Le Bandit Hold & Win Demo: Free Play and Review

Not a Le Bandit reskin: three reels and a 2,500x roof

The name points to a new version of Le Bandit, and the cast is familiar: the raccoon with his crowbar, the Rainbow, the Clover, the Pot of Gold. The game underneath is a different one. Its namesake is a 6x5 cluster slot with cascades and Golden Squares, has three free spins bonuses and caps at 10,000x. This one puts nine squares on nine lines, with no Golden Squares and no free spins round, and it stops at 2,500x.

Only five symbols make up the paytable. Three K or three A on a line pay 0.2x the bet, handcuffs 1x, a bag of baguettes 2x and the top hat 3x, and on this grid no line can be longer than three. There is no Wild either, so anything bigger has to come from Coins and Jackpot Markers or from the Hold & Win.

Three Coins anywhere, counted after the lines

Coins do not need a line. Three or more Coins or Jackpot Markers on the grid in one spin, in any mix, pay their values once the line wins are settled. Bronze Coins carry 0.2x, 0.4x, 1x or 2x, Silver ones 3x to 9x and Gold ones 10x to 50x. A Coin shows its value only when it is part of such a win.

Two Coins are not enough, and the grid does not hold them for later. In the frame below a V-shaped line of top hats paid on its own while the two Coins beside it stayed blank.

Coin wins came on 27 base spins and added up to €290.00, not far short of the €326.80 that all the session's line wins made together. A spin with a Rainbow or an Epic Rainbow on it has no Coin and no Jackpot Marker.

MINI, MAJOR, MEGA, GRAND and nothing called Minor

The signs on the left of the grid turn the four Jackpot Markers into money at the current bet: €10.00, €50.00, €500.00 and €5,000.00 at ours. A marker counts towards the three-symbol rule like a Coin and pays its jackpot when it is part of that win. The GRAND equals the 2,500x cap on its own, and reaching the cap ends the round.

Spin 264 was the only base spin of the 500 with a marker in a win: a MINI and five Bronze Coins for €17.20. Inside the six Hold & Wins one more MINI landed, and no MAJOR, MEGA or GRAND appeared anywhere in the log.

Respins on three lives, with the Clovers saved for last

A Rainbow on a base spin starts the Rainbow Fortune Hold & Win. During the respins nothing lands on the grid but Coins, Jackpot Markers, Pots of Gold and Clovers, plus Dead symbols (a paper bag, a fish skeleton, an apple core). Each special symbol sticks and resets the Life Meter to 3, and the round ends when three respins in a row bring nothing new.

Clovers, x2 to x20, can land only while a Coin is on the grid or landing with one. They wait until the end of the round and then multiply every Coin and every activated Pot of Gold. A Pot of Gold reveals the Coins, collects their values together with those of other activated Pots, and removes the collected Coins from the grid, which frees squares for more. One Pot can land per spin. If all nine squares fill, everything is paid out and cleared before the next respin. The final payout adds up the values of the Coins and Pots, plus any Jackpot Markers, and multiplies the sum by the bet.

With the golden Epic Rainbow the game moves to the Rainbow Epic Drop Hold & Win, run by the same rules except that the grid starts full of special symbols, with at least one Coin and one Pot of Gold, and no Coin in it is worth under 1x.

That frame comes from our one paid FeatureSpin. Over the respins two more Coins joined, with no Clover or Pot of Gold among the arrivals. When the hearts ran out, the five Coins turned over to show 7x, 0.2x, 10x, 4x and 10x.

In the clip the Rainbow appears at 0:03 and the WIN field shows the payout at about 0:15; after that the board stands still with the mode switched on.

Six Rainbows, each worth more than any other spin

A little over a third of the spins paid, 36.8% of 500 at €2.00. Half of those wins came to 1x or less, and the longest dead stretch ran to 16 spins.

Rainbows arrived on spins 146, 216, 221, 227, 307 and 485, and none of them was the Epic kind. Each round ran 6 to 13 respins. Apart from Coins, the six brought one MINI and two Clovers in total, and together they paid €395.20, from 19x for the smallest to 68x for the largest. Without a Rainbow, no spin got past 11.6x.

The Clover did its biggest work on spin 307, where a x2 Clover doubled five Coins worth 34x, €136.00 in all. Spin 146 had the larger Clover, x3, on only two Coins, 5x and 10x, for a total of 45x. A full grid never came; the nearest was spin 227, with eight squares held when the lives ran out, and not one round brought a Pot of Gold.

Before the first Rainbow the balance slid to €4,879.20 by spin 140. It reached €5,126.40 after spin 314 and finished at €5,012.00, 101.2% of the stakes back.

Two ACTIVATE buttons and no BUY

The menu behind Feature Spins is titled FEATURESPINS and holds two cards. Rainbow Fortune Hold & Win FeatureSpins costs 35x the bet for each spin (€70.00 here), and Rainbow Epic Drop Hold & Win FeatureSpins 100x (€200.00). Whichever you pick stays on until you press DISABLE, at that price every time.

Our script switched on Rainbow Fortune for the clip and pressed SPIN once. The balance fell from €4,996.00 to €4,926.00, a Rainbow landed, and the Hold & Win paid €62.40, 31.2x, below the price of the spin. Every return in the table is the demo's. Hacksaw publishes 94.29%, 92.23% and 86.28% versions too, any of the four can be the one a casino runs, and some markets remove the Feature Spins button entirely.

After the payout the button at the bottom left reads DISABLE, and the next press of SPIN would cost another €70.00.

Closer to The Jade Path than to Le Bandit

Among our reviews the nearest relative is The Jade Path Hold & Win, with 9 lines, a 2,500x Grand and a Hold & Win on three refilling lives. It differs in having five jackpots against four, a Jaguar in the Clover's place and a bonus menu where this game has FeatureSpins. Its three-Orb Hold & Win is not for sale, though the 100x Bonus Choice card can lead to a second one, the Jade Bounty.

Among the Le games, Le Viking ends its bonus the same way: its Raid Spins run on three refilling lives too.

Spins here are quick and mostly small, with Coin wins keeping a session going between Rainbows. In our log the Rainbows decided everything, and the bigger symbols the rules describe, Pots of Gold and the three top jackpots, never showed up.