Hacksaw Gaming released Wanted Dead or a Wild in September 2021 as its first major outlaw entry. Reels are 5x5 with 15 fixed paylines, high volatility at 4 of 5 on Hacksaw's published scale, hit frequency around 19.36%, and a bet range of 0.20 to 100 per spin. Art register: Bonnie-and-Clyde-meets-Sergio-Leone.
The Wild and Gun Chamber are joint top-paying symbols at 20x line bet for 5-of-a-kind; the Wild substitutes for everything except the scatter. A single scatter symbol governs the bonus: landing 3 or more of it in one base spin opens a bonus selection screen, where the player picks one of the three Free Spins modes. The VS Expanding Multiplier Wild is a separate symbol that fires the gunslinger duel inside the base game.
Base wins pay through the 15 paylines via the outlaw premiums (Six-Shooter, Bag of Money, Bottle, Armed Bandit, Ram Skull) and the royals. The real upside path is Free Spins: once you trigger the round, you choose the mode from the selection screen, and that pick decides the variance shape. The 12,500x ceiling is hit through Dead Man's Hand, where the Collect phase accumulates up to 20 sticky wilds and a ×31 Showdown multiplier across 3 plus 3 spins, not through the base paytable. Hacksaw's 2022 to 2024 cluster (Le Bandit, 2 Wild 2 Die, Hand of Anubis) was built on top of this slot's reputation.
Bonus Games
Two upside mechanics live in this slot: the in-base-game VS duel and the player-selectable Free Spins modes. Landing 3 or more scatters in a single base spin opens a bonus selection screen where the player actively picks one of three modes: The Great Train Robbery, Duel at Dawn, or Dead Man's Hand. The pick is not random and not pinned to a particular scatter; it is yours to make every time the bonus triggers naturally.
VS Expanding Multiplier Wild
When a VS symbol lands on the reels in the base game, it expands to fill the full reel and turns wild. A gunslinger duel triggers and awards a random multiplier between 2x to 100x. Multiple VS wilds in the same winning combination have their multipliers combined, not added, so a 5x VS and a 10x VS on the same line produce a 50x boost, not 15x. Without VS hits, the base game runs quiet for stretches.
The Great Train Robbery
10 Free Spins. Every wild that lands becomes sticky for the duration of the round; no per-wild multipliers. This is the densest hit-rate mode and the lowest variance of the three. Bonus Buy cost: 80x stake.
Duel at Dawn
10 Free Spins. The same VS Expanding Multiplier Wild appears more frequently here, but the multipliers reset per spin (non-sticky). When the duel hits, the multiplier can spike to 100x; when it misses, the spin closes empty. Bonus Buy cost: 200x stake.
Dead Man's Hand
The structure is two-phase and the highest-complexity bonus in the slot. Phase 1 (Collect) runs 3 streak-respin spins: every landing wild is collected up to a cap of 20, and every multiplier symbol is collected up to a cumulative ×31 ceiling. Phase 2 (Showdown) places the collected wilds randomly across 3 spins, and every line win during Showdown is boosted by the accumulated multiplier. Bonus Buy cost: 400x stake.
A worked Dead Man's Hand: Collect lands 15 wilds and a 30x multiplier across the 3 streak-respins. In Showdown those 15 sticky wilds drop randomly across 3 spins and every line win is multiplied by 30x. A clean run of premium-symbol lines under that multiplier gets the round near the 12,500x ceiling; most rounds close well below it. A 100-spin dry stretch with no VS duel and no scatter is statistically common at this volatility, not bad luck.
Wanted Dead or a Wild Paytable
The Wild and the Gun Chamber are joint top-paying at 20x line bet for 5-of-a-kind. Premium symbols (Bottle, Bag of Money, Armed Bandit, Ram Skull) sit one tier below; royals (10, J, Q, K, A) cap at 1x line bet for 5-of-a-kind. Values below are stated per line bet, as published by Stake.
| Symbol | 3 of a Kind | 4 of a Kind | 5 of a Kind |
|---|
| Wild | n/a | n/a | 20x |
| Gun Chamber (Six-Shooter) | 2x | 10x | 20x |
| Bag of Money | 1x | 5x | 10x |
| Bottle (Whisky) | 1x | 5x | 10x |
| Armed Bandit (Outlaw) | 0.5x | 2.5x | 5x |
| Ram Skull | 0.5x | 2.5x | 5x |
| A | 0.1x | 0.5x | 1x |
| K | 0.1x | 0.5x | 1x |
| Q | 0.1x | 0.5x | 1x |
| J | 0.1x | 0.5x | 1x |
| 10 | 0.1x | 0.5x | 1x |
| Scatter | 3 or more triggers the bonus selection screen; no standard line win. |
The Wild substitutes for all symbols except the scatter and pays only as a 5-of-a-kind line at 20x. The VS Expanding Multiplier Wild does not pay a paytable line; it expands the reel and triggers the 2x to 100x duel. Minimum 3 matching symbols left-to-right on a payline to count.
