Great Rhino

There have been lots of online slots that used things based on animals. Pragmatic Play’s Great Rhino online slot is based on an African safari theme like you might guess from the name. What makes it stand out is it centers around the rhino instead of animals in general, and it has two big jackpots that you can win in a bonus feature. The volatility of this game is fairly high, but you’ll find that the pay table is balanced enough to keep the swings from getting out of hand. Overall, the game gives plenty of excitement without too much variance.

Format and Layout

The format of the slot uses five wheels, three rows and 20 paylines. The paylines only pay from left to right only, but you have to play with all 20 activated on every spin. You can bet between one and 10 coins on every spin, and the coin values go from $0.01 to $0.50. That means that the minimum bet size is $0.20 per turn, which is obviously low enough for virtually everyone to afford, but players who want to wager more have plenty of ways to do so with bets that go up to the $100 level.

Wild Rhino Chip Symbol

The casino chip symbol in blue with yellow trim and a rhino on it is the wild in this game. It's one of two symbols that pays for two of a kind or more (the other being the actual rhino itself), and five of a kind pays out 500x. That's the best individual payout that you can get in this slot. A prize of 150x is yours for four on a payline, and you can get 50x or 4x for three or two, respectively, as well. These are strong pays, and this symbol helps you to get all kinds of extra winning combinations by substituting for everything but the tree bonus symbol.

Bonus Tree Symbol

Something kind of interesting in this slot in terms of things you don't see everyday is the functionality of the tree bonus symbol. It acts as a sort of a scatter since it appears on the middle three reels only. However, each instance of it pays 2x your entire bet, even if just one or two appear, so that helps to give you some nice instant wins. Aside from that, three of the bonus symbol on the reels all at the same time will trigger a free spins mode.

Two Free Spins Modes

Three bonus symbols give 10 free spins. All rhinos are extra wilds in this feature, and this feature gives you special reels with better average payouts as well.

However, during the regular game mode, at least two full stacks of rhino symbols will trigger the super re-spins. This gives you three free re-spins where the non-rhino reels will spin otherwise. You get a chance to add more static rhinos to the reels, and getting 14 will trigger the major jackpot worth 375 times your whole wager. The grand jackpot is won with all 15, and it's worth 500 times your total bet as well.

Animal Symbols and Card Rank Payouts

There are five different animal symbols in this game that give the highest payouts outside of the jackpots and the rhino chip symbol. You can earn 400x for five of a kind of the rhino symbol, and it drops down to the 200x level for five of the cheetah. The crocodile pays out 150x for five of a kind on a payline, and you can also earn 100x for five of the hyena symbols. Finally, the flamingo gets you 50x for five.

Four different card rank symbols are available as well, but the payouts are mostly the same. The purple A gets you 25x for five, but the five-of-a-kind payouts for the red K, yellow Q and blue J are all the same at the 20x level.

Our Thoughts

With so many different games out there with similar themes with safaris and animals of all types, Pragmatic Play had to deal with making this game stand out. While the graphics are in the range of slightly above average, the gameplay is pretty solid. The scatter works differently than most games, and the jackpots aren't exactly progressives, but they act much like them in terms of functional gameplay. With two different free spin-like features and a balanced pay schedule overall, it offers a smooth style of play that a lot of players will find appealing.