Game file
Wanted Dead or a Wild slot: DuelReels, three bonuses and RTP versions
Hacksaw Gaming's Wild West slot: VS symbols turn reels wild with multipliers, across three bonus rounds and a tall 5x5 grid.
The legal status of casino-style games offered by bookmakers is disputed in South Africa and depends on the province that licenses the bookmaker.
Try the Wanted Dead or a Wild demo
Hacksaw Gaming's own demo launcher runs the frame above, with a demo balance in play credits. The game info screen in that demo lists the RTP as 96.38% for the version it runs and gives separate figures for each bonus buy; a bookmaker can run a lower version, so check the info screen there as well. In the euro demo the info screen lists bet levels from 0.20 to 2,000; a bookmaker's rand lobby shows its own range. The demo is the place to see how often VS symbols land and what Duel at Dawn, Dead Man's Hand and The Great Train Robbery look like. It cannot pay out; see the demo modes page.
Where to play Wanted Dead or a Wild for real money
Provincially licensed South African bookmakers whose published game lobbies list Wanted Dead or a Wild, ordered by our score. Check that the game is in the lobby of your account before you deposit.
| # | Bookmaker | Score | Welcome offer | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  BetsheziWestern Cape licenceRead review | Up to R10,000 in match bonuses over first four deposits, plus R50... | Play now | |
| 2 |  SportingbetWestern Cape licenceRead review | Triple Welcome Bonus: up to R3,000 in bonus funds spread across first... | Play now | |
| 3 |  World Sports BettingWestern Cape licenceRead review | None on file | Play now | |
| 4 |  GbetsWestern Cape licenceRead review | 50 Free Spins and a R50 Free Bet for new customers | Play now | |
| 5 |  YesPlayWestern Cape licenceRead review | 100% deposit bonus up to R3,000, minimum deposit R20, valid 7 days | Play now |
18+ Casino-style games at bookmakers are offered under provincial licences, and their legal status is disputed nationally since a 2025 appeal court ruling on Gauteng bookmakers. Welcome offers have terms; read them first. Set a limit and never play to win back losses. Help: National Responsible Gambling Programme, 0800 006 008, responsible gambling.
Wanted Dead or a Wild at a glance
Wanted Dead or a Wild is a Hacksaw Gaming slot on a 5x5 grid with 15 paylines. Its signature is DuelReels: VS symbols turn into full wild reels carrying multipliers. Three bonus rounds build on that idea, The Great Train Robbery with sticky wilds, Duel at Dawn with more VS symbols and Dead Man's Hand, and a bonus buy is available. Hacksaw rates volatility 4 out of 5, lists a top win of 12,500x and publishes four RTP versions: 96.38%, 94.55%, 92.33% and 88.42%.
Wanted Dead or a Wild is a Wild West slot from a studio known for games that swing hard. Its search volume in South Africa is small next to Hot Hot Fruit or Aviator, but people who search for it want specifics: the bonuses, the multipliers, the buy option and the RTP. Hacksaw Gaming's own game page answers most of those, and the game info screen inside Hacksaw's demo answers the rest: symbol values, how the VS duel works, the two phases of Dead Man's Hand, the bonus buy prices and the RTP of each buy. This file sticks to those two sources.
Hacksaw does not publish a release date; the spec card's date, 29 September 2021, comes from a slot reference source, which also disagrees with Hacksaw on volatility (calling it high or very high) and lists only three of the four RTP versions.
A taller grid: 5 reels, 5 rows, 15 lines
The grid has five rows instead of the usual three, and 15 paylines cross it. The extra rows make room for the game's main event: whole reels turning wild.
The game info screen states the rule: a win needs matching symbols along one of the 15 predefined lines, on adjacent reels from left to right, starting with the leftmost reel. Only the highest win per line is paid, and the same rules apply in the bonus rounds unless the info screen says otherwise.
