Buffalo Slot Machine Icon

Other Icons in the Buffalo Slots Online Machine As you relish in the excitement which comes with this game that is quite popular among plethoras of UK players among others, you will realize that not only is the Buffalo the most profitable icon, but it is also the only stacked one.

That’s right. The first step is admitting you have a problem. We all do, when it comes to the Buffalo slot. Why is that? As much as we may like other slot machines, the Buffalo calls to us, almost like that slot machine in the old Twilight Zone episode that calls out the hapless hero’s name (and at one point, follows him up to his hotel room). Très creepy.

The Buffalo slot machine (in all its manifestations) has none of that creepiness. The sound effects are benign, even friendly. Buffalo seems like such a good-natured machine. And it’s generous, too. So what if the wins tend to be less than huge?

Ask anyone who’s shoveled a hundred bucks or more into a “cold” slot machine, and they’ll tell you that small-but-frequent wins are easily preferable to huge-but-rare wins. Well, they’re both nice, but in our heart of hearts, we slot players know that the pay tables eventually favor the house.

Somehow, the Buffalo slot manages to convince us we’re ahead of the game (or drawing closer to it), even when we’re clearly not. How does Aristocrat achieve this?

It’s a clever and skillful combination of those frequent small wins with bonuses inside bonuses, free spins, re-triggers, multipliers that multiply other multipliers, and at the heart of it all, Aristocrat’s own invention, Reel Power.

Reel Power (and its own spin-offs, Xtra Reel Power and Super Reel Power) is a departure from the time-tested single-line slot machine that required symbols to line up along a horizontal line etched into the glass face of the machine.

Oh, there were some innovations, such as three-line and five-line machines, but these all required a bet placed on each line to activate it as a winning option.

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Buffalo slot machine icon clip art

Other manufacturers built three-line and even five-line machines, all of which required an escalating coin-in to qualify for the full number of win-lines.

Enter Aristocrat. In the 1990s, Aristocrat developed what it called Reel Power, which did away with the “lines” concept and made the entire face (the five mechanical reels were now mere digital images on a video screen by this time) a winning field.

Instead of five pay lines (three horizontal lines for the three rows of symbols, along with the two diagonal lines), Aristocrat made a lineless screen, and five matching symbols appearing in any of the three horizontal rows resulted in a win.

Not to go all mathematical on you, but with five reels, each presenting three symbols, this gave the slot player 243 ways he or she could win.

Naturally, with this arrangement, wins would occur much more frequently, and since slot players aren’t paying for those machines — casinos are — Aristocrat had to downsize the wins.

Along with more frequent wins, Aristocrat tossed in bonus rounds, nested multipliers, and wild cards that double as win-multipliers, and you have a winning combination.

By the way, Xtra Reel Power is the addition of a fourth horizontal row of symbols to the game, which gives the player 1024 ways to win, and Super Reel Power is the addition of a fifth horizontal row of symbols (giving the player over 3000 paths to glory).

Me, I’m waiting for Aristocrat to develop Super-Duper Reel Power, in which I win without leaving the house and they just mail me a check.

But we were talking about Aristocrat, the American success story from Australia.

It took some time for the Buffalo to catch on, particularly in “destination” cities like Las Vegas and Reno.

Vegas and Reno (and even Atlantic City) weren’t the only places with casinos, as it happens. Tribal casinos were springing up in the oddest places, and — more often than not — they catered to locals much more than the “destination” casinos did.

Aristocrat put Buffalo slots in these tribal casinos, and — wouldn’t you know it? The locals liked the reality of many small wins to the fantasy of the big jackpot. They adored the cry of “Buffalooooo!” whenever even the smallest win took place. And they were enamored with the idea of “lineless” slots, where even the minimum bet could reap real rewards.

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Once upon a time in the west…. Ok, being serious a moment, a long time ago, way before some slot design genius came up with what would become the most popular online slot game of all time, NetEnt’s Starburst, a different game ruled the roost. Not just online either did the Buffalo slot game dominate the gaming landscape, it was the most played slot in the land casinos too, in fact in most, it still is. Although the game has largely been replaced by its successor, Buffalo Grand, in many venues, this game still holds a warm place in many players hearts.

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For most of us the Buffalo slot, one of Aristocrats reel power series of games, was the first time we played a 1024 ways to win slot machine. This is even bigger than the 243 ways to win machines that came earlier, by virtue of an extra row on the 5 reel setup. With animated symbols, wilds and a renowned free spins feature, this is a game that has stood the test of time, unlike the wild buffalo from which it draws its name.

As a multiple ways to win game, there are no paylines to speak of. Instead, wins from left to right count on any reel which you have active. What sets Aristocrat games like this apart is the reel power system, or extra reel power on 5×4 games such as this, where you can disable rows from reel 2 onwards to keep the cost of entry down. We wouldn’t though because no slots experience quite feels like a full screen of Buffalo’s charging towards you!

The cost of playing all reels on the Buffalo slot is also pretty fair at 0.40 credits. Most land casinos will have a 6.00 credit max bet in place but online it can go much higher than that. The controls are super simplified to make it very well optimised for play at mobile casinos and being able to set the auto spin number exactly is always welcome – unlike the Magic Forest slot and other Amatic games for example which have only stop and start. You can enable / disable sound effects, music and ambient noise as well as set the spacebar to spin on desktop devices. It couldn’t be easier, everything you need and nothing that you don’t!

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Symbols on the Buffalo slot, the high-paying ones at least, all come with a 3D animation and sound effect when they complete a win. The Buffalo is the rarest at 300x your bet for all 5 whilst the great American eagle and snarling mountain lion are not shy predators in the least, they have a 150x reward attached to them. The wild wolf is on the prowl for the stag on the slot and both have 120x as one hunts and one attempts to elude! Below this is Aristocrat’s common themed royal playing card icons. These all have the same top prize of x100 for 5 of-a-kind. Of course, on a 5×4 reel game with no pay-lines, multiple wins per spin are very common, it’s the big combinations which can feel a little scarce.

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The vast wild west was once populated by ancient civilisations and one of their mythical solid going coins is the games scatter pay, with 3x your stake for two, 4x for three and a top prize of 20x for 5, although that seems low they do also trigger the spins feature so it’s an instant win on top of that. Last up is the wild, which is a rocky mountain in the desert on a sunset background. This replaces all symbols except for the scatter but only appears on the middle three reels. For 5 of a kind you will need a matched symbol on a minimum of reels one and five with this wild mechanic.

What everyone plays the Buffalo slot for is the free spins feature. Indeed, as a slot player, it was this very bonus which granted me my first ever 200x win! There are 8,15 or 20 free games, with a re-trigger, available for 3,4 or 5 scatters. What makes this really pay though is that the sunset wild will multiply any win for that spin by either 2 or 3. This gives a total multiplier available of up to 27x! Over the years many players biggest ever wins have come courtesy of this multiplier saving an otherwise unremarkable free spins session.

Yes, as veteran slot players we are biased. The younger generation who have only ever played the incredible 3D video slots from NetEnt and Betsoft or, the big branded games like Game of Thrones, will likely think we are mad. Buffalo though is a hall of famer in the slots world and rightly so. It’s entertaining, fun and has massive pay-outs on the right day. What better combination on a slot could you possibly ever ask for? US players can only play it at land casinos, but much of the rest of the world will find it online at really great online casino sites.

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