Wanted Dead or a Wild

Wanted Dead or a Wild is a Hacksaw Gaming Western from September 2021, played on a 5x5 grid with 15 paylines under a blood-red sky. Its VS symbols turn whole reels wild with multipliers of up to 100x, and its three bonus rounds bring sticky wilds, extra VS symbols or a wild-collecting showdown. The top RTP is 96.38% and the cap 12,500x. Our test of the Wanted Dead or a Wild demo covered 100 spins at $1 and all three buys.

What is the Wanted Dead or a Wild slot about?

The reels are wanted-poster tiles in a weathered wooden frame, set against a dead tree, a huge yellow moon and a red sky. Each bonus has its own scene: the back of a night train for The Great Train Robbery, an orange moon for Duel at Dawn and a green graveyard for Dead Man's Hand.

Wins pay left to right on 15 fixed lines, starting from the leftmost reel, and need 3 of a kind. At a $1 bet, five card letters pay $1, five steer skulls or bandits $5, five money bags or whiskey bottles $10, and five revolver cylinders $20, the same as five wilds. Three of a kind pays a tenth of the five-symbol amount.

The sheriff-star wild stands in for everything except the scatters and the VS symbols, and pays only for five. The review sites we checked put the hit rate at about 19.3%, and 19 of our 100 base spins paid.

Hacksaw's game page calls Wanted the first game with DuelReels, its name for the VS feature. Its later Western Duel at Dawn, from 2024, is a separate slot that brings them back; on this page, Duel at Dawn means Wanted's bonus round.

Before our first spin at $1: the 5x5 grid of wanted-poster tiles, with BUY BONUS at the bottom left. FluxPlays demo test, 16 October 2026.

Wanted Dead or a Wild bonus features

VS symbols and DuelReels

A VS symbol can land in the base game and in Duel at Dawn, and it expands only if the expanded reel would be part of a win. It then covers its reel and shows two outlaws with different multipliers. They duel, the survivor's multiplier applies across the reel, and the whole reel turns wild. The rules list 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, 7x, 8x, 9x, 10x, 20x, 25x, 50x and 100x.

With more than one VS reel in a win, their multipliers are added first and then applied to the line wins. A VS symbol on every reel turns the entire grid wild.

The Great Train Robbery

Three or more TRAIN ROBBERY scatters in the base game award 10 free spins on the back of a night train, and every wild that lands stays sticky until the round ends. Its buy card says medium volatility. It is also the one mode the rules leave off their list of places where the 12,500x cap can be reached.

Duel at Dawn

Three or more DUEL scatters award 10 free spins with more VS symbols than the base game, so there are more chances of a DuelReel. The buy card marks it very high volatility, the strongest label in the game.

Dead Man's Hand

Three or more DEAD scatters start a round in two parts. In the collect phase the grid fills with skull cards that pay nothing, plus Wild and Multiplier symbols. Each one collected resets the spins left to 3, and the phase ends after three spins in a row with nothing collected. The round's intro says up to 20 wilds and a 31x multiplier can be gathered.

Three showdown spins follow, each with every collected wild placed on the grid and every win multiplied by the collected total. Its buy card says high volatility.

Bonus buys

BUY BONUS sells all three rounds, so there is no hidden fourth one. As bonus buys, The Great Train Robbery costs 80x the bet at 96.27% RTP, Duel at Dawn 200x at 96.33% and Dead Man's Hand 400x at 96.43%. Each asks for a confirmation, and the game has no FeatureSpins or other paid modes.

Bets in the demo's rules run from $0.20 to $2,000, against the $100 maximum the review sites we checked give, and buys can go past the limit.

The three buys at $1, labelled Medium, Very high and High volatility. FluxPlays demo test, 16 October 2026.

Our Wanted Dead or a Wild demo test

We played Hacksaw Gaming's official demo in US dollars from its $5,000 balance, and reconciled every round against the game server's log. The 100 base spins at $1 returned $12.40. Only 19 paid, 13 of them less than $1, and the best were two $2.00 wins, on spins 12 and 85.

No bonus triggered and no VS symbol expanded in those 100 spins, so every win was a plain line win. The longest run without one lasted 14 spins, from spin 59 to 72.

The $80 Great Train Robbery buy gave 10 free spins. Wilds stuck and spread across the grid, yet five spins paid nothing and the others paid $0.50, $0.60, $6.50, $2.10 and $1.20, for $10.90.

After our $80 Great Train Robbery buy: wilds left across the grid, and $10.90 for the round. FluxPlays demo test, 16 October 2026.

The $200 Duel at Dawn buy paid once. On free spin 3 a VS symbol on reel 3 expanded, the duel ended at 7x, and a $2.50 line of bandits through it became $17.50. The other nine spins paid nothing.

Duel at Dawn free spin 3 at a $1 bet: a 7X DuelReel on reel 3 crossing a $2.50 line of bandits, before the multiplier was applied. FluxPlays demo test, 16 October 2026.

The $400 Dead Man's Hand buy ran 18 collect spins, which gathered 6 wilds and a 10x multiplier, then the three showdown spins. By the server log they paid $10.00, $200.00 and $21.00. The round's $231.00 is a single result carried by one spin; without it, the other two paid $31.00.

Dead Man's Hand, collect phase: 3 wilds and a 7x multiplier gathered so far. FluxPlays demo test, 16 October 2026.

Our $400 Dead Man's Hand buy at a $1 bet, settled: six wilds placed and $231.00 for the round. FluxPlays demo test, 16 October 2026.

Each part of the session on its own line:

• Base game, 100 spins at $1: $100.00 in, $12.40 back
• The Great Train Robbery buy at 80x: $80.00 in, $10.90 back
• Duel at Dawn buy at 200x: $200.00 in, $17.50 back
• Dead Man's Hand buy at 400x: $400.00 in, $231.00 back

In all we staked $780.00 and got $271.80 back, by the server log, in one session that ended at $4,491.80. The demo's rules showed the 96.38% version. We never saw a natural bonus, a VS reel in the base game, two DuelReels at once or a VS multiplier above 7x. One round per buy and 100 base spins cannot measure the RTP or test any volatility label.

Is Wanted Dead or a Wild worth trying?

The DuelReels are the reason to play. A VS reel appears only when it pays, it brings a multiplier of up to 100x, and two or more add together, so one spin can jump from nothing to a large win. The three bonuses play very differently, and every one of them can be bought.

The cost is a harsh base game. Five card letters pay just the bet, three of a kind pays a tenth of five, and wins must start on the leftmost reel, so without a VS reel most spins pay nothing. The buys cost 80x to 400x, and in our test none of them returned its price.

Hacksaw's own figures differ on volatility: its game data says 4 out of 5, and the meter on its slots list shows 5 out of 5. The game gives no overall volatility label, but its buy cards read medium for The Great Train Robbery, very high for Duel at Dawn and high for Dead Man's Hand. Casinos can run 96.38%, 94.55%, 92.33% or 88.42% RTP.

Ra vs Osiris, a 5x5, 15-line game we have tested, uses the same kind of VS wild: it expands only into a win, takes a multiplier, and several add together, with values up to 1,000x. In its free spins the wilds walk one reel left with each respin.

Eastern Fury, also 5x5 with 15 lines, lands its VS wild only on reel 5 in the base game; without a win it respins and adds wild reels on reels 4 and 3, then keeps respinning until one comes.