Donuts Slot (Big Time Gaming): Overview

The Donuts slot was initially revealed at the ICE conference in London earlier this year, and after that it went quiet until now. It’s a little unexpected to see Big Time Gaming releasing so many slots in such a short span, as that’s not typically their style. We’re not complaining since their games are usually a lot of fun, though it does raise a small concern that the usual “hand built” feel might suffer if releases come too quickly.

Donuts slot is a 4-reel, 4-row game offering up to 2401 ways in the base game. It runs at a 96.54% RTP and can be played on any device with stakes from €0.05 to €12.50. One of the first associations we had when loading it up was the cartoon series The Simpsons. That might be because donuts are so closely tied to Homer Simpsons, or simply due to the overall presentation with its yellow-and-red logo and playful, cartoon-like style.

Behind the jukebox-shaped reelset you’ll see a background showing a desert highway and a lively Donut Diner sitting out in the middle of nowhere. The whole setup leans into a 50’s diner theme and gives off a warm, feelgood vibe.

Donuts slot uses 6 low paying symbols and 4 premiums. The low pays are the standard 9, 10, J, Q, K and A letter symbols, while the premium icons are green, blue, red and purple donuts. The purple donut (as usual) is the top symbol and pays a 15x win if you land 4 of a kind. The low-value symbols only pay when you hit 4 of a kind and are practically negligible on this slot.

The Wild symbol is a Jukebox and it appears on reels 2 and 4 only. The Scatter is a Golden Donut and it lands with the same heavy thud sound you’ll recognize from other BTG slots.

But that’s not all. You’ll also see Donut Boxes that hide surprises. These can reveal up to 4 Donut symbols (which extends the paylines) or a wild carrying a multiplier from x2 to x4.

Donuts Slot (Big Time Gaming): Features

There is no Feature Drop available here, so you’ll have to hunt the bonus the old-fashioned way –  landing 3 or 4 Gold Donut scatters anywhere on the reels triggers the Bonus round, awarding 12 or 20 free spins respectively. The bonus round is separate from the actual free spins mode that starts immediately after the bonus round. Here’s how it works…

In the bonus round, you get 16 individual 1×1 reels, and each one can show either a blank or a Gold Donut Scatter symbol on every spin. The bonus round begins with 3 spins, and every Scatter that lands increases the free spins multiplier somewhere between 1 and 50. Whenever a Scatter appears, it also resets the spin count back to the starting 3, allowing the round to continue.

The free spins game begins either after 3 dead spins in a row or once the Scatter symbols have filled all the 1×1 reels. Whatever multiplier total you build in the bonus game is then applied to every win during free spins, meaning you could start with something like a multiplier of 80, just as an example. Hitting 2, 3 or 4 Gold Donut scatters retriggers the free spins game and grants 10, 20 or 30 extra free spins respectively. These retriggers also start the bonus round again, giving you another chance to add more multipliers.

The familiar slow-spinning, heart-stopper effect you’ve probably noticed in Dragon Born and White Rabbit shows up here too when a strong line-hit is about to land.

Donuts Slot Big Time Gaming Conclusion

The Donuts slot is another high variance beast from Big Time Gaming, which is pretty much what you’d expect at this point. The base game isn’t especially exciting, but it’s still a step up compared to the prior release Book of Gods. Even so, we feel Donuts comes across as a bit less balanced than some of their biggest hits like Bonanza and Danger! High Voltage. Put simply, Donuts is all about the free spins, and that naturally pushes the variance even higher.

The bonus doesn’t trigger easily, so it’s best not to go in expecting it to drop often (we’d rate it about as (in)frequent as in White Rabbit or perhaps even tougher). We originally planned to do a 100 bonuses article, but scrapped it after playing 844 spins over 1 hour just to trigger the first bonus, which, when it finally arrived, paid 59x. Still, the free spins can be worth pursuing because it offers unlimited free spins potential and a massive return on investment. It’s hard to pin down the true maximum potential and it may be capped at a certain level, but if we had to guess, it’s probably in the same general range as Bonanza.

Did we have fun with the Donuts slot? Yes – and if you like high variance, you likely will too. The design is straightforward, but there’s a serious engine underneath. It’s a bit like throwing dynamite around: you know it could blow at any moment, which is thrilling and nerve-wracking at the same time. The base game can feel a little slow, but for players who understand the huge upside, the tension stays high.

This is high-variance, in-your-face gambling at its finest. The multiplier-collecting concept isn’t new in iGaming, but this is the first time it’s been used in any BTG slot, and it’s executed very effectively here. It does a great job of building anticipation before you move into the free spins game, as you’ll hopefully get to experience.

Don’t Miss…

Donuts belongs to a series of Big Time Gaming slots that all use a 4×4 layout. The lineup includes the sequel Chocolates and a balloon-themed third entry called Pop.