Drill That Gold Slot Review
A red-bearded miner in a yellow hard hat leans in from the edge of the reels, gripping a pneumatic drill, while a rig bolted into the rock ceiling runs overhead and ore chunks sit on the cavern floor. Drill That Gold is a lamplight mine shaft of a game, and Pragmatic Play has painted it warm. The argument here is that the mine’s richest seam isn’t on the paytable at all: it’s the drill stacks that turn wild and pay cash on the spot.
The rest is friendly arithmetic. A 5×3 grid, 20 paylines, 96.49% RTP (96.45% with the Ante Bet), low volatility and a 5,000x win cap, with bets from 0.20 to 240 per spin. It sits near Mining Rush and Gold Party in the studio’s catalogue, gentler company than the Bonanza end of the market.
How the Base Game Pays
All symbols pay left to right across the 20 paylines, starting from the leftmost reel. Only the highest win on each line counts, and wins on multiple lines are added together. Free spins winnings are added to the payline win and paid once the round completes.
The display can switch between coins and cash, but the arithmetic underneath doesn’t change.
The wild appears on every reel and substitutes for everything except the BONUS symbol. It pays like the miner, so it’s the richest symbol on the grid.
Values below are multiples of the total bet for three, four and five of a kind.
- Wild / Miner: 2.5x, 5x, 12.5x
- Gem: 2x, 4x, 7x
- Minecart: 1.5x, 3x, 6x
- Silver Drill Box: 1.25x, 2.5x, 5x
- Pickaxe: 1x, 2x, 4x
- A: 0.5x, 1.25x, 2.5x
- K: 0.5x, 1x, 2x
- Q: 0.5x, 1x, 1.5x
- J: 0.25x, 0.5x, 1.25x
- 10: 0.25x, 0.5x, 1x
Five royals for one miner is the shape of the paytable: top-heavy at the head, flat at the foot. The picture symbols are where the base game’s line wins live, and even the miner only reaches 12.5x.
The BONUS symbol pays nothing directly and appears on all five reels. Three or more of it trigger the Gold Spins feature, and it’s excluded from the wild’s substitutions, so nothing stands in for it.
The Drill Feature
The drill is the game’s signature trick. In the base game, whenever a full vertical stack of drill icons lands on any reel, the whole stack transforms into a single silver drill symbol.
From there it’s a two-step payoff. The silver drill expands and becomes a wild, filling its reel position for line wins. On top of that, it can reveal a direct money award, paid immediately alongside whatever the wild line earns.
Those base game awards are 2x, 5x, 10x, 15x, 25x, 50x, 75x or 100x the bet. The word “can” matters here. The silver drill isn’t obliged to reveal anything, which is what the golden drill exists to fix.
Spin Modifiers
At the end of any losing spin, there’s a chance the game intervenes. A random modifier can flip the outcome into a win worth at least 10x the bet.
The other possibility is even better: the modifier drops in enough BONUS symbols to launch the free spins outright. It’s a consolation mechanic, and on a low volatility game it does real work, trimming the dead spins that a flat paytable makes expensive.
Gold Spins Feature
Three, four or five BONUS symbols award 6, 8 or 10 free spins respectively. Special reels are in play during the round, and a second drill joins the silver one.
The golden drill also expands into a wild, but where the silver drill might reveal a cash prize, the golden drill always does. Every golden drill that lands pays something on its own, whatever the reels around it are doing.
The prize ladder widens in the feature too. Awards from either drill type are 5x, 10x, 15x, 25x, 50x, 75x, 100x, 200x, 500x or 1,000x the bet, twice the height of the base game ladder at its top. That 1,000x top rung is also what gives the round its shot at the game’s ceiling, since a single spin can carry more than one drill.
Nudging is the other half of the round. Every time a drill icon lands, its reel shifts up or down to bring a full stack onto the screen, and that stack then becomes a silver or golden drill. Partials never waste the trigger.
Retriggers work the same way as the entry. Landing 2, 3, 4 or 5 BONUS symbols during the round adds 4, 6, 8 or 10 spins respectively, and there’s no limit stated on how often that can happen.
Ante Bet
The Ante Bet raises the stake by 25% per spin. In exchange, every drill in the base game becomes a golden drill, meaning each one is guaranteed to reveal a direct money award when it expands.
The RTP cost is a fraction of a point: 96.45% against 96.49%. For that, every base game drill stops being a maybe and starts paying, which changes the arithmetic of the feature that carries the most weight in the game.
One hard limit sits over everything. The total win of any round is capped at 5,000x the bet, and reaching it ends the round on the spot with the win paid and all remaining free spins forfeited.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7.8/10
This is a slot that spends most of its time in the shallows and saves everything for the drills. Sessions run steady and warm, like the lamplight shaft it’s drawn in, and the one reason to pick it is the stack: watching a reel nudge itself into place and come up gold never quite stops being worth the wait. Everything else is small change around that moment.
The Gold Spins round is the best of it. Guaranteed prizes on every golden drill and a retrigger as cheap as two symbols mean the feature keeps giving once it arrives. What lets it down is the ceiling: 5,000x is a modest ambition, and the royals pay so little that a run of spins without a drill adds up to almost nothing.
So it’s for the patient and the bankroll-conscious, not for anyone chasing the big thousand-x headline. Low-risk players after a long, even session will be happy here, lamp on, drill ready.
Drill That Gold FAQs
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What is the RTP of Drill That Gold?
The RTP is 96.49% in the standard game, or 96.45% when playing with the Ante Bet activated. -
Is Drill That Gold high volatility?
No, it’s a low volatility game. Wins tend to come often and in smaller amounts, though the drill cash awards and free spins still leave room for bigger hits. -
How many paylines does Drill That Gold have?
There are 20 fixed paylines, and wins on multiple lines are added together to give the total. -
What is the grid size of Drill That Gold?
It’s a 5×3 grid: five reels and three rows, with 20 paylines running across them. -
What is the minimum and maximum bet on Drill That Gold?
Bets run from 0.20 up to 240 per spin. The Ante Bet option raises the stake by a further 25%. -
How does the Drill Feature work in Drill That Gold?
When a full vertical stack of drill icons lands on any reel, it transforms into a drill symbol that expands into a wild. The silver drill can reveal a cash award of 2x up to 100x the bet; the golden drill, which appears during free spins or with the Ante Bet, always reveals one. -
Can you retrigger the free spins in Drill That Gold?
Yes. Landing 2, 3, 4 or 5 BONUS symbols during the Gold Spins round retriggers 4, 6, 8 or 10 additional free spins respectively. -
What does the Spin Modifier do in Drill That Gold?
At the end of a spin without any win, there’s a chance a random modifier triggers. It either changes the outcome to a win of at least 10x the bet, or drops in enough BONUS symbols to start the free spins feature. -
What is the maximum win on Drill That Gold?
The maximum win is capped at 5,000x the bet, and reaching it ends the round immediately with any remaining free spins forfeited.
