The Bowery Boys Slot Review 2024
We’re heading to the 19th Century and the rough neighbourhood of Bowery, Manhattan with Hacksaw Gaming’s newest slot, The Bowery Boys.
The Bowery Boys were an anti-catholoic and anti-Irish Criminal Gang from Bowery, New York City. The Bowery Boys is certainly a turn for Hacksaw Gaming who has recently opted for some more cheerful looking titles, like Harvest Wilds, King Carrot or Joker Bomb, but how does it compare?
We had a pleasant first impression of the Bowery Boy. We liked the dreary New York Night aesthetic and if feels like you’ve wandered down the wrong alleyway, creating some sort of suspensful feeling about events yet to come.
Thinking about it, we’re much more interested by the darker themes adopted by the likes of Chaos Crew and Wanted Dead or a Wild when compared to the happy themes,
The Bowery Boys Betting and Symbols
The Bowery Boys has a variety of betitng options for players to choose from. For those who prefer a lower stake, the minimum bet available is £/€0.20 per spin. For those who prefer a higher stake, the maximum bet available is £/€100 per spin, with plenty of other options in between the two.
The highest paying regular symbol in The Bowery Boys is the Lady with the Pink background, followed by the symbols with the Red, Blue, Green and Yellow backgrounds. Lower paying symbols are standard Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Ten.
Wild symbols substitute for all symbols except Scatters and Special symbols.
The Bowery Boys Base Game and Features
The Bowery Boys is a 6 reel slot with a Pay Anywhere mechanic. In order to form a win you will need to connect 8 or more of the same symbols in any position on the reels.
The Bowery Boys features Cascading Reels. Each time a winning combination is formed, all winning symbols will disappear from the reels and new symbols will fall down via a Cascade, filling all the empty positions and possibly creating even more winning combinations.
The base game in The Bowery Boys is packed with Blasting Bomb Multipliers and Strongboxes filled with Cash rewards that really take your wins to another level! More on these below.
The Bowery Boys ‘Strongboxes’
Landing a Strongbox along with a Key symbol during any random spin, unlocks the box and the contents is awarded. There are 3 Strongbox sizes up for grabs.
- Small Strongbox – Awards a Cash prize between 2x and 5x.
- Medium Strongbox – Awards a Cash prize between 10x and 25x.
- Large Strongbox – Awards a Cash prize between 50x and 250x.
The Cash prize awarded will be added to the current win amount above the reels, before applying any awarded Multipliers.
If you happen to land multiple Strongboxes during any one spin, the Key symbol will unlock all of them.
The Bowery Boys Blasting Bomb Multipliers
During any random spin, Blasting Bomb Multipliers can land.
These are Bombs that come equipped with a random Multiplier of either 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 10x, 15x, 25x, 50x, 75x and 100x.
Blasting Bomb Multipliers will multiply the current win amount, after applying any unlocked Strongbox Cash prizes.
Landing 2 or more Multiplers in one spin, will be added together and then applied to the current win amount.
Blasting Bomb Multipliers will literally make your wins explode!
The Bowery Boys Free Spins
Landing 1, 2 or 3 Scatter symbols during the base game, triggers 1 of 3 Bonus rounds.
Each Free Spins round has the potential to deliver substantial wins and plenty of fun and excitement.
Strongbox Storage
Landing 1 Scatter symbol triggers the Strongbox Storage round, awarding 10 Free Spins.
During this round, you will be able to store up to 5 Strongboxes in the storage section above the reels.
Once a Key symbol lands, all Strongboxes that are stored will be unlocked, awarding the corresponding Cash prize to your total win.
Keep storing as many Strongboxes as you can and unlocking them with Key symbols. The more Keys you land, the more Strongboxes you unlock and Cash prizes will be awarded.
Landing a Scatter awards an additional +1 Free Spin.
Daisy’s Dynamite
Landing 2 Scatter symbols triggers Daisy’s Dynamite round, awarding 10 Free Spins.
During this round, you will come across special Dynamite Multipliers which require a Detonator to activate.
Dynamite Multipliers can award a Multiplier value of x2, x3, x4, x5, x10, x15, x25, x50, x75 and x100.
All Dynamite Multipliers that land will be automatically stored in the special Box until a Detonator lands. Once the Detonator symbol lands, it will trigger all Dynamite Multipliers that are stored in the special Box in one extreme explosion, that will Mutliply your current win amount for the round.
Landing Scatters will award additonal Free Spins.
Please note that Detonators can land during all winning and losing Free Spins.
Bowery Savings Bank
Landing 3 Scatters triggers the Bowery Savings Bank round, awarding 10 Free Spins.
During this round, for every win amount you win, the same amount will be stored in a seperate Vault. The amount that is stored in the Vault will not be awarded unless you land a special Dollar symbol.
If you happen to land a Dice symbol, this will Multiply the current win amount by the sum of the two 6-sided Dice. Multipliers that can be awarded range from x2 up to x12.
If a Police Officer Badge appears on the reels, a Police Officer will jump onto the screen and you will have to pay a fine of either 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% or 50% of the current win amount that is stashed away in the Vault.
Landing Scatters will award additional Free Spins.
The Bowery Boys Bonus Buy
For those outside the UK, you may benefit from a Bonus Buy option.
The 3 Bonus rounds can be purchased for a set price, as follows.
- Strongbox Storage – This round will cost 80x your current bet. The RTP when purchasing this option decreases from 96.41% to 96.36%.
- Daisy’s Dynamite – This round will cost 200x your current bet. The RTP when purchasing this option increases slightly from 96.41% to 96.48%.
- Bowery Savings Bank – This round will cost 300x your current bet. The RTP when purchasing this option decreases from 96.41% to 96.35%.
The Bowery Boys: Our Verdict
Hacksaw Gaming are both diverse and creative with a portfolio that has something for everyone. Every now and then, they’ll start a trend of similarly styled games, which makes you think that you could predict the next one. But then something like The Bowery Boys comes along to take everyone by surprise.
We don’t think that The Bowery Boys is their best title yet, but it is a little more diverse than others with 3 different bonus rounds. The most desired one is the Bowery Savings Bank, but with soaring highs comes crushing lows when the policeman comes in to collect his bribe. Slots have different ways of taking away from the player in some regards. Somtimes it’ll just miss a connection of high paying symbols, and sometimes nothing will happen at all. We’re not sure why, but the policeman bribe in The Bowery Boys particularly stings.
One thing that’s hard to ignore about the Bowery Boys is how similarly it works to Pragmatic Play’s Sweet Bonanza, which certainly can’t be a bad thing, although it’s not very original.
Still though, there’s plenty about The Bowery Boys that makes it a game in its own right, and the 10,000x win potential is hard to ignore.
Overall, The Bowery Boys doesn’t seem to us like a hit title, but we’d expect it to perform very well with players who will unoudbtedly be drawn in by its interesting theme.