The Grand National Race Of Champions Slot Review
A chestnut racehorse fills the frame at full stretch, jockey in red cap and yellow silks low over its neck, another runner looming close on the right, and green National-style brush running along the bottom of the scene. The Grand National Race Of Champions is Inspired‘s tribute to the world’s most famous steeplechase, and instead of inventing runners it puts the race’s own legends on the reels. That’s the gamble: a paytable of real champions carrying a game whose reel work is otherwise plain.
It’s a deliberately classic build: five reels, four rows, 40 fixed paylines, an RTP of 95%, and mid to high volatility. It sits alongside Inspired’s Furlong Fortunes Jumps and Furlong Fortunes Sprint, but the free spins round here does something neither of those does.
Horses, Wilds and 40 Fixed Lines
The reel set is a 5×4 grid with 40 fixed paylines, so every line is in play on every spin. Wins pay left to right across adjacent reels, and wins on different lines are added together. There’s no line selector to worry about; the only decision is stake size.
Each win is multiplied by the current line bet rather than the total stake, which is worth knowing when the winlines flash up: a banner figure and the amount actually banked aren’t the same thing when several lines land at once. The animations can be skipped with a tap if the drawn lines start to drag.
The horses carry the paytable’s middleweight division, and each champion sits inside its own coloured frame so they’re easy to tell apart mid-spin. Red Rum wears red, the horse that won the National three times and placed twice more.
West Tip sits in blue, Seagram in green, Foinavon in purple and Aldaniti in grey, all famous Aintree names given equal billing on the reels. Above them sits the gold Grand National logo, the game’s own crest and its best-paying symbol. The card royals fill the lower rungs, doing steady but unremarkable work. All values are multiples of the total bet for three, four and five of a kind:
- Grand National gold logo: 2.5x / 5x / 12.5x
- Red Rum: 2x / 4x / 10x
- West Tip: 1.5x / 3x / 7.5x
- Seagram: 1x / 2.5x / 5x
- Foinavon: 0.5x / 2x / 4x
- Aldaniti: 0.5x / 1.5x / 3x
- J / Q: 0.25x / 0.5x / 2.5x
- K: 0.25x / 1x / 2.5x
At the quoted line bet those figures are small beer individually, which is precisely why the 40-line structure matters: a screen well stocked with framed horses and wilds can pay on several lines at once, and those line wins stack into the total.
The Wild substitutes for every symbol except the Bonus icon. That’s its whole job in the base game, and it can appear stacked across the reels, several high on a single spin.
The 12.5x award for five logos is the biggest single line the game commits to, so the real upside depends on what the free spins round can stack up across its 40 lines at once.
Free Spins: Wilds That Step Down
The gold Bonus icon is the trigger. It pays nothing on its own, but landing three, four or five in view starts the free spins round, and the awards step up sharply with count:
- 3 Bonus icons in view: 8 free spins
- 4 Bonus icons in view: 16 free spins
- 5 Bonus icons in view: 30 free spins
Once the round is running, a counter tracks how many spins remain, along with a weighted balance display so the running total is always in view. The grid doesn’t change: it’s the same 5×4 layout throughout, and the same 40 lines pay left to right. Nothing about the base game’s win rules is suspended; the round simply adds the step-down behaviour on top of them.
The Step-Down Wilds
The mechanic that defines the round is simple: all wilds step down one position with every spin. A wild that lands on row four doesn’t vanish after one win. It drops a row per spin, paying on each row it occupies, until it walks off the bottom of the reels.
That changes how the round plays. A wild that lands on the top row effectively gets four bites at the 40 lines, one per row, and several wilds landing near the top at once can keep the winlines flashing for consecutive spins.
Because they only move downwards, a wild’s value is set the moment it lands: high is good, low is nearly spent. Every wild on screen is midway through its descent, and the next spin’s outcome is partly written by where the last one landed. The retrigger mechanic feeds directly into this, because every extra spin is another row of travel for wilds already in play.
Retriggers
The round can extend itself. Land 5 ‘EXTRA SPINS’ in a row and you bank 8 additional free spins on top of whatever remains. There’s no cap on how many times that can happen, so a lucky round can keep the step-down wilds walking well past the original award.
Those eight extra spins are worth more than they look on paper. A wild parked near the top of the reels at the moment of the retrigger will still be descending when the bonus spins arrive, so one trigger’s wilds can carry value into the next stretch of the round. A round that retriggers early builds momentum rather than starting again.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7/10
This is a waiting game with one big fence in it. Most of the time it’s a plain 40-line spinner ticking over while you hold out for the Bonus icons, and the reason to sit through that is the step-down wilds on the other side. A wild near the top of the reels turns four spins into small events, and a good cluster high on the screen is the best run this paytable can produce.
The descending-wild round is the strength, and it’s a real one: 30 spins from a five-icon trigger, and retriggered spins give wilds already in motion extra rows to pay on, so one good round can build for longer than the base game’s numbers suggest. The weakness is everything outside it. The base game offers line wins and nothing else, and with the best single line at 12.5x, the stretches between Bonus icons are thin grazing.
It suits racing fans first, and anyone content with a slot that saves everything for one well-made feature. Red Rum topping the paytable feels right, and the names do real work on the reels. Players who want something happening on every spin should look elsewhere.
The Grand National Race Of Champions FAQs
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What is the RTP of The Grand National Race Of Champions?
The Grand National Race Of Champions runs at an RTP of 95%. -
Is The Grand National Race Of Champions high volatility?
It sits at mid to high volatility, so expect longer gaps between meaningful wins, with the free spins round doing most of the heavy lifting. -
How many paylines does The Grand National Race Of Champions have?
The game has 40 fixed paylines. All 40 are in play on every spin, with wins paying left to right and wins on different lines added together. -
What is the grid size of The Grand National Race Of Champions?
It’s a 5×4 grid: five reels and four rows, both in the base game and during the free spins round. -
When is The Grand National Race Of Champions released?
The release date of The Grand National Race Of Champions is 12 February 2017. -
Who makes The Grand National Race Of Champions?
The Grand National Race Of Champions is made by Inspired, whose stable also includes the Furlong Fortunes racing slots. -
How do you trigger the free spins in The Grand National Race Of Champions?
Landing three, four or five gold Bonus icons in view awards 8, 16 or 30 free spins respectively. The wild cannot substitute for the Bonus icon. -
Can free spins be retriggered in The Grand National Race Of Champions?
Yes. The free spins screen states that 5 ‘EXTRA SPINS’ in a row awards 8 additional free spins, with no cap on how many times this can happen. Because wilds step down one position each spin, retriggered spins give descending wilds further rows to pay on.
