Clumsy Cowboys: Slot Overview

Out in the far reaches of the Wild West, being clumsy is pretty much the last trait you’d want when you’re lassoing cattle, brawling with saloon troublemakers, or trying to be the fastest hand in town. Still, a hopeless gunslinger bungling their six-shooter is an easy setup for laughs, which is exactly the angle Hacksaw sibling studio Backseat Gaming takes with Clumsy Cowboys. This cartoonish escapade has players spinning alongside two larger-than-life partners, with help coming from features like Symbol Removal, Wild Multipliers, and two bonus games that can be triggered or bought.

And these “cowboys” aren’t just awkward—they’re a hippopotamus and a rhinoceros named Harry and Ryan. How animals that big are meant to ride off into the sunset on horseback is anyone’s guess… or how they’re meant to ride anything at all. Either way, the duo has somehow made it to a quiet, middle-of-nowhere outpost to get on with their business. The Clumsy Cowboys screen leans heavily into timber: a rickety-looking frontier town backdrop in the base game (the kind that seems like it could blow away in a gust) and wooden supports framing the 5-reel grid. The goofy animation is contrasted by a foreboding bell toll, adding a surprisingly serious edge to the silliness.

The playfield uses 5 reels with 4 rows of symbols, and wins are checked across 20 paylines. There are plenty of bonus buy choices, but whether you’re using those or simply spinning normally, you’ll need to set a stake between 10 c to $/€100. Before heading into this dusty dead-end, it’s worth noting that Clumsy Cowboys is a medium volatile title, with RTP topping out at 96.22%.

Standard Western-style 10 to A royals make up the lower-value symbols, joined by some less traditional frontier fare in the form of fruit—plums, oranges, and watermelons—plus two character symbols at the top end. Five matching royals pay 1x-2.5x, the fruit can return up to 3x-5x, and landing 5 OAK of the 2 cowboys delivers 20x-50x the bet.

Clumsy Cowboys: Slot Features

In the base game, scatters can land on reels 2-5, and they’re responsible for activating 2 separate bonus rounds – Stick Them Up and Sheriff’s Showdown. Once you’re inside a bonus, scatters are restricted to the far-left and far-right reels only. Additional mechanics include Wild Multiplier symbols, Symbol Removal, and bonus buy options.

Wild Symbols

Wild Multiplier symbols can appear on reels 2, 3, and 4. They always carry a multiplier of x2, x3, or x5. When multiple multipliers contribute to the same win, their values are added together.

Stick Them Up Bonus

Landing 3 scatter symbols in the base game grants 10 free Stick Them Up spins. During this bonus, any Wild Multipliers that land become sticky. If scatters hit the leftmost and rightmost reels, you receive +2 free spins and it removes the lowest available paying symbol from the reels.

Sheriff’s Showdown Bonus

Hitting 4 scatter symbols in the base game awards 10 free Sheriff’s Showdown spins. In this mode, all low-paying royal symbols are removed from the reels right at the start, and all Wild Multipliers are sticky. Landing scatter symbols on the leftmost and rightmost reels gives +2 free spins and removes the next lowest available paying symbol from the reels.

Bonus Buy

Clumsy Cowboys’ bonus buy menu includes these 5 choices: BonusHunt FeatureSpins – 2x the bet. Each spin is 3 times more likely to trigger free spins, Bandit’s Grab FeatureSpins – 25x the bet. Each spin guarantees 3 to 12 wilds and a random number of the lowest pay symbols removed, Outlaw’s Steal FeatureSpins – 75x the bet. Each spin guarantees 3 to 12 wilds, and all low-pay symbols are removed, Stick Them Up – 100x the bet, or Sheriff’s Showdown – 200x the bet.

Clumsy Cowboys: Slot Verdict

Clumsy Cowboys isn’t really “clumsy” in how it plays or is put together. That said, some of the theme ingredients feel a bit thrown together. Rhinos, hippos, fruit, sheriff badges, a jaw harp—it’s a strange blend. But that oddness also gives Clumsy Cowboys a bit of personality in a Western slot space that’s overflowing with gun-spinning competition. The presentation is quirky enough that it almost distracts from the fact that Backseat Gaming’s previous Western release, Old Gun, wasn’t released all that long ago. Still, the studio clearly has a soft spot for the setting, and it’s delivered a strong mix of visuals and audio here to show it.

More importantly, the feature set is nicely put together too. It’s difficult to complain about wild multipliers—especially when they turn sticky in free spins—so that part lands well. The extra kick comes from stripping out low-paying symbols, improving the odds of hitting higher-value icons alongside them thar Wild Multipliers. There’s also a sense of pressure created by how much more valuable the two top character symbols are compared to the fruit and royals. That naturally draws attention toward the Sheriff’s Showdown bonus, which removes all of the royals at the beginning of the round. It helps that Clumsy Cowboys’ 12,500x max win is achievable in the bonus games only.

Among the three connected developers (Hacksaw Gaming, Backseat Gaming, and Bullshark Games), Hacksaw Gaming is still the clear heavyweight (Wanted Dead or a Wild being one of their all-time biggest successes), but the two partner studios have been doing a respectable job of closing the gap over time. Honestly, it wouldn’t be shocking if you swapped Backseat Gaming’s name off Clumsy Cowboys and replaced it with Hacksaw Gaming—many players probably wouldn’t notice. That’s how consistent the look and gameplay feel across the trio has become. Clumsy Cowboys is another solid entry: maybe not a top-tier standout by the standards used here since the features aren’t wildly innovative, but it’s a dependable pick if you’re after a lively Western slot starring hippos and rhinos.