Slot Of The Month – September 2018

Our Slot of the Month for September 2018 is Da Vinci’s Treasure by Pragmatic Play.

Da Vinci’s Treasure (its full name is John Hunter and the Secrets of Da Vinci’s Treasure) is a high volatility 25 line slot game played on a classic 3 x 5 reels array and offering a maximum win of a staggering 48,000x bet.  The theme has the rugged explorer figure John Hunter (who is not unlike Indiana Jones) going in search of the treasure and seems to have been inspired by the best selling book and film The Da Vinci Code.  The game can be played at stake levels from 25p to £125 a spin.

As with so many slot games, in Da Vinci’s Treasure it’s really all about the bonus rounds which are triggered by spinning three Cryptex (combination lock) symbols, which only appear on reels 2,3 and 4.  There are three different (randomly selected) bonus rounds.

Prize Picker

This is a straightforward pick me where you choose one of the three works of art to receive a cash award (typically up to 50x bet).

Map Quest

This is a board game style bonus round where you spin the wheel and move the indicated number of spaces until the wheel lands on Game Over at which point you collect the cash award shown (these rise slowly to start with and faster as you progress further along the track).  It is possible to reach the end of the track and if you do, you win 100x bet.

Progressive Multiplier Free Spins

The free spins bonus round is where the really big wins are possible.  You start with 12 free spins and a 1x multiplier and each time you spin, the multiplier goes up by one.  If the free spins are retriggered by the appearance of another set of Cryptex symbols, another 12 spins are added and the multiplier keeps on going up.  The maximum is 60 free spins in all – with a multiplier of 60x on the final spin and the potential for a ridiculously large win.  In the vast majority of cases, the free spins won’t be retriggered even once, let alone 4 times – but even so, the progression of the multiplier up to 12x can result in some nice wins.

The Gamble feature in Da Vinci’s treasure (which is part of the reason it is so volatile) allows the winnings from any bonus round to be gambled x2, x3, x4 or x5 (with no house edge).  Choose a gamble option and you’ll be presented with a matching pick me screen. For example, if you gamble x3 the screen shows three chests – two of which contain nothing and one of which contains the 3x multiplier for your bonus round winnings.

Da Vinci’s Treasure has an RTP of 96.53% and as you’d expect from a high volatility slot much of that is tied up in the bonus rounds and in low probability events like 5 of a kind.  However, there are more wins in the base game than in many other high volatility slots and this is because the three highest scoring symbols pay out for two of a kind.  That also makes for more winning spins in the bonus round, and the very small prizes for two of a kind become much more worthwhile as the multiplier goes up.

Da Vinci’s treasure also differs from other high volatility slots in that the bonus round isn’t ridiculously rare (you’ll still have to wait a while for it but probably not hundreds of spins).  This is because the bonus round itself is high volatility; the prizes from Prize Picker are disappointing on the whole and so is the prize from Map Quest if you don’t get close to the end of the track – unless you gamble them and win!

Where To Play Da Vinci’s Treasure