Hoot Shot the Sheriff: Slot Overview

Saddle up, because Hacksaw Gaming partner Backseat Gaming is back with a Western scatter-pays slot called Hoot Shot the Sheriff. And yes, it really is “Hoot,” not “Shoot”—no typo—since the sheriff is a stern, pistol-packing owl in a cowboy hat named Hoot. You don’t see that every day. The gameplay itself may not be overflowing with brand-new ideas, but it delivers a set of straight-ahead, hard-hitting effects that fit the scatter-pays format perfectly.

Backseat Gaming clearly enjoys this neck of the woods, having previously headed here with Old Gun and Clumsy Cowboys. Of the three, Hoot Shot the Sheriff feels like the most isolated, set way out in the middle of nowhere where the scenery is mostly dry grass and distant animal cries. For whatever reason—perhaps the name came first—the game still features its owl sheriff, looking dead serious with hat and handgun. Aside from that character, Hoot Shot the Sheriff presents a fairly classic Western look, staged in the wilderness rather than a dusty main street or saloon.

This title is highly volatile and runs on a 6×5 scatter-paying grid. Whenever 8 or more matching symbols appear anywhere on the reels, they form a win that sets off the cascade mechanic and additional action. Bets range from 10 c to $/€100 per round, and at those settings the theoretical RTP is 96.32%, although an alternative lower-return configuration also exists.

Symbol-wise, triangles, diamonds, clubs, spades, and hearts make up the low pays, while cacti, boots, money bags, and owls are the higher-value icons. Scatter wins start at 8 matching symbols paying 0.2 to 2 times the bet, while 19+ OAK results award 50 to 400 times the bet. There are no wild symbols in this game.

Hoot Shot the Sheriff: Slot Features

Hoot Shot the Sheriff packs in a set of relatively straightforward yet impactful features, including cascades, a Global multiplier, multiplier symbols, a Midnight Gun Fight bonus, the Sheriff’s Hootout bonus, and feature buys.

Cascades, Global Multiplier & Total Win Bar

Winning symbols are removed from the reels, and new symbols drop in to replace them, creating another opportunity to land wins. The Global multiplier climbs by +1 with every winning cascade, then resets once the base game spin is complete. Cascades continue for as long as wins keep forming. All payouts are collected in the Total Win Bar. Sheriff’s badge multipliers and the Global multiplier are added to the Total Win Bar at the end of a spin, multiplying each other and applying to the total win amount.

Sheriff’s Badge Symbol

The Sheriff’s badge displays a multiplier of x2 to x10, which is collected by the Total Win Bar at the end of a spin. Multipliers multiply each other when collected in the Total Win Bar.

Midnight Gun Fight

The Midnight Gun Fight is activated—along with 10 free spins—by landing 3 scatters in the base game. The same mechanics as the base game are used, except the Global multiplier becomes persistent for the duration of the feature. Landing 3 scatters during this bonus round or the next one grants +5 free spins.

Sheriff’s Hootout

Landing 4 scatters starts this feature and awards 10 free spins. It uses the base game rules, with the added twist that Sheriff’s badge symbols multiply the Global multiplier, which remains persistent until the bonus round finishes.

Bonus Buys

BonusHunt FeatureSpins are available for 2x the bet, making each spin 3x more likely to trigger a bonus game, while QuickDraw FeatureSpins cost 50x each and ensure at least one Sheriff’s badge appears. Midnight Gun Fight can be purchased for 100x the bet, and Sheriff’s Hootout for 200x.

Hoot Shot the Sheriff: Slot Verdict

Scatter pays games are so widespread and so in-demand now that reviewing them one after another isn’t unusual. That’s exactly what happened with Hoot Shot the Sheriff, since the previous game reviewed was Relax Gaming’s Bounty County—another scatter pays slot, and also Western-themed. It was almost certainly just a strange coincidence, but it was still funny to have two such similar genres arrive back-to-back. The upside is that the two titles play very differently: where Bounty County tried to push into experimental territory, Hoot Shot the Sheriff is built on tried-and-tested mechanics.

So, anyone jumping into Hoot Shot the Sheriff shouldn’t expect intimidatingly original systems, but the feature set can still deliver serious results. It’s more of a direct, no-nonsense approach—simple components that work well together. You can sense how it could have taken inspiration from something like Gates of Olympus, only with even fewer rules to keep track of. Win, boost the multiplier, repeat, then collect—clean and satisfying. The Sheriff symbol adds a worthwhile extra layer too, since any opportunity to push the multiplier higher is a plus, and during testing it reached some pretty hefty levels.

Hefty enough to imagine the game reaching its 25,000x win cap? Absolutely, why not. That said, players hunting for the next big revolution in scatter pay design probably won’t find it here. But if you want a playable Gates-style alternative with a pleasingly simple set of features that link up neatly and can smash out wins like an overexcited, gun-toting owl—whatever that’s supposed to mean—Hoot Shot the Sheriff could be the one.