Dead Man’s Trail

Base Game

Dead Man’s Trail slot has 40 fixed lines and a 5×4 reel. There are 4 low and 4 high symbols, including the Wild and the Bonus Scatter.

All symbols appear stacked, including the Wild, which is also the most valuable symbol that pays up to 60x bet per line or up to 2,400x for a full screen. That’s three times more than in Money Train 2, which is the result of shifting the prize money from the low to the high symbols. Yet, it may be possible to win more than that with the new instant-reward Coins.

Coin Feature

In addition to regular symbols, Dead Man’s Trail features coin symbols of varying sizes. They too can appear stacked and when you get the coins on at least three reels, their values will be added together for a total win multiplier. This is a recurring feature from Relax that you may also find in their slots like Templar Tumble.

My luck with this bonus has been limited to wins below 100x bet. The coin feature is unobtrusive enough to keep the surprise factor high in a base game that is otherwise quite dull. But what is anything but dull is the Trail Bonus.

Trail Bonus

Get 3 or more Bonus symbols to trigger a board game type bonus feature called the Trail Bonus.

You’ll get a pawn that moves 1 – 9 steps at a time on a circular map. Depending on which tile the pawn land, you’ll get a win multiplier (which will then turn into the End Bonus Tile), or a special treasure chest. If you land on one of the mystery treasure chests, you’ll unlock one of 11 special actions (familiar to anyone who has played Money Train):

• Scout – adds +100x to 1,000x multiplier to a random tile.
• One-Eye – multiplies the value of a normal tile with x2 – x5, repeats 2-4 times.
• Commander – adds 3x – 5x to all prize tiles.
• Collector – collects values from all prize tiles.

  

• Collect & Command – collects all prizes and adds that amount back to them, including to the total win.

  

• Reset – removes all end tiles and replaces them with prize ones.
• Super Reset – replaces all end tiles with temporary mystery chests.

  

• Coin Win – award a win between 25x and 50x.

There are also three very special treasures. There are three Persistent symbols that will keep on giving at every turn, without disappearing.

• Persistent Scout

  

• Persistent One-Eye
• Persistent Commander.

  

The most you can win from each tile is 10,000x and the total bonus win is capped at 50,000x. So what you really want in this bonus is to land on one of the chests, but it’s also crucial to get the premium persistent symbols early on. I have had runs that lasted over 10 minutes but also ones that paid nothing. So do take into account the volatility factor, although theoretically, the average win should be in the 98x ballpark.

👍 Tip: The probability of winning over 1,000x bet is 1 in 32,489. This is around three times better than in Money Train 2.

Bonus Buy

If you have the option to buy the feature outright, it will cost you 100x bet or between 10 and 2,000 credits. The bonus buy amount is never arbitrary, so the 100x bet deal is an indication of how much you can expect to win on average from this bonus.

Just like in Money Train 2, the RTP will increase from 96.29% to 98% if you buy the feature, which is a significant advantage that’s just shy of 1% from the crazy Book of 99. Whether or not Relax will also release a modified UK version of the game similar to Money Cart 2 Bonus Reels is to be seen.