Midas Gold

The story of King Midas is pretty well-known. He's a king who gains the ability to turn anything to gold that he touches, but he then realizes he's made a mistake when he can't touch his own daughter without effectively killing her. Available at Red Tiger Gaming casinos, this game offers players a chance to get the benefits of the Midas touch without the disadvantages, and it has a medium volatility overall. It achieves this volatility through a balanced pay schedule with good chances to win in the main features.

Format and Layout

The main thing to know about this game's layout is that it uses the "all ways" approach. That means every normal symbol can pay on consecutive left-to-right reels regardless of the position it lands on. The reels themselves have a lot of gold attached, which makes sense given the theme, but you won't need a ton of gold to make a bet in this game. You can play for as little as $0.20 per spin with the simplified betting controls. While the game is designed so that the betting controls can go as high as $500 per turn, in reality, the casinos will typically limit the max bet to somewhere in the range of $50 to $200 per spin.

A Flat Pay Table

Something you really need to be prepared for when you play this game is how overwhelmingly flat the pay table is. The best five-of-a-kind win and the worst five-of-a-kind win only differ by a factor of eight, and that's not very much for a video slot. However, what you need to understand is that everything in this slot centers around multi-line wins. Each individual payout isn't particularly impressive. With that having been said, your chances of getting multi-line payouts, particularly with the main feature that drives the gameplay, is particularly strong, and your wins are extended to become even longer as well in many cases.

This is why you have to be careful about not letting the structure of the pay table mislead you. It doesn't tell the whole story for this particular game.

The Midas Touch Feature

The King Midas symbol can appear on the reels, but it's no ordinary symbol. When it shows up, it triggers the Midas Touch respins feature. The way this feature works is that a random symbol is chosen from the symbols on the screen, and you'll see Midas' hand reach forward and turn that symbol golden. Every other matching symbol is also turned golden, and they will all hold still on the reels while the rest of the symbols are replaced. If any new golden symbols appear, they will also lock in place while giving you additional respins.

Once the respins are up, you'll be given a payout for your prize, which is substantial in most cases thanks to the ability to rack up several of the same symbol on the reels. This is an especially fun feature thanks to the "all ways" format as well.

Pay Schedule

There are two parts to the pay schedule. The top portion is made up of four symbols. The King's daughter is up first, and five of a kind of her is worth 8x. Five of the throne symbol will get you 6x. A 4x prize is yours for five of the dragon goblet, and you can earn 3x for five of the bowl of fruit.

For the bottom half of the pay table, you have five card ranks listed in a colorful, Greek font. This includes the yellow A for 2x, the red K for 1.5x and the purple Q for 1.4x, all of which are for five-of-a-kind wins. Additionally, you can earn 1.2x for five of the blue J or 10x for five of the gray 10.

Overview

The premise of the Midas Gold slot by Red Tiger Gaming is pretty solid. The execution, however, is a bit suspect. There are no significant payouts unless you get really lucky with the Midas Touch feature, and the pay table as a whole seems pretty lackluster. It's really a shame because the graphics are above-average, and the general idea behind the feature makes a lot of sense given the motif of the game. Overall, we don't know how many players will really be able to get into this one because there's a lot of talk about the features in the intro screen with little action to back it up once you're actually playing.