9 Bells

9 Bells Slot Review

Ghosted bell silhouettes drift behind the reel cells of a gold-framed cabinet in deep navy, and 9 Bells is exactly as ornate and as spare as that sounds. The arguable truth of it is that this is barely a slot at all: strip away the spin button and it’s a collection game, nine cells that fill one Bell at a time until a bonus round opens. Nothing on the reels pays in the conventional way, and the whole game is the better for it if you have the patience.

Wazdan’s 3×3 grid runs nine independent reels, pays at 96.16% RTP, and caps all winnings at 1,500x the bet. It sits in familiar company for the studio, sharing DNA with 9 Coins Grand Diamond Edition, 9 Lions Hold The Jackpot and Hot Slot: 777 Coins. Whether a game this pared back can hold attention is the question the reels spend their whole time answering.

Nine Reels and No Regular Symbols

Each of the nine reels spins independently, and none of them carries a paying symbol in the ordinary sense. Bonus symbols pay only inside the bonus game or through the Cash Out feature, which means the reels are less about lining things up and more about slowly collecting them. It’s a deliberate design, and it makes every spin count towards something.

Bells are the engine of that collection. Every Bell that lands is saved into an empty field of the Bonus Matrix on the reel it appeared on. Fill the matrix and the bonus game activates. Bells themselves never pay, even as part of a winning combination.

There’s a neat interlocking logic to it. A Bell fills a matrix field for its reel, a filled field is what allows Cash Infinity symbols to land on that reel, and a full matrix is what opens the bonus round. Everything in the base game feeds the same nine cells, in the order the game decides.

Cash Out

Land three Bonus symbols of any type on the middle row and the Cash Out feature triggers: the values of the three middle-row symbols are added together and paid immediately. Bells can sit in that row, but they contribute nothing to the payout, so a row of three Bells pays nothing at all.

Cash Infinity

Cash Infinity symbols can appear at random in the base game and stick to the reels until the bonus game ends, locked in place while everything else spins. They can only land on a reel where a Bell has already been saved to the matrix, and if one lands on the middle row it improves the odds of triggering Cash Out. Their prizes are paid at the end of the bonus game, not on landing.

Because Cash Infinity symbols persist through to the bonus game, a few of them sitting on collected reels give the bonus round a head start before it’s even triggered. Every sticky symbol is a small commitment to seeing the matrix through.

One housekeeping quirk: sticky symbols are removed while you change bet level or volatility level, and only reappear on the setting they were collected at.

Hold the Jackpot Bonus Game

Filling the Bonus Matrix starts the Hold the Jackpot bonus game with nine re-spins. Every Bonus symbol that lands sticks, and the round runs until the re-spins are exhausted or all nine positions are filled. The math is simple: each new sticky symbol resets nothing, but every filled cell is money at the end.

What can land during the round, and what it is worth:

• Cash symbols – prizes from 1x to 5x the bet
• Cash Infinity symbols – prizes from 5x to 10x the bet, carried over from the base game
• Collector symbol – accumulates all Cash and Cash Infinity values and multiplies the total by a random 1x to 20x
• Mystery symbol – transforms into any Bonus symbol except Cash Infinity
• Jackpot Mystery symbol – transforms only into MINI, MINOR or MAJOR jackpot symbols
• MINI, MINOR and MAJOR jackpots – can appear multiple times in one round
• GRAND jackpot – 1,500x the bet for filling all nine positions, the game’s maximum prize

Mystery and Jackpot Mystery symbols open one by one once the round finishes, so the last seconds of a bonus can turn on a reveal rather than a landing. The final prize is the sum of all Bonus symbol values, including the jackpot symbols, unless the GRAND is won, in which case it replaces the lot rather than adding to it. Everything pays at the end, never during.

Filling the grid entirely is the dream scenario, and it’s the only route to the GRAND. Short of that, a round’s value rests on the spread of Cash and Cash Infinity symbols, how many jackpot symbols landed, and whether the Collector arrived to multiply the sum. Multiple jackpots of the same type can stack in one round, which is where the bigger non-GRAND totals come from.

The bonus round is played at the same bet level and volatility level as the spin that set it off, so there’s no scope for cheapening the trigger once the matrix is nearly full.

Chance Level and Volatility Options

Chance Level is Wazdan’s answer to the ante bet, and it works in multiples:

• Chance Level x2 – doubles the bet for a 2x higher chance of triggering the bonus game
• Chance Level x4 – quadruples the bet for a 5x higher chance
• Chance Level x6 – six times the bet for an 8x higher chance

It doesn’t touch the paytable, so symbol values stay the same as the base bet in both the base game and the bonus. Sticky symbols are removed when you change Chance Level and only return on the level they were collected at, so a half-filled matrix is best left untouched.

The game also carries Wazdan’s adjustable Volatility Levels, and using the Buy Feature opens up Extreme and Double Extreme settings for even bigger swings than the standard options.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7/10

Playing 9 Bells is watching a gold-framed cabinet slowly fill with bells. That collection is the reason to pick it: the base game has nothing else going on, and the game is honest about that from the first spin. If watching a nine-cell matrix creep towards full doesn’t sound like entertainment, nothing here will change your mind.

The bonus round justifies the build. Nine sticky re-spins with mystery symbols flipping over one at a time at the end create real tension, and a Collector hitting a stacked board can turn a modest round into a serious one. The ceiling is the problem: 1,500x is a small GRAND by today’s standards, and with no base-game payouts there’s nothing to soften the wait between rounds.

This is a game for people who enjoy the long build and don’t need a four-figure multiplier waiting at the end of it. Chasers of huge ceilings will find the gold trim here more decorative than rewarding, but for collectors, the slow toll towards a full matrix is the whole appeal.

9 Bells FAQs

• What is the RTP of 9 Bells?

  9 Bells runs at 96.16% RTP.
• How do you trigger the Hold the Jackpot bonus game in 9 Bells?

  You need to fill the Bonus Matrix. Every Bell symbol that lands on a reel is saved into an empty corresponding field, and once all fields are full the bonus game activates.
• What does the Collector symbol do in 9 Bells?

  The Collector symbol accumulates all values from Cash and Cash Infinity symbols on the reels and multiplies the total by a random multiplier of between 1x and 20x.
• What is the maximum win on 9 Bells?

  The maximum win is 1,500x your bet, paid as the GRAND jackpot when you fill all nine reel positions with Bonus symbols during the bonus game.
• What is the grid size of 9 Bells?

  9 Bells uses a 3×3 grid made up of nine independent reels, with no regular paying symbols in the base game.
• How does the Cash Out feature work in 9 Bells?

  Landing three Bonus symbols of any type on the middle row triggers Cash Out. The values of the three middle-row symbols are added up and paid immediately, though Bell symbols are not paying symbols and contribute nothing.
• What is Chance Level in 9 Bells?

  Chance Level is an optional bet multiplier. You can multiply your base bet by 2, 4 or 6, giving a 2x, 5x or 8x higher chance of triggering the Hold the Jackpot bonus game. It doesn’t change any symbol values.
• When was 9 Bells released?

  9 Bells’ release date is 1 December 2023.