Dublin Up DoubleMax Slot Review
A red-haired fairy sits barefoot on a mossy bank in a sunlit Irish glade, dragonfly wings folded behind her, an old glass lantern swinging open on the branch above. Dublin Up DoubleMax is a slot that spends almost everything on that glade and the bonus round hiding in it, and very little on the spins in between. Reflex built it on a 5×3 grid with 25 paylines, 95.5% RTP, high volatility, a 20,024x ceiling and stakes from 0.20 to 100 per spin.
The glade later turned up again in Dublin Up Pots O’ Gold DoubleMax; this game is where the series started. For more from the same studio, see our reviews of Shamrock Shenanigans and Bank of Blarney TopHit.
Base Game & Features
Five reels, three rows, 25 fixed paylines. Wins pay left to right, coinciding wins on different lines add together, and only the highest combination on each line counts. To size a single line win, count the identical symbols lined up in sequence on it, then take the value for three, four or five in a row from the paytable.
Four high symbols carry the Irish theme: Dublin Up itself, the Pot of Gold, the Green Hat and the Horseshoe, with the royals A, K, Q and J filling the low end. A clover-and-hat Wild substitutes for everything except the Free Spins symbol, in both the base game and the bonus. It pays nothing on its own; its whole job is bridging gaps in a line.
Pays are multiples of the total bet, not the line bet, and they’re modest at the top. Even the best symbol gives back less than a fiver for a five-of-a-kind on a pound stake:
- Dublin Up: 0.8x / 2x / 5x for three, four, five
- Pot of Gold: 0.6x / 1.5x / 3.5x
- Green Hat: 0.4x / 1x / 2.5x
- Horseshoe: 0.3x / 0.6x / 2x
- A, K: 0.2x / 0.4x / 1.2x
- Q, J: 0.1x / 0.3x / 1x
The high symbols step down evenly, but there’s a visible split in the royals: A and K pay double what Q and J do at every tier, so even the low end isn’t flat. Five Qs or Js returns exactly the stake, which on a game with this hit rate is as good as a breather gets.
Pop and Drop Cascades
Any win starts a cascade, and the sequence is worth following because it’s where the money hides. First the winning symbols pop off the reels. Before anything drops, one or more Wilds are placed in the gaps they leave behind.
Then the symbols above fall into the remaining spaces, and fresh symbols drop in to bring the grid back up to its full fifteen. If the new arrangement makes another win, the whole thing repeats: pop, wilds, drop, refill. A single spin can chain several wins this way, with Wilds added into the vacated positions at every step, so the board gets progressively wilder the longer a chain runs.
The DoubleMax Multiplier
Each cascade doubles a running multiplier: x1 on the initial win, then x2, x4, x8, x16 and onward with no stated limit. The multiplier applies to the win created by the symbols in view at each step, not to the round as a whole. Three straight wins on one spin and the third is already paying eight times its face value, which is how a paytable this thin still produces big rounds.
In the base game the multiplier resets to x1 after any losing spin or cascade, so a chain has to keep winning to keep growing. All wins from a round are totalled and paid at the end. The 20,024x ceiling has been recorded once in 65 billion simulated rounds, which says plenty about how reachable it is.
Dublin Up DoubleMax Free Spins & Bonus Features
Free Spins
Land Bonus symbols in the base game, on the reels or arriving via a cascade, and the count sets the round:
- 3 Bonus symbols: 7 free spins
- 4 Bonus symbols: 10 free spins
- 5 Bonus symbols: 13 free spins
Cascades work as they do in the base game, with one difference that changes everything: the multiplier never resets. It builds with every win and every cascade until the spins run out, so a late chain lands on top of everything the round has already stacked. Spins play at the bet that triggered them, and there is no retrigger.
Free Spins Gamble
Trigger with three or four Bonus symbols and there’s a choice before the round begins: collect the spins, or gamble them. The gamble spins a pointer. Green steps you up one level, so seven becomes ten and ten becomes thirteen. Red ends the round with nothing at all.
Starting from three scatters you can gamble up to twice, stepping from seven to ten to thirteen. From four scatters just once, ten to thirteen. Five scatters go straight into the top level and skip the gamble entirely. The ladder is short enough that a wrong pointer at the first step costs the whole bonus.
Faery Magic
At random after a base game spin, the fairy animates and casts spells that remove symbols from the reels, forcing a cascade that results in a win. It’s a small mercy on a game where only 28.43% of rounds pay anything at all. Because the forced cascade counts as a win, it can also start a chain, and any chain carries the doubling multiplier.
Lucky Bet and Bonus Buy
Lucky Bet adds a quarter to every stake and doubles the odds of seeing the bonus. On a 1 stake that’s 1.25 per spin, which works out cheaper than chasing the trigger at the normal rate on a game where the base game pays this thinly.
The Bonus Buy costs 100x the current stake and drops you straight into the seven-spin round at your chosen bet size. Note what you’re buying: seven spins, not thirteen, so the gamble ladder is still there to climb if you want the full round. Because free spins carry the bet that started them, the buy price scales directly with the stake you pick, and the round’s ceiling scales with it.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7.1/10
You’ll spend most of a session in a beautiful glade, waiting. The reason to pick this game is the one round where the waiting pays off: free spins with a multiplier that keeps everything the round has earned so far stacked underneath the next win.
That persistence is the best thing here, and it’s rarer than it should be. The worst is the base game, whose five-of-a-kind on its best symbol barely covers a coffee; with the multiplier resetting on every miss, the gaps between bonuses are long and thinly paid.
It suits players who want one big escalating round and don’t mind a quiet road to it. Anyone chasing frequent action spin after spin won’t find it here, and the glade is a patient place. For the rest, the fairy keeps the lantern lit, and the pot at the end of the free spins is worth the walk.
Dublin Up DoubleMax FAQs
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How do you trigger free spins in Dublin Up DoubleMax?
Three, four or five Bonus symbols landing or cascading into view in the base game award 7, 10 or 13 free spins respectively. Five Bonus symbols go straight into the round; three or four offer a gamble for more spins. -
Can you retrigger free spins in Dublin Up DoubleMax?
No. It isn’t possible to retrigger free spins, so the round you start with is the round you play. -
What does the Free Spins Gamble do?
When you trigger the bonus with three or four Bonus symbols, you can collect your spins or gamble them. A pointer spins and lands on green or red: green steps you up to the next level of free spins, red ends the round with none. You can gamble up to twice from three scatters and once from four. -
What is the Faery Magic feature?
Faery Magic triggers at random after a spin in the base game. The fairy casts spells that remove symbols from the reels, starting a cascade that results in a win. -
What does the Lucky Bet option do?
Lucky Bet bumps the cost of each spin by 25% and doubles the odds of the free spins triggering. -
What is the RTP of Dublin Up DoubleMax?
The RTP is 95.5%. -
What is the maximum win on Dublin Up DoubleMax?
The maximum win is 20,024x the bet. -
What are the minimum and maximum bets?
Stakes run from 0.20 to 100 per spin.
