.

The two jackpot systems share almost identical names, and it's genuinely easy to mix them up. The Mini, Mega and Grand at the ladder top are fixed amounts tied to your bet. The Mega, Peak and Mini POWERPLAY meters on the purple side panel are something else, real-money network progressives shared across Playtech's PowerPlay games, which is why they read UNAVAILABLE the whole way through the free demo. The rest is loud Vegas gold: chunky bars, white diamonds, cash stacks and gold wristwatches spinning over an emerald green LED-dot backdrop, with A-K-Q-J royals filling out the low end.