Rainbow Riches Drops of Gold Slot Review
A rainbow spills out of the clouds and becomes the coloured backing of the reel strip, tiny gold and silver pots tumbling down its bands towards the reels below. Rainbow Riches Drops of Gold, from Barcrest (now part of L&W), is that rare Irish slot where the rainbow isn’t scenery: the game genuinely runs on those falling pots, and the base spin exists mostly to set them up. What’s less obvious is that the best version of it is locked behind your own bet slip.
It runs on a 5×4 grid with 50 paylines, a count that can climb as high as 200 in the right conditions. Land the right symbol on reel five and the entire drop zone empties onto the grid at once. The tiered bet structure sitting above the base game exists to make that happen more often, and to make it pay better when it does.
Base Game & Features
The standard game plays out over a 5×4 grid with wins evaluated across 50 lines. All wins pay left to right. Wins on every selected line are added together, and only the highest combination counts on each line played. It’s a conventional setup, and the base game doesn’t stray from it.
The premium symbols are drawn straight from the theme’s luck-and-music end, with the Rainbow Riches logo on top and theme symbols below it, before the run drops to the A and the royals. Awards are expressed as multiples of the total bet rather than the line bet, and the ladder steps down evenly from top to bottom.
- Rainbow Riches logo: 12.5x for three, 25x for four, 125x for five
- Mushroom: 10x, 20x, 100x
- Violin: 7.5x, 15x, 75x
- Harp: 5x, 12.5x, 62.5x
- Horseshoe: 5x, 10x, 50x
- A: 2.5x, 7.5x, 37.5x
- K, J, Q and 10: 2.5x, 5x, 25x
Wild Symbols
Two wilds do the work here, and the difference between them matters. The silver pot substitutes for everything except the BONUS symbol. The gold pot substitutes for everything including it, which makes a gold pot in the right spot a far more useful event than its silver cousin.
Bonus symbols themselves are scatters. Above the reels, meanwhile, there’s a constant traffic of pot symbols moving through the rainbow drop zone, waiting to fall when the game allows it.
Rainbow Riches Drops of Gold Free Spins & Bonuses
Free Spins Bonus
Three scatter BONUS symbols in view at the end of a spin awards eight free spins, and each additional BONUS symbol in view adds another four. A five-symbol trigger, for instance, opens with sixteen. The round uses the same award card as the base game spin that triggered it, so nothing about the pays changes on the way in.
BONUS symbols stay present during the round and keep awarding extra spins in the same way. A round that keeps landing them can build on itself well past its starting count.
Drops of Gold Bonus
This is the feature the game is named for. Above the lower reels sits a rainbow of gold and silver pots feeding into a drop zone five reels wide and four symbols high. If reel five holds a Drops of Gold symbol at the end of a spin, every pot in the drop zone falls to the matching position on the reels below, potentially creating multiple wins at once.
A double height version of the symbol triggers the drop when either the whole symbol or half of it is visible, which doubles the ways it can land. There’s a neat interaction with the scatter too. Any silver pot that falls onto a BONUS symbol transforms into a gold pot, which substitutes for the BONUS symbol.
Premium Play
Premium Play is Barcrest’s take on the enhanced-stake bet, and here it comes with a twist of its own. Opting in awards a spin on a mini reel set of three reels and one win line. Matching three symbols on that line triggers five linked spins of the main reels.
All wins across those spins are accumulated and paid at the end of the last one. Each spin uses all win lines and pays according to the awards table. Free spins can be triggered during every Premium Play game, so the mini reel is a gateway as much as a feature in its own right.
- 2.00 Premium Play: the rainbow upgrades to a Super Rainbow containing extra pot symbols, plus a double height symbol on reel five for a greater chance of triggering the Drops of Gold feature
- 5.00 Premium Play: everything above, and the lower paying symbols are removed from the Premium Play base game reels
- 10.00 Premium Play: results are evaluated over 100 lines rather than 50, in both the Premium Play game and its free spins
The line count changes are where the bet structure pays off. A Drops of Gold symbol on reel five during free spins doubles the evaluation from 50 lines to 100. During a 10.00 Premium Play free spins round, the same event takes it from 100 to 200. For a game that looks like a gentle storybook slot, that’s a serious amount of ways to win hiding in the top tier.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7.2/10
Most of the time this is a quiet, cheerful spin with a modest paytable, and then a full drop zone empties onto the reels and you remember why the rainbow is there. That’s the reason to pick it: no other mainstream Irish slot makes its falling pots the engine rather than the wallpaper, and watching a wall of gold land in one go is genuinely worth hanging around for.
The strength is how the features feed each other. Silver pots turn gold on BONUS symbols, the double height symbol makes the drop easier to hit, and the 200-line ceiling at the top stake means the round you finally get can be four times the game you were playing. The weakness is that most of that generosity lives in the Premium Play tiers. At the base bet, it’s a slower and flatter game than the artwork suggests.
It suits players who enjoy steering their own bet, chasing the Super Rainbow and the stripped reels rather than waiting on a lucky scatter. Anyone wanting a flat, one-price game will find the good stuff priced out of reach. For the rest, there’s real gold at the end of this one, provided you’re willing to climb for it.
Rainbow Riches Drops of Gold FAQs
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How do you trigger the free spins in Rainbow Riches Drops of Gold?
Land three scatter BONUS symbols in view when a spin finishes and the round starts with eight free spins. Every extra BONUS symbol on that same spin adds another four, and more can arrive mid-round because the symbols stay in play throughout. -
What does the Drops of Gold symbol do?
It empties the drop zone. When the symbol lands on reel five, every pot sitting in the rainbow above falls onto the matching reel positions below, which can produce several wins from a single drop. The double height version counts even when only half of it is showing. -
Can free spins retrigger in Rainbow Riches Drops of Gold?
Yes. BONUS symbols are present during free spins and award additional spins in the same way as the trigger, four extra spins per symbol in view. -
What is Premium Play in Rainbow Riches Drops of Gold?
Premium Play is an enhanced bet option that awards a spin on a mini reel set of three reels and one win line. Matching three symbols on that line awards five linked spins, with all wins accumulated and paid at the end of the last spin. Free spins can be triggered during every Premium Play game. -
What does the 5.00 Premium Play game add?
The 5.00 Premium Play game upgrades the rainbow to a Super Rainbow with extra pot symbols, adds a double height symbol on reel five for a greater chance of triggering Drops of Gold, and removes the lower paying symbols from the Premium Play base game reels. -
How many paylines does Rainbow Riches Drops of Gold have?
The standard game, free spins and the 2.00 and 5.00 Premium Play games are evaluated over 50 lines. That rises to 100 lines when a Drops of Gold symbol appears on reel five in free spins, and the 10.00 Premium Play game is evaluated over 100 lines, rising to 200 in the same situation. -
When is Rainbow Riches Drops of Gold released?
Rainbow Riches Drops of Gold’s release date is 26 June 2018. -
Who makes Rainbow Riches Drops of Gold?
Rainbow Riches Drops of Gold is made by Barcrest, part of L&W.
