Pho Sho

Pho Sho Slot Review

Steam rising off a noodle counter, red lanterns strung along a dusk street, an old cook in a straw hat waiting on your order – and underneath all of it, a game that’s really one coin round wearing a street stall as a costume. Pho Sho puts almost nothing of value in its base game and asks the Hold & Win round to carry the whole order.

Betsoft, the studio behind The Collector and Midnight Bandits, serve it on a 5×4 grid with 20 fixed paylines, high volatility and locked coin prizes running to 500x the bet. The question is whether the broth justifies the wait between bowls.

The Menu: Symbols and Pays

Wins pay left to right across the 20 fixed lines, with only the highest combination counting per line and coinciding wins on different lines combined. Payouts scale with the selected bet, so every value on the menu is a multiple of your total stake.

The symbols keep to the kitchen. Noodles and steak carry the kitchen’s best pays, with lime, onion and chili on the middle rungs, and the royals – A, K, Q, J and 10 – filling out the bottom of the card. The wild appears on all reels and substitutes for everything except the scatter and the bonus coin.

That wild is also the richest symbol on the menu, level with the noodles bowl, so the biggest line wins all run through the same icon. Values are multiples of the total bet:

• Noodles / Wild – 2: 1x, 3: 2.5x, 4: 15x, 5: 200x
• Steak – 2: 0.5x, 3: 2x, 4: 7.5x, 5: 25x
• Lime – 3: 1.75x, 4: 4.5x, 5: 15x
• Onion – 3: 1.5x, 4: 4x, 5: 12.5x
• Chili – 3: 1x, 4: 3.5x, 5: 10x
• A / K – 3: 0.75x, 4: 1.5x, 5: 7.5x
• Q / J / 10 – 3: 0.5x, 4: 1x, 5: 5x

It’s a top-heavy ladder. The noodles bowl at 200x is eight times richer than the next symbol down, and two of them from the first reel are already worth a full bet back. The royals fill the bottom rungs and mostly keep the counter ticking between features.

Two other icons matter more than any line pay. The scatter is the noodle bowl image that triggers free spins from 3 or more anywhere on the reels, and the coin symbol carries the locked prizes – it doesn’t pay anything at all in the base game or during free spins, existing purely as a feature trigger.

Hold & Win Bonus

This is the round the game is built around. It needs 6 or more scattered bonus coins to fire, and each of those coins carries a prize value somewhere between 1x and 500x the triggering bet. The coins that trigger the round lock into place on the 5×4 grid and stay there for the duration.

You start with 3 respins. Every new coin that lands locks in place and resets the respin counter back to 3, so the round continues for as long as the coins keep coming. A single coin on the final respin buys you three more attempts to keep the chain alive.

It ends when the respins run out or when all 20 positions fill with coins, and every locked prize is awarded at the end of the round. Because the triggering coins already occupy six of the twenty windows, a lucky run of resets can push the grid a long way towards full.

The bonus can be triggered from the base game or from within free spins, which is where the two features meet: a free-spins session can hand you a full coin round on top of whatever the spins themselves are paying. The coins land with their values attached, so a mid-round screen can fill quickly with figures worth several times the bet apiece.

Free Spins

The scatter can appear on all five reels, and the count determines the award:

• 3 scatters – 5 free spins
• 4 scatters – 7 free spins
• 5 scatters – 9 free spins

The round can be retriggered by landing scatters again while it runs. The coin bonus can also fire inside it, though the two never trigger together on the same spin – free spins can’t be started during a coin round either, so the features take turns rather than stacking into one combined event.

With the smallest award at 5 spins and retriggers in play, a good scatter run is what turns the free-spins mode from a snack into a course of its own. The wild carries its full substitution duties through the round too, which matters when the top symbol is the one doing the substituting.

Buy Feature

There’s no waiting required for the free spins round. The buy feature sells it outright, with three tiers priced as multiples of your current bet:

• 5 free spins – 90x the bet
• 7 free spins – 126x the bet
• 9 free spins – 160x the bet

The pricing steps up gently: the top tier’s 160x buys 9 spins at just under 18x per spin, against 18x per spin on the smallest tier, so the bigger purchases are the better value per spin rather than a premium for convenience.

Only free spins are for sale. The coin bonus has to be earned the ordinary way, six or more scattered coins or nothing, which keeps the game’s best round out of the shop window.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7.1/10

Pulling up a stool at this stall means long stretches of royal-card small change while you wait for the one dish worth ordering: six coins and a shot at a grid full of locked prizes. The coin round is the whole reason to be here, and it’s a good one – the respin reset gives every landing a pulse, and free spins that retrigger while carrying a coin bonus can turn into something far bigger than 5 spins sounds.

The weakness is that everything around that round is thin. The buy feature charges 90x for the spins you didn’t want anyway, the coin bonus itself can’t be bought, and a top-heavy paytable means the base game rarely serves anything above pennies.

It’s a game for players who like one big, patient build and don’t need a feature every few minutes. Anyone after frequent bonuses or cheap buys will go hungry here. Everyone else should take a seat and let the pot do its work.

Pho Sho FAQs

• Is Pho Sho high volatility?

  Yes. Pho Sho is a high volatility slot, built around a modest base game and the larger payouts of its Hold & Win coin bonus.
• How do you trigger the Hold & Win bonus in Pho Sho?

  Scatter 6 or more bonus coins anywhere on the reels. The triggering coins lock in place, you get 3 respins, and every new coin that lands locks too and resets the respins back to 3. The round ends when the respins run out or all 20 positions fill with coins, at which point every locked prize is paid.
• How many free spins do scatters award in Pho Sho?

  3 scatters award 5 free spins, 4 award 7, and 5 award 9. The round can be retriggered while it runs.
• Can you buy the bonus on Pho Sho?

  Yes. The buy feature sells the free spins round at three tiers: 5 spins for 90x your bet, 7 for 126x, and 9 for 160x. The Hold & Win bonus cannot be bought.
• How many paylines does Pho Sho have?

  Pho Sho has 20 fixed paylines across a 5-reel, 4-row grid. Wins pay left to right, with only the highest win per line counting and wins on different lines combined.
• Can free spins and the Hold & Win bonus trigger at the same time in Pho Sho?

  No. The two features can’t trigger simultaneously, and free spins can’t be started during a coin round. The only overlap runs one way: the Hold & Win bonus can trigger during free spins.
• What does the wild symbol substitute for in Pho Sho?

  The wild stands in for every paying symbol except the scatter and the bonus coin, and it lands on all five reels. It’s tied with the noodles bowl as the game’s richest symbol, paying up to 200x the total bet for five of a kind.
• Who makes Pho Sho?

  Pho Sho is made by Betsoft, the studio behind titles like The Collector and Midnight Bandits. You’ll find it wherever Betsoft slots are stocked.