Hotline Slot

 Detectives Quinn and Rivera (flat out inspired by Miami Vice’s Crocket and Tubbs) and the lady burglar Miss Kitty Weiss are the game’s central characters with a 5×3 playfield and 30 paylines.

Here the Swedish developers used a particular multi-level bonus feature: Hotline Bonus Bet. This is one straightforward approach: players can pick 1, 2, or 3 rows – Hotlines, boosting the probability to win Expanding Wilds and Re-Spins, i.e. it is a Bonus Boost feature.

By activating any of the Hotlines, players place higher stakes (3x the initial bet per spin for all 3 Hotlines), but ultimately secure higher payouts.

Based on the number of Hotlines activated, the game’s theoretical RTP differs respectively:

• For 1 Hotline: 96.13%,
• For 2 Hotlines: 96.70%, and
• For 3 Hotlines: 97.04%.

You can practice with this Medium Volatility game for free – right here on our site. No registration is needed.

Review and recommendations about Hotline slot by the testing team

• With its storyline, decent graphics, and synthetic pop soundtrack, the game became popular swiftly after its release. Perhaps for the nostalgia that provokes – walking on the memory lane for many of the old generation players, or because of the high RTP, but people were curious to spin the Hotline and check those Bonus bets.
• Unfortunately, the paytable is constructed from surprisingly low-tariff symbols (for 5OAK for the highest-paid – Miss Kitty – 6x total bets) and non-value symbols – Wilds and Scatters.
• During the base game, you should not expect a good winning combination. When all the symbols are cheap, it is logical that even a full grid of them still doesn’t bring a good winning. This can immediately affect your balance if you don’t get a bonus feature or Re-spin with Expanding Wilds for a long interval, i.e. doesn’t keep the balance steady, and you swiftly can be ‘drained.’
• It certainly is better to have all 3 Hotlines active, and having in mind that the slot drops Wilds many times, it can help improve the balance vanished in the base game, especially if they come 3-4 at once and produce one spread combination. But then again, to profit from all those Wilds, it is necessary to have all 3 Hotlines operating at the cost of 3x greater bet per spin! Moreover, it looks like the game is pushing you toward the 3 Hotlines plunge because when playing with just 1 Hotline, the Red Car Wild symbol is often dropping, but not on that same Hotline area.
• At some level, the slot behaviour during the bonus feature has similarity to the bonus of the slot Butterfly Staxx (from NetEnt as well) in the context that – the Wilds happen mostly in the last few Free Spins of the bonus round. No doubt they can also come before that, but they will have less meaning (being only on reel 5- making no combinations, or they will come like a couple on the first 3 reels – making unnotable combinations). Within the period of testing with very few exceptions, all the profitable combinations fell during the last spins of the Free Spins bonus round. Furthermore, the slot seems to generate bonus games in a series of 2-3, followed by a long interval with no bonus at all.

Hidden parameters and settings of Hotline slot (data from testing)

• The frequency of triggering the re-spin feature is statistically every 13th spin (7.59%).
• The probability of a hit (any winning) is 25.39%.
• The distribution of the winnings is 24% in the usual spins and 76% in the re-spin feature.
• The maximum winning during the tests was 319x.
• The average winning from the re-spin feature was 3x.
• The Volatility is 5,12 out of 20 i.e.average.
• The cycle length is average.
• The rating of the slot machine for the wagering is 3,76 out of 10.
• Even the smallest RTP of 96.13% (For 1 Hotline) allows getting a positive mathematical expectation of winning at the casino.

Slot features

• The Hotline is a multilevel slot, where the main feature is the 3 separate per activation Hotlines. Players with a smaller budget can play only on 1 Hotline for the price of 15 coins per bet. For example, playing with 2 Hotlines – costs 30 coins, while playing on all 3 costs 45 coins per bet. You decide for yourself if you want to risk and triple the bet size per spin to have higher RTP and magnify the chances for more frequent and bigger payouts.
• Another feature is the Expanding Wild Re-spins – available when the Wild symbol drops on an active Hotline. Then the Wild fills up the entire reel, accumulates the winning payout, and, consequently, will stay in its place while the other reels make one Re-spin. Then the payout of the Re-spin is added.
• The last feature is the Free Spins – granted when 3 Scatters appear (can only drop on reels 1, 3, and 5) and trigger each time only 7 Free Spins. If Wild falls during the Free Spins will remain in its place till the end of the 7 bonus spins.

Settings

• Provider – NetEnt
• Payment lines – 30 (fixed)
• Default range of bets – 0.15 to 150 CAD (for 1 Hotline); 0.45 to 450 CAD (for 3 Hotlines)
• Volatility – Average
• Hit rate – 21% to 28.10%
• Playing field – 5х3
• The maximum winning is – 2800x the total bet
• Bonuses – Wilds, Expanding Wilds, Sticky Wild Re-spins, Scatters,  Free Spins
• Free Spins – Yes
• RTP – 96.13%-97.04%

How to win at the Hotline slot machine? (Conclusion)

• Our basic advice is to make a few try-outs in DEMO mode before playing for real money.
• We do not recommend this slot to bonus hunters when trying to fulfill the requirements.
• We do not recommend this slot also to gamble in expectation of winning a massive amount of money.
• We do, however, recommend this Medium variance slot to play with real money, but:
• Only for short sessions if you first identify that the machine is ‘hot’ (in DEMO) because of the great unpredictability. It can produce decent winning in the first 10-20 spins but also can run down your entire budget without any chance of a good win, regardless of your healthy beginning capital (200x +).
• Leaving your session after receiving 1-2 good winning combinations (100x total bets) – regardless if they were a result of Expanding Wilds + Re-spin, or Free Spins bonus game. It has been spotted that in most cases, after twice such winning, the Hotline slot machine starts to eat the balance with no further chances to recover.