Plundering Pirates Hold And Win Slot Review
A bleached skull skewered on a pole above the reels, a black-sailed galleon at anchor in turquoise water, treasure glinting along the beach: Plundering Pirates Hold And Win spends its artwork budget on the frame and almost nothing on the reason you’d spin it. That’s the honest read. This is a game where the paytable barely matters, because every real outcome lives in the Cannonballs, and Dragon Gaming have built nothing outside that idea to distract you from it.
The base game is a 5×3 grid with 25 fixed pay lines, running at 96.93% RTP. The hold-and-win round carries a Grand Jackpot, and filling all 15 cells adds a separate Grand 1000x award on top, and that combination does most of the talking. Everything else on the reels is in service of getting you there, and it’s worth a look below deck.
Base Game & Features
The action runs across a 5×3 grid with 25 fixed pay lines, and wins pay left to right on adjacent reels. Only the highest combination on each line counts. Four pirate characters lead the paytable, with card royals filling out the lower end.
The character ladder steps down cleanly. The Pirate Captain leads it, followed by an old salt with a grey beard, a female pirate in a red bandana and a scarred deckhand in a dark hat. Then come the royals.
The symbol values, as multiples of the line stake:
- Pirate Captain: 5x for three, 50x for four, 90x for five
- Old Pirate: 4x, 30x, 80x
- Female Pirate: 3x, 20x, 60x
- Scarred Pirate: 2x, 9x, 40x
- A: 2x, 4x, 9x
- K, Q, J: 1x, 4x, 9x
The gaps tell the story. Four Captain symbols pay 50x, but four of the scarred deckhand pay just 9x, and the royals sit in single figures all the way up. The Captain’s five-of-a-kind at 90x is the biggest line win in the game, which tells you where the real money lives: not on the paylines at all, but in the Cannonballs.
Two symbols do the heavy lifting. Bonus symbols land only on reels 1, 3 and 5, and three of them open the Free Game. Because they’re restricted to those three reels, the trigger needs all of them at once.
Cannonball symbols are the other half of the game. They carry cash values and jackpot labels, and six or more of them anywhere in view fire the Hold and Win round. Between the two, the base game’s job is simple: hold the line until one of them lands often enough.
Plundering Pirates Hold And Win Bonus Features
Hold and Win
Landing six or more Cannonball symbols starts the round with three spins. The triggering Cannonballs lock where they landed, and the reels go into a respin mode where only new Cannonballs matter. Every one that lands locks in place and resets the count back to three.
The round ends when three consecutive spins pass without a new Cannonball, or when all 15 cells fill. Ordinary symbol wins don’t exist inside the round; the Cannonballs and their values are the whole game. What lands first is what you’re building on, since the six or more that triggered it are already banked values.
Cannonball carry prize values from a ladder running 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, 7x, 8x, 10x, 14x, 16x, 18x and 20x. They can also carry Minor and Major Jackpots alongside those values. The ladder is wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, with a jump from 10x straight to 14x.
Fill all 15 cells and the board pays the Grand Jackpot together with a separate Grand 1000x, on top of every value collected on the Cannonballs. That’s the ceiling of the game, and it needs the full board to land. Everything short of that pays only what the Cannonballs brought in.
Free Game
Three Bonus symbols, one on each of reels 1, 3 and 5, award the Free Game. During the round, reels 2, 3 and 4 connect and hold Jumbo symbols, covering a full 3×3 block. Bonus symbols and Cannonballs can both land as Jumbos.
Three extra spins can be awarded along the way, extending the round. The Jumbo block means one symbol counts across nine cells, so a full-reel character win becomes possible in a way the base game’s single cells can’t manage.
The wrinkle is the Cannonball Jumbo. When one lands, its value spreads across all nine areas it covers, and the re-spin feature then takes place inside the free spins, following the same three-spin reset rules as the standalone round. Any remaining free spins resume once the re-spins finish.
Buy Feature
There’s a BUY BONUS button in the bottom-right corner of the play frame, and behind it sit two options, one for each main feature:
- Free Spins buy: 60x the stake
- Hold and Win buy: 55x the stake
The Hold and Win buy is the cheaper of the two, which tells you where the game’s real action sits. At 55x, the buy pays for itself only if the Cannonballs collected during the round add up to more than that, and the Grand Jackpot board is the only outcome that clears it comfortably.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7/10
Playing this is mostly waiting. The pirate cove looks lovely and the base game ticks along, but every spin is really a question of whether the Cannonballs show up, and the one reason to choose it over the dozens of other hold-and-win games is the finish line: a full board of 15 Cannonballs that pays 1000x plus everything you’ve stacked on top.
That finish line is the strength, and it’s a real one – most rounds in this format just fade out, where here every locked Cannonball is one cell closer to something concrete. The weakness is the long tail: individual Cannonballs top out at 20x, the royals pay almost nothing, and a round that stalls early can return less than a decent line win.
It suits players who like one clear target and don’t mind spinning through filler to chase it. Anyone who wants a base game worth engaging with between features should sail past. For hold-and-win fans, there’s real treasure on this beach – it’s just buried deep.
Plundering Pirates Hold And Win FAQs
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What is the RTP of Plundering Pirates Hold And Win?
96.93%. -
How many paylines does Plundering Pirates Hold And Win have?
25 fixed pay lines, paying left to right across the 5×3 grid. Line wins pay only the best combination on each line. -
What is the grid size of Plundering Pirates Hold And Win?
5×3, giving 15 cells in total. During the Hold and Win round all 15 cells can fill with Cannonball symbols. -
How do you trigger the Hold and Win feature?
Land six or more Cannonball symbols in the base game. You get three spins, and every Cannonball that lands locks in place and resets the spin count to three. -
What is the Grand Jackpot in Plundering Pirates Hold And Win worth?
It’s awarded when all 15 cells fill with Cannonball symbols, alongside a separate Grand 1000x award and every cash value collected on those Cannonballs. -
How does the Free Game in Plundering Pirates Hold And Win work?
Land Bonus symbols on reels 1, 3 and 5 to start it. Reels 2, 3 and 4 then connect and hold Jumbo symbols, three extra spins can be awarded, and Cannonball Jumbos spread their value across all nine covered areas before triggering a re-spin round. -
Can you buy the bonus on Plundering Pirates Hold And Win?
Yes. A BUY BONUS button sits in the bottom-right corner of the play frame, with two options: 60x the stake for Free Spins and 55x for Hold and Win. -
Who makes Plundering Pirates Hold And Win?
Dragon Gaming. It’s a 5×3, 25-line pirate slot built around the Hold and Win mechanic.
