Given how many people have an active interest in trains and transport, it’s perhaps a little surprising there aren’t more transport-themed slots games. Gold Train from Pragmatic Play is by no means a commonly themed slot, but it is one that has found its audience. With an ultra-high return to player percentage, and fast-spinning gameplay that eschews the usual bells and whistles, in favour of a more direct experience, Gold Train is a slots game with increasing appeal.
The game is a fairly simply construction, more in keeping with the old-style amusement with prize games you’ll be familiar with from arcades and pubs across the land. Rather than a large number of reels and different reel positions, the action here is much more compact – there are just 3 reels, and only 3 paylines in play, all of which are themed around different images from trains and transport.
Expect to see train signals, train conductors’ hats, trains and a variety of other symbols, amongst the usual arcade style reel positions. Your job here is to land these symbols in combination on any of the recognised paylines, which awards an instant win according to their value on the paytable.
There’s also something extra here you don’t find with other online casino games – silver tickets and gold tickets, respectively, which can be your key to some of the biggest prizes the game has to offer. This comes in especially handy in the bonus game, where the number of tickets you have collected can have an influence on the number of carriages, and hence the size of the bonus, you’re able to win from the bonus round. So it’s worth keeping an eye out for these at all times.
The RTP here is one of the main selling points of this slot, clocking in at an unusually high 97.16%. This represents a house edge of significantly below 3% – 2.84%, to be precise. You don’t get this kind of advantage anywhere else, it’s virtually unheard of for a gambling game, never mind a slot. The net result is better odds for the player on every spin, and with jackpot prizes on the line, that’s more than enough reason to play this for yourself.
As with all our slot reviews, lets mention the feature symbols. Gold Train has a wild symbol – it’s the train, steam-powering its way towards you, with WILD printed across it, so kind of hard to miss. This replaces any other symbols to complete combinations with those running through it, effectively making it all the easier to match combinations of like-for-like symbols.
There’s also a separate bonus symbol, which isn’t affected by the wild – in other words, the wild cannot substitute for it. This is the silver ticket symbol, Land three or more of these anywhere on the reels and you trigger the bonus feature, which can be amongst the most lucrative phases of the game.
When you land enough silver tickets to trigger the bonus feature, you’ll see a train rolling across the screen. This determines your bonus award, which usually comes in the form of an instant cash win. It is also possible to uncover a golden ticket, which adds additional carriages to your train, thereby increasing the overall size of your bonus feature win.
The main jackpot stands at 30x, which is decent for a slot of this size and level. You win that by landing 3 of the 7s symbol on any of the paylines.
Gold Train is a must-play slot for train enthusiasts – if this is your thing, you’re sure to enjoy a trip aboard the Gold Train Express. While the jackpot isn’t the biggest, there are a couple of bonus features and enhancements that make this more than just another AWP fruit machine. At just 3 reels, it’s nice and compact for quick spinning action – yet more than lucrative enough in the bonus features to leave you wanting more.
All aboard the Gold Train, and play this online slot game.