The Hand of Midas Slot by Pragmatic Play

A teal-lit underground grotto, crystal formations catching light behind rustic wooden reels. King Midas himself sits beside the grid, golden chalice raised, tracking the spin multiplier as it climbs. The character art has real weight to it - richly painted portraits for the premium symbols (the king, a green-haired woman, a purple-robed wizard) and gold-plated objects filling the mid-range positions. Card values A through 10 carry an ivy-and-stone texture that fits the underground setting without looking cheap.

Wilds land on the middle three reels and each one adds a random 1x, 2x, or 3x to the total spin multiplier. Two wilds on the same spin stack additively - so a 2x and a 3x gives you 5x on the full payout. In free spins, those wilds turn sticky. They stay locked for every remaining spin and keep pushing the global multiplier higher with each new wild that appears. Because the multiplier applies to every winning line in the round, the back half of the feature is where the numbers get interesting. Three scatters trigger the bonus, but the number of spins isn't fixed - mini reels spin to determine how many you get, which means each entry plays out differently.

The buy bonus has three tiers at 100x, 200x, and 300x. Each tier guarantees a different number of triggering scatters (3, 4, or 5), and that scatter count sets your minimum payout floor - 10x, 20x, or 30x respectively. If the round hasn't hit that minimum when spins run out, it re-triggers with additional spins until it does. No cap on re-triggers. The ante bet option adds 25% to your stake and doubles scatter frequency on the reels, though it drops the ceiling from 5,000x to 4,000x. Pragmatic gave this one a sequel (Hand of Midas 2) a few years later, which tells you something about how the original performed.