According to Wikipedia, the oldest known piggy bank dates all the way back to the 13th century, and it was discovered during construction work in the German state of Thuringia. It’s safe to say that the association of wealth with pigs has thrived well into our own time, and not least in the world of online slots. Bankin’ Bacon is a Blueprint installment in the popular Money theme genre, and it’s basically a Fishin’ Frenzy copycat job.
The cartoonish visual style combines well with the jazzy soundtrack, and if collecting pay cheques gives you any satisfaction, this release might be for you. The base game is completely void of features, and you’re at the mercy of the Piggy Bank Collector Wild in the bonus round. What makes this installment stick out is the pre-feature Gamble Wheel option, as well as the bonus buy feature (the latter is, of course, not available in the UK).
Thepremium symbols pay between 50 and 200 x your stakefor 6 of a kind wins, while cheque symbols pay 10x your stake for the same. That pretty much sums up the base game, and you need to trigger the Banker Spins feature to collect cheques for their actual cash value.
You trigger the Banker Spins bonus round by landing3, 4, 5 or 6 gold coin scattersanywhere in view, and this awards10, 15, 20 or 30 free banker spins, respectively. You can go for theMystery Choiceinstead, in which a massivewheel of fortunewill spin to determine your number of free spins and a fixed cheque value.
You can getup to 50 banker spinsfrom the wheel, and the highest cheque value you can get is worth 50x your stake. With the Mystery Choice you’re thus stuck with a fixed cheque value for the duration of the feature, and you can also get fewer free spins than what you originally banked from the organic trigger.
ThePiggy Bank symbolis theCollector Wildduring the Banker Spins bonus round, and it will thus collect all cheque values present when it lands. In addition, it steps in for all regular pay symbols to help complete winning combos. Landing more than one piggy bank means that your total winnings are multiplied accordingly.
Finally, non-UK players can purchase the bonus round directly at any time, and this is done via theBonus Bet feature. It will set you back75x your stake, and this awards a spin on the Mystery Choice bonus wheel. The RTP increases to95.49 %if you take advantage of this feature.
You get to see a couple of base game cheque wins, as well as other smaller payouts, before we trigger the Banker Spins bonus round with 6 scatters at 1:45 into the 5:10-minute highlights video. This gave us 30 spins, but we decided to gamble by going for the Mystery Choice option. See it all for yourself by hitting the play button below.
Blueprint has plenty of Fishin’ Frenzy installments under their belt from before, and Bankin’ Bacon is based around the exact same concept. The piggy bank wealth theme might appeal more to some players though, but we much prefer Fishin Frenzy The Big Catch over this effort. For one, the 95 % RTP is close to a deal-breaker, not least when the above-mentioned title comes with a more decent 96.12 % RTP and the same potential.
Speaking of, we’re getting a bit tired of Blueprint’s “standard”50,000x(or up to £250,000) advertised max win. It’s certainly possible with 4,096 win ways, but we don’t see how you can get even close to cracking it by collecting banker spin cheques. With 50 free spins and extreme luck perhaps, but many times you’ll hardly land more than 1 or 2 Piggy Bank Collectors in total, if even that. If fishing expeditions aren’t your thing, and you prefer the wealth theme, then this is a decent alternative.
Pros
Cons
Fishin Frenzy The Big Catch- is a solid Blueprint installment in the popular genre, and it comes with upgradable cash fish in the bonus round. Each fisherman collector wild is added to a meter, and if you reach the 4th level all cash fish that land are worth 50x your stake. The max win is the standard 50,000x (or £250,000, whichever comes first).
Piggy Bank Farm- is a humorous Play’n Go release that combines the wealth and farm theme, and it plays out on 5×4 reels with 50 paylines. The hold-and-win style piggy bank spins feature is all about merging money symbols into higher value symbols, and these can be multiplied to award up to 5,000x your stake in total when triggered from within the bonus round.
Coin Bash- is a wealth-themed Snowborn release that plays out on 5 reels and 20 betlines. Instant scatter prizes up to 5,000x can be landed at all times, and the upgradable bonus round multiplier can lead to payouts up to a solid 12,500x your stake.
