Founding Fortunes Wins Slot Review
Gold stacked in the corners, banknotes scattered like a carpet, the White House on one side and the Capitol dome on the other: Founding Fortunes Wins doesn’t dramatise wealth, it just shows you the pile. That’s the honest read of this game, because underneath the glossy patriotic dressing there’s very little machinery, and what there is has been spent on one spin of a wheel.
High 5 Games run it on a 5×3 grid with 720 ways to win, 96% RTP and high volatility, and every route past the base spin runs through the same Bonus Wheel, which either hands over free games or one of three jackpot awards. It sits in the studio’s catalogue alongside Da Vinci DeluxeWays and Dangerous Beauty Jackpot, both of which share its taste for stacked symbols and fixed awards. One wheel, though, is what you’re buying into.
The Base Game and Its 720 Ways
There are no paylines to follow here. Matching symbols on consecutive reels from the left combine across the 720 ways to form wins, which on a 5×3 grid is a generous geometry: one arrangement of reels can pay out through several different symbol combinations at once.
The paytable leans on the theme with portraits lifted straight off American banknotes. The values are printed as credits with no bet modifiers applied:
- Franklin (the hundred note): 20 for three, 60 for four, 600 for five
- Grant (the fifty note): 10 for three, 30 for four, 300 for five
- Jackson (the twenty note): 8 for three, 20 for four, 200 for five
- Hamilton and Lincoln: 5 for three, 10 for four, 40 for five
- A, K and Q: 2 for three, 5 for four, 20 for five
The shape of that list tells you how the base game behaves. Franklin pays 600 for five while the royals pay 20, a thirty-fold gap between the top and bottom of a single grid.
The tiers step down steeply rather than evenly. Jackson’s five-of-a-kind is worth two-thirds of Grant’s, but Hamilton and Lincoln drop to 40, a fifth of the symbol above them. Premium stacks matter far more than anything the royals contribute.
Wilds appear as stacked WILD symbols on the reels, including full stacks labelled 20K and 4K. The gold medallion Bonus symbol is the key to everything the game offers beyond the base spin.
Stacked wilds do most of the base game’s heavy lifting. When a full stack lands alongside matching premium symbols, the 720-way grid multiplies the effect: a single stack can complete ways across every row it covers, and several of those ways pay on the same spin.
The 4K and 20K labels mark the larger stacks, and a full stack of either is the closest the base spin comes to a headline moment of its own. Between those arrivals, the reels keep ticking over on small ways wins.
The banknote portraits set the tone as much as the backdrop does. Franklin, Grant, Jackson, Hamilton and Lincoln all appear in green and blue finishes, so the reels themselves read as a stack of cash even before the White House and the domed building behind them get a look in.
Bonus Wheel
The Bonus Wheel is the game’s centrepiece. It starts during the base game when at least one Bonus symbol appears in any position on five consecutive reels, which is a demanding ask but a clear one. Land it, and the wheel spins for one of four outcomes:
- 12, 14 or 16 Free Games Bonus spins per winning combination of Bonus symbols
- Minor Award: the Minor Jackpot, or 50 times the total bet
- Major Award: the Major Jackpot, or 500 times the total bet
- Grand Award: the Grand Jackpot, or 5000 times the total bet
The free games option scales with the trigger. Because the wheel awards its spins per winning combination of Bonus symbols rather than as a flat figure, a trigger built from several combinations at once starts the round on a larger count, anywhere from the 12-spin floor to well beyond the 16-spin headline depending on what landed.
Each jackpot award is a choice of two, not a stack: you receive either the named jackpot or the fixed multiple of your total bet, whichever applies to the outcome. The value of a jackpot at any moment depends on where it’s built up to, which is what separates the jackpot side of each award from its guaranteed floor.
The floors aren’t trivial. The Minor’s 50x is a solid base-spin rescue, the Major’s 500x would be a memorable hit on its own, and the Grand’s 5000x is the largest fixed award the game defines, and it’s a figure plenty of headline-chasing slots would be happy to print.
Free Games Bonus
The Free Games Bonus begins with whatever number of spins the Bonus Wheel awarded, so there’s no separate trigger to chase once you’re in. The round runs down a counter, and it ends when zero free games remain.
Extending the round uses the same gate as entering it. During the free games, Bonus symbols landing across five consecutive reels award eight additional free games per winning combination, so a well-timed cluster of them can push the counter back up by a meaningful margin. No other retrigger exists.
The counter is the whole architecture of the round. Free games aren’t collected, banked or converted; they’re spent one at a time and can be topped back up in blocks of eight whenever the Bonus symbols align, which makes a long round a matter of repeatedly clearing the same five-reel gate that opened it.
Because every win on the 720-way grid pays per combination, a round that runs long with stacks in play can assemble several concurrent wins on a single free spin. With retriggers adding eight games at a time, the counter is the only limit on how far that builds.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7.1/10
Most of a session here is quiet accumulation: the 720-way grid pays in small pieces, the stacked wilds occasionally turn a spin into something, and the reels themselves look like money even when they aren’t paying it. The one reason to choose it over a dozen other ways games is that wheel, and the shot at a Grand Award rather than another respin chain.
The Bonus Wheel is the best thing in the game by a distance, because three of its four outcomes carry a jackpot and the fourth can retrigger eight spins at a time. The cost of that focus is everything outside it: there is one trigger in this game, it asks for symbols across five consecutive reels, and until it lands there’s nothing building towards it.
That makes it a game for jackpot hunters with patience, and a poor fit for anyone who wants layered features to chew on between hits. As a tribute to the founding fathers’ favourite subject, it’s money done properly.
Founding Fortunes Wins FAQs
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What is the RTP of Founding Fortunes Wins?
The RTP is 96%. -
Is Founding Fortunes Wins high volatility?
Yes, it’s a high volatility game, with wins built around a demanding five-reel Bonus symbol trigger and a jackpot-heavy Bonus Wheel. -
How many paylines does Founding Fortunes Wins have?
None in the traditional sense. The game pays across 720 ways, so any matching symbols on consecutive reels from the left can form a winning combination. -
What is the grid size of Founding Fortunes Wins?
The game runs on a 5×3 grid with five reels and three rows. -
How do you trigger the Bonus Wheel in Founding Fortunes Wins?
The Bonus Wheel starts during the base game when at least one Bonus symbol appears in any position on five consecutive reels. The wheel then awards one of four outcomes: free games, the Minor Award, the Major Award or the Grand Award. -
Can the Free Games Bonus retrigger in Founding Fortunes Wins?
Yes. Bonus symbols appearing across five consecutive reels during the round add eight free games per winning combination, and the round only ends once the counter reaches zero. -
When is Founding Fortunes Wins released?
Founding Fortunes Wins’ release date is 24 May 2023. -
Who makes Founding Fortunes Wins?
Founding Fortunes Wins is made by High 5 Games.
