Jackpot Raiders (Yggdrasil Gaming): Review

Heavily inspired by the studio’s 2017 title Holmes & the Stolen Stones, and its 2018 lookalike counterpart Ozwin’s Jackpots, Jackpot Raiders won’t feel completely fresh to seasoned players. In what Yggdrasil describes as an “improved version”, the setting shifts away from Victorian London to a brighter expedition, where we team up with adventurers Sir Bear Buckingham and Sam Campbel as they search for the riches of the Sunken City.

The setup is largely identical to the earlier games, though with a few tweaks you’ll notice along the way. As with Holmes and Ozwin, Jackpot Raiders uses 5 reels, 3 rows and 20 paylines, and on every spin, 3.8% of your bet goes into the jackpots, which are bigger than in the previous editions. One thing to keep in mind, though, is the 96.3% RTP, which is notably lower than Holmes’s 96.8% and Ozwin’s 96.7%. Feature-wise, you get 2 separate free spin modes, 2 different bonus games, plus a pick-and-click chest game to keep things moving while contributing to the 5 jackpots. You can play Jackpot Raiders on any device with stakes ranging from between 10 cents t0 40€ per spin.

With a setting that could easily pass for the 1930s and a colour scheme typical of adventure themes, it captures that Indiana Jones-style vibe quite effectively. Although the base game is set inside an old ship, additional locations appear once you begin activating the features.

From a visual standpoint, the game is solid and packed with detail, yet it also feels slightly unusual. The textures look rougher, a bit less polished, and not as smooth as what we normally associate with Yggdrasil titles. Either we’re imagining it, or Yggdrasil may have handed parts of the artwork off to someone outside their usual team. We’d be curious to know whether readers feel the same.

Regardless, as you spin you’ll encounter 4 card suit icons styled like maps, along with backpacks, hats, and the two adventurers, Sir Bear and Sam. Sam is the top-paying symbol, awarding 200 times your stake for 5 on a payline. There are no wilds, but there is a compass scatter that can land on all reels and is key to triggering the different features.

Jackpot Raiders (Yggdrasil Gaming): Features

The compass scatter symbol sits at the heart of the gameplay. When 2 of them show up anywhere in view on the reels, the Pick-and-Click Chest Game starts. You’ll see 5 chests and must choose one. Possible rewards include 20 to 80 coins, Jackpot Free Spins, the Treasure Hunt Bonus game, or 1 random Map added to your Map collection.

Landing 3 compass scatter symbols (5 of them will award 500x), instead triggers the Compass feature, which awards either the Jackpot Free Spins or the Treasure Hunt Bonus game. The compass animation makes it look like a straight 50/50 split, but in our testing it appeared to lean more toward the bonus game.

If you receive the Treasure Hunt Bonus game, you can choose to play the mini-game as either Bear or Sam. Bear is the lower-volatility choice with a better success rate but smaller prizes, while Sam offers the reverse. Once it begins, your character gets 3 attempts to cross the river and open the chest you’ve targeted. There are 3 levels, and every time you open a chest, you move to the next level where bigger rewards are available. Depending on the character selected, prizes can include wins of up to 1800 coins (90x), along with collection maps and relics.

If the Jackpot Free Spins round is triggered, you’ll play 10 spins with a 3x multiplier. The key objective, however, is collecting 5 gems of the same colour to activate one of the 5 jackpots.

Keep an eye on the Map slots beneath the reels. There are 5 maps to gather: the Summit Shrine Map, the Highland Gate Map, the Jungle Ruins Map, the Desert Tomb Map and the Templar Grave Map. Each Map appears only on its dedicated reel and corresponds to the fixed jackpot prizes shown above the reels. Every new player begins with 2 Summit Shrine Maps and 1 of each of the remaining maps to get started. You can also pick up maps in the Treasure Hunt Bonus game and the Pick & Click Chest game. Once you complete a set of 5 identical maps, Jackpot Free Spins is activated with one gem head start toward that reel’s Jackpot collection.

Much more difficult to activate is the Sunken City Free Spins game, which requires collecting 5 relics in the Treasure Hunt Bonus. The upside is far stronger rewards: instead of a 3x multiplier, you receive a 10x multiplier. On top of that, you’re given one of each gem as a head start in the collection, improving your chances of triggering jackpots.

Lastly—and for a jackpot slot, most importantly—there are the 5 Jackpots, which can only be won during the Jackpot Free Spins round. Note that the chance of landing a Jackpot on any spin is proportional to your bet size. These progressive jackpots always begin at the following values:

• Forgotten Jackpot – €40
• Rare Jackpot – €200
• Mythical Jackpot – €600
• Ancient Jackpot – €1 500
• Legendary Jackpot – €15 000

Jackpot Raiders (Yggdrasil Gaming): Final Verdict

With so many features packed in, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that this is first and foremost a progressive jackpot slot. Playing it purely as a standard slot doesn’t make much sense, since the payouts are very small—so unless you’re chasing the jackpots, you’re likely better off with a non-jackpot game. Of course, that’s a fairly obvious point, and it applies to most progressive jackpot slots. Excluding jackpots, the maximum win is 600 times your stake on a single spin in the regular free spin feature and 2000 times your stake in the Sunken City Free Spins game, though even triggering that mode can feel like an achievement on its own. Ultimately, the features mainly serve as a distraction designed to keep you contributing to the progressive pools.

Even though the overall build quality is strong and the game feels fairly well tuned, we eventually got a bit worn down by the repeated Treasure Hunt Bonus animations and their usesless rewards, to the point where we ended up clicking all over the screen just to skip through it. The Free Spin feature is far less common and often returns nothing, while frequently dangling near-miss jackpot moments in front of you—so expect to take some hits.

Holmes & the Stolen Stones and Ozwin’s Jackpots appear to have performed well for Yggdrasil, even though they’re two titles we generally try to avoid. On the rare occasions we get a sudden craving for jackpots, we usually gravitate toward the big classics like Mega Fortune and Mega Moolah, but with so many jackpot slots now available, choosing is getting harder and harder. Jackpot Raiders may earn a few spins now and then, but in our view there are plenty of more engaging, more entertaining, and better-crafted alternatives out there.