Pirates Pub

Pirates Pub Slot Review

Below deck, the lanterns are lit and an octopus has wrapped itself around the pub sign. Pirates Pub, from Pragmatic Play, is the rare pirate slot that has nothing to do with sailing: it parks itself in the tavern and stays there.

That suits it, because this is a game that does one thing and stakes nearly everything on it, a nine-line payer whose whole design funnels towards a single symbol and a single round. It runs on a 5×3 grid with 9 paylines, medium volatility, an RTP of 96.03% and wins capped at 5,000x the bet. The free spins round is built in two stages around a wild-marking system, and that’s what separates this from Pub Kings, Pirate Golden Age and Smugglers Cove elsewhere in the studio’s catalogue. Time to pull up a stool.

Base Game & Features

Wins pay left to right across the nine fixed paylines, starting from the leftmost reel. Only the highest win counts on each line, and wins on multiple lines add together. Bets run from 0.09 to 243.00 per spin, which is a wide range for a nine-line game.

The Wild is the ship-wheel Pirates Pub logo, it appears on all five reels, and it substitutes for every symbol in the game. It’s also the best-paying symbol on the reels, so a five-wild line is the one the whole paytable is built around.

The paytable splits into coins and pirate gear at the top, then card suits at the bottom. Several symbols share a pay tier: the Pirate Hat and Swords pay identically, as do the Potion Bottle and Beer Mug, and the four suits form two pairs. Values below are multiples of the total bet:

• Wild: 2.2222x, 11.1111x, 55.5556x for three, four, five
• Coin: 1.6667x, 6.6667x, 33.3333x
• Pirate Hat / Swords: 1.3333x, 4.4444x, 22.2222x
• Potion Bottle / Beer Mug: 1x, 2.7778x, 11.1111x
• Fish: 0.6667x, 2.2222x, 6.6667x
• Spade / Club: 0.4444x, 1.6667x, 4.4444x
• Heart / Diamond: 0.2222x, 0.8889x, 2.2222x

That’s a steep drop from the wild down to the royals, and the five-of-a-kind Heart or Diamond at 2.2222x barely covers the round. The coin is the only regular symbol worth chasing, paying 33.3333x for five. Everything else is filler between wild hits.

That matters more than it sounds, because the wild is also the feature trigger. Wins are capped at 5,000x the bet, and a round that reaches the cap ends immediately: the win is awarded and any remaining features are forfeited.

The spin controls are standard. Bet size is set through the coin-per-line and coin-value fields in the bet menu, and spin speed cycles between normal, quick and turbo. Autoplay can be stopped at any point, and Space and Enter on the keyboard start and stop the spin.

Pirates Pub Free Spins

Hitting 3, 4 or 5 wilds on the same base game spin triggers the free spins round. The number of spins is random and scales with the trigger:

• 3 wilds: 5, 6, 7 or 8 free spins
• 4 wilds: 8, 9, 10 or 11 free spins
• 5 wilds: 11, 12, 13, 14 or 15 free spins

Stage One: Marking the Cells

The round opens with a marking mechanic. The wilds that triggered the feature leave a mark on their cells, and every additional wild that lands during the round marks its cell too. When a wild lands on a cell that’s already marked, the marking upgrades by one level.

A marking can be upgraded up to five times over the course of stage one. Hitting 3, 4 or 5 wilds on a single free spin retriggers the round, awarding another random batch of spins from the same table as the base game trigger. Every mark stacked here pays off later.

Stage Two: Sticky Wilds

When stage one’s spins run out, stage two begins with 2, 3, 4 or 5 extra free spins awarded at random. All the markings from stage one now transform into sticky wilds carrying a multiplier of x2, x3, x4 or x5 depending on how far the marking was upgraded. They sit on the reels for the whole of stage two.

These sticky wilds substitute for everything except the original wild symbol, and their multipliers apply to any winning combination passing through them. Where more than one sticky wild forms part of the same win, their multipliers add together, so a line through an x5 and an x3 pays at x8.

Special reels are in play for the whole round, and stage two itself can’t be retriggered. Wins from the free spins are added to any payline wins and paid once the round completes. It’s a round with a clear arc: stage one is quiet accumulation, stage two is the payoff.

The difference between a weak bonus and a strong one comes down to how many cells were marked and upgraded before the switch. A grid of x5 sticky wilds is where the game’s real potential lives.

Buy Free Spins

From the base game, the round costs 70x the total bet to buy. On the triggering spin, 3, 4 or 5 wilds can hit at random, so a purchase doesn’t guarantee a five-wild start. The RTP when buying is 96.00%, a fraction below the standard game’s 96.03%.

Because the triggering wilds on a bought round can be as few as three, a purchase can land you the minimum five free spins with just three marked cells. The buy price doesn’t change what the round does; it only changes how quickly you get there.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7.2/10

Most of a session in Pirates Pub is spent nursing a small drink. Nine lines and a paytable that collapses after the coin mean the base game ticks over on modest line hits. The reason anybody sits down at this bar is the wild: it pays best, it triggers the only feature, and everything the game does flows through it.

At its best, the bonus is one of the more satisfying builds in the studio’s simpler games, because a round you’ve fed with upgraded marks pays in a way the spin count alone never suggests. The weakness is that the whole design rests on one mechanic. Until three wilds land together, there is very little happening, and the game doesn’t offer anything else to fill the gap.

It’s for players who enjoy a bonus round with a build and a payoff rather than a lottery, and who won’t miss a second feature or a busy base game. Players who want something firing on every spin won’t find it here. For those happy to wait out the quiet rounds for one good bonus, the tavern keeps its doors open.

Pirates Pub FAQs

• What is the RTP of Pirates Pub?

  Pirates Pub runs at 96.03% RTP in its standard configuration. If you buy the free spins round instead of triggering it, the RTP is 96.00%.
• Is Pirates Pub high volatility?

  No. Pirates Pub is a medium volatility game, so payouts tend to come steadily with a range from low to very high wins.
• How do you trigger free spins in Pirates Pub?

  You need 3, 4 or 5 wild symbols on the same base game spin. Three wilds award 5 to 8 free spins, four award 8 to 11, and five award 11 to 15, with the exact number chosen at random.
• What do the markings do in the Pirates Pub bonus?

  During stage one of the free spins round, wilds leave markings on their cells and repeated wild hits upgrade those markings up to five times. At the start of stage two, every marking becomes a sticky wild with a multiplier of x2, x3, x4 or x5 depending on its level.
• Can the Pirates Pub free spins round retrigger?

  Yes. Hitting 3, 4 or 5 wilds on a single free spin during stage one retriggers the round with a random number of extra spins. Stage two cannot be retriggered.
• Can you buy the bonus on Pirates Pub?

  Yes. The free spins round can be bought from the base game for 70x your current total bet. On the triggering spin, 3, 4 or 5 wilds can hit at random.
• What is the maximum win on Pirates Pub?

  Wins are capped at 5,000x the bet. If a round’s total win reaches that cap, the round ends immediately, the win is awarded and any remaining features are forfeited.
• How many paylines does Pirates Pub have?

  Pirates Pub has 9 fixed paylines on a 5×3 grid, with all symbols paying left to right from the leftmost reel. Bets run from 0.09 to 243.00 per spin.