Deal With Death: Slot Overview

Figuratively or literally, the phrase ‘deal with death’ can be taken in plenty of ways. You could pin it on base jumpers, free solo climbers, or wingsuit fans launching themselves off perfectly solid mountains. Here, though, it’s about sitting down for a hand of cards with a bony opponent in Hacksaw Gaming’s online slot Deal With Death. Players split their time between landing standard pay symbols in Classic Mode and being dealt cards in Joker Mode, which can be enhanced by several Joker modifiers, such as multipliers and a distinctive reshuffle sequence that selects and deals the best three outcomes from a gathered pool of cards.

Death is portrayed as a metallic skeleton, casually flipping a casino chip between its fingers—like a robotic dealer designed to stare straight through a player and “know” what they’re holding. So, although Deal With Death does feature a Death-like character, it presents the theme in a more restrained way than it might, especially given Hacksaw Gaming also created slots like Hand of Anubis and Rotten. Rather than leaning into horror, Deal With Death keeps things more businesslike, as if this chrome reaper has set the scythe aside for a quick flutter at the card tables.

To start dealing, players pick a wager of $/€0.10 to $/€50 per spin, and if they feel like skipping ahead, there are four feature buys available too. The game runs on a highly volatile math model and comes in four RTP versions, topping out at 96.25%. It plays on a 5×4 grid, with standard wins checked across 14 paylines.

The eight pay symbols in Deal With Death are clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, plus four higher-paying versions of those suits. The lower symbols pay 2x to 3x the bet for a 5-matching line, while the top four return 10x to 20x the stake for a 5 OAK win.

Deal With Death: Slot Features

Deal With Death labels the paylines-and-symbols portion as Classic Mode, while Poker Mode is where the poker-style card play takes over. A range of Joker symbols can spice things up, and there are three bonus rounds along with feature buys.

Poker Mode

Poker Mode begins when a Joker symbol lands. Once active, all pay symbols transform into poker cards. Each row becomes a Poker Hand, and each one aims to form the strongest outcome from the 5 cards in that row according to the Power Hand paytable. Two pair, three of a kind, straight, flush, full house, four of a kind, straight flush, and royal flush pay 5x to 2,000x the bet.

Joker Symbols

The Joker symbol acts as a wild in Classic Mode, replacing any regular paying symbol. In this mode, only one Joker symbol can appear at a time. After it lands and any payouts are made, the grid switches to Poker Mode and the Joker symbol transforms into a Regular Joker, a Hand Multiplier Joker, a Global Multiplier Joker, or a Triple Trouble Joker.

• Regular Joker – Changes into a standard poker card, always choosing the best possible option for the row where it landed.
• Hand Multiplier Joker – Adds a multiplier of x2 to x10 to the row it landed on for one spin. If multiple Hand Multiplier Jokers land on the same row, their multipliers are added together.
• Global Multiplier Joker – Grants a Global Multiplier of x2 to x10 that applies to all winning Poker Hands on the grid for one spin. If a Global Multiplier impacts a winning Poker Hand that also has another multiplier, the values are added together.
• Triple Trouble Joker – Before Poker Hand wins are calculated, the Joker turns into the best possible regular poker card for its row. After all Poker Hand wins have been paid, every card on the grid is collected and shuffled, then the three best possible Poker Hands from the collected cards are dealt and paid out one by one in ascending order. Joker cards that didn’t form a win on the grid transform into a random poker card.

Once the Hand Multiplier Joker and Global Multiplier Joker have applied their effects, they turn into the best possible regular poker card for their row.

Free Spins

• Deal With It Bonus Game – Landing 3 scatters in Classic Mode of the base game awards 10 free spins in the Deal With It bonus game. It retains the base game rules but with a higher chance of landing Joker symbols. Across all three bonus features, if a Joker symbol lands on the triggering spin, the bonus round starts after any Poker Wins have been paid. Also, in all three rounds, landing 2 or 3 FS scatters awards +2 or +4 free spins, respectively.
• Dealbreaker Bonus Game – Landing 4 scatters in Classic Mode in the base game triggers 10 free spins in the Dealbreaker round. In addition to Deal With It’s mechanics, every Poker Hand win increases the payout for that specific hand by its base amount after the win has been awarded.
• Fool’s Gold Hidden Epic Bonus – If 5 scatters land in the main game Classic Mode, players receive Fool’s Gold’s 10 free spins. Expanding on Dealbreaker, a Joker symbol is guaranteed on every spin.

Feature Buys

The four feature buys available are BonusHunt FeatureSpins at 3x the bet to make each spin 5 times more likely to trigger a bonus, Flippin’ FeatureSpins at 60x to ensure a Joker symbol lands, Deal With It for 100x or Dealbreaker for 200x the stake.

Deal With Death: Slot Verdict

Deal With Death, then? It does make you curious about what’s brewing at Hacksaw Gaming. While plenty of studios stick to familiar slot themes, Hacksaw Gaming often circles more existential territory, as seen in titles like Life and Death, Circle of Life, and now Deal With Death. Even though it doesn’t present the idea in an especially bleak way, the studio’s interest in bigger questions suggests it’s not only focused on profit, but also on themes that invite players to pause and reflect. For slot fans surrounded by lightweight, well-worn concepts, it’s a welcome change—something you can spin when you’re in the mood for a little more thought while still risking your coins for the chance of a return. Possibly a very big one.

Or possibly nothing at all—depending on how the symbols, and in this case the cards, end up falling. A potential drawback is that Classic Mode, with straightforward symbols across straightforward paylines, can feel a touch too basic. The real highlights arrive when Jokers show up and players get to flip into cards and build Poker Hands. Compared with Deck of Scurra, which felt more like cards from start to finish, Deal With Death’s switching back and forth could be mildly irritating for some. Still, once Poker Mode is running, there’s more going on than simply forming hands from rows—especially since higher-tier hands can be very rewarding. The two multiplier Jokers are smart tools for pushing wins upward, and the Triple Trouble Joker looks entertaining as well. Free spins are likely the best environment for landing Jokers, particularly the hidden bonus, which—true to its name—probably won’t appear often, but does provide a Joker symbol on every spin. Useful.

If everything comes together, players can land a top win of 20,000x the bet when Deal With Death hits its ceiling. A quick bit of math shows it could, in theory, happen by pairing an x10 multiplier with a royal flush. It may happen or it may not, but slot fans who also enjoy the thrill of cards get a tidy blend of both in Deal With Death.