Brooklyn Bootleggers: Slot Overview

If prohibition proved one thing, it’s that laws don’t stop people from wanting a drink. Incredibly, prohibition in the USA ran for 13 years, from 1920 to 1933, and it ended partly because it was essentially impossible to police. Demand for booze stayed high, and bootleggers made sure people could still get their favourite tipple. Those dealers in illicit goods are the stars of Brooklyn Bootleggers, an online slot from Swedish provider Quickspin. Alongside backroom liquor, Brooklyn Bootleggers delivers Tip Off Free Spins and a Lock Up feature that can result in instant cash prizes.

Styled like film noir, Brooklyn Bootleggers is set on a dark, foggy Brooklyn night beneath a bridge or elevated train line. It takes itself seriously in places, yet there’s also a slightly slapstick Keystone Cops vibe—at least on the home screen. Past that, you’re dropped into a world of dodgy transactions, gangsters, smoke-filled rooms, detectives, big bosses, and the rest. It feels like a dramatic 1930s movie stretched across the reels, framed by liquor bottles and a prize ladder in the 9 Masks of Fire mould, showing a rising sequence of values.

Running on a 5-reel, 3-row layout, Brooklyn Bootleggers offers 10 paylines for standard line wins. It’s also a medium-high volatile title with a default return to player of 96.25% (lower RTP versions exist, so it’s worth checking the paytable). Stakes follow the familiar Quickspin spread of 20 p/c to $/€100 per spin, and there’s also the option to buy the bonus instead of grinding through the base game if that’s your preference.

Brooklyn Bootleggers splits its 8 paying symbols into two sets labelled lows and mediums. The lows are stars, spades, clubs, diamonds, and hearts, while the mediums are 4 character symbols with a Peaky Blinders/Al Capone sort of look. A 5-of-a-kind line win returns 10 times the bet on the low symbols, increasing to 20 to 200 times the bet for the medium symbols. Wild symbols can appear on any reel and substitute for all symbols except Badge scatter symbols. When forming wins on their own, wilds pay the same as the top-paying symbol.

Brooklyn Bootleggers: Slot Features

The Lock Up is Brooklyn Bootleggers’ standout mechanic, and it can show up in both the base game and Tip Off Free Spins. On top of these additions, there’s also a bonus buy.

The Lock Up

In the base game, The Lock Up can randomly activate. A frame then appears on the reels, sized 3×3, 4×3, or 5×3, enclosing 9, 12, or 15 symbols respectively. If 4 or more medium or wild symbols land inside The Lock Up Frame, players win an additional xBet prize in addition to any normal line wins. Landing 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, or 15 medium or wilds within The Lock Up Frame pays 2x, 4x, 7x, 10x, 20x, 50x, 100x, 200x, 500x, 1,000x, 5,000x, or 10,000x the bet, respectively.

Tip Off Free Spins

Hitting 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols in the base game awards 10, 15, or 20 Tip Off Free Spins, respectively. In this bonus, The Lock Up Frame is active on every free spin and appears at the start of the round at 3×3, 4×3, or 5×3 in size. The payouts for landing medium or wild symbols inside The Lock Up frame are identical to those listed above. Landing 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols during the bonus grants an additional 3, 5, or 7 free spins and expands the size of The Lock Up frame by one reel, up to the maximum 5×3 size.

Buy Feature

Anyone who wants The Lock Up frame running on every free spin can purchase the Tip Off Free Spins round for 60 times the bet. The return to player when buying free spins is 96.65%.

Brooklyn Bootleggers: Slot Verdict

From the rhythmic flavour of 9 Masks of Fire to the world of illegal booze sales, the scatter symbol/prize ladder mechanic clearly isn’t going away. If anything, it’s shown how adaptable it can be, popping up across all kinds of themes and subject matter. This is likely the first time it’s appeared in a bootlegging slot, which is a fairly uncommon theme in its own right. To match that, Quickspin has tweaked the usual formula, so Brooklyn Bootleggers hands out its prizes a little differently than earlier versions of this idea.

Whether that adjustment is an upgrade or a downgrade is difficult to pin down. Typically, you just land the minimum number of the right symbols and you’re paid something. That’s partly true here too, but only after The Lock Up has first framed part of the grid. Is that a clever twist or an irritation? It’s ultimately down to the player. Some will enjoy the variation, while others may prefer the simplicity of hitting scatters and moving on. The Lock Up Frame approach does make triggering free spins more appealing, since it creates the possibility of a prize on every free spin. Until the frame expands, though, the rewards are quite limited. For example, with a 3-reel frame the maximum payout is 50x the bet. Things get better once 4 reels are enclosed, lifting the top prize to 500x, while the 10,000x the bet available when all five reels are framed is a solid return for this type of game.

So, to wrap it up in familiar fashion: if you enjoy 9 Masks of Fire-style gameplay but want something with a different angle, Brooklyn Bootleggers may fit the bill. Positives include the higher win potential and the fresh setting, though reliance on The Lock Up Frame’s randomness could be the deciding factor for some.