What the symbols pay
The info screen shows symbol values at the selected bet. At the demo's bet of 2.00 they convert to these multiples of the bet:
| Symbol | 5 on a line | 4 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revolver cylinder | 20x | 10x | 2x |
| Whiskey bottle and money bag | 10x | 5x | 1x |
| Cow skull and bandit | 5x | 2.5x | 0.5x |
| A, K, Q, J and 10 | 1x | 0.5x | 0.1x |
| Wild | 20x | - | - |
Line wins on their own are modest: the best five of a kind is 20x the bet. The wild substitutes for every symbol except the bonus scatters and the VS symbols. The game's large results come from the VS multipliers, not from the paytable.
DuelReels: VS symbols that become wild reels
The VS symbol is the engine of the whole game, in the base game and in Duel at Dawn. The info screen describes it in four steps:
- It expands only if it helps. A VS symbol expands when at least one VS symbol would form part of a win once expanded.
- A duel on the reel. The expanded symbol covers the whole reel and shows two outlaws with different multipliers. The surviving outlaw's multiplier applies to the entire reel.
- The reel turns wild. At that point the whole reel is wild.
- Several VS reels add up. With more than one VS reel, the multipliers are first added together and then applied to the line wins.
The possible multipliers are 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, 7x, 8x, 9x, 10x, 20x, 25x, 50x and 100x. If a VS symbol lands on every reel so that the whole grid is covered, the entire grid counts as wild.
Three bonuses and a bonus buy
- The Great Train Robbery Three or more TRAIN ROBBERY scatters in the base game award 10 free spins in which every wild that lands stays sticky until the round ends.
- Duel at Dawn Three or more DUEL scatters award 10 free spins loaded with more VS symbols than the base game, so more wild reels with multipliers.
- Dead Man's Hand Three or more DEAD scatters start a two-phase bonus: first you collect wilds and multipliers, then three showdown spins use them.
Dead Man's Hand step by step
- Collect phase. Only wild and multiplier symbols appear, and they do not pay in this phase. Collected wilds are counted to the left above the reels and the running total multiplier to the right.
- Three lives. Each time a wild or multiplier is collected, the remaining spins reset to three. The collect phase ends after three spins in a row without collecting anything.
- Showdown. Three spins follow. On each one, the number of wilds you collected is applied to the grid, and all wins are multiplied by the collected total multiplier.
A collect phase that ends early leaves a few wilds and a small multiplier for the showdown, which is why most rounds of this bonus pay far less than the headline.
The bonus buy: prices and RTP
The bonus buy lets you pay to start a bonus directly, where a lobby offers it. In Hacksaw's demo at a bet of 2.00, The Great Train Robbery costs 160 (80x the bet), Duel at Dawn 400 (200x) and Dead Man's Hand 800 (400x). The buy menu labels their volatility medium, very high and high. The info screen gives each buy its own RTP: 96.27% for The Great Train Robbery, 96.33% for Duel at Dawn and 96.43% for Dead Man's Hand, against 96.38% for normal spins in the version the demo runs. Because those figures sit close to the 96.38% of normal spins, a buy is not a discount: on average it returns about the same per rand staked, and it moves a whole session of risk into one click.
With a game this volatile, a bought bonus can return a fraction of its price as easily as many times it, and it compresses a session's worth of risk into one click. If you use it at all, use it with money already set aside for losing.
Four RTP versions, from 96.38% to 88.42%
Hacksaw's page lists four versions. The bookmaker chooses one, and the game's info screen shows which.
Tool
Wanted Dead or a Wild RTP explainer
- Total staked
- R1,000.00
- Average returned
- -
- Average cost
- -
- Per R100 staked
- -
An average over a very large number of spins, not a prediction. A real session can end far above or far below it, and the more volatile the game, the wider that spread.
The gap between the top and bottom version is almost R8 per R100 staked. On a game with this much variance a single session will not reveal it, but over months of play it is the biggest difference between one lobby's version and another's.
Volatility 4 out of 5 and a 12,500x top win
Hacksaw rates volatility 4 on its own five-point scale. The top win of 12,500x the stake is one of the highest among the reel slots in this guide. The info screen adds how it works: the cap can be reached in the base game, Duel at Dawn and Dead Man's Hand, but not in The Great Train Robbery. When a round reaches 12,500x, the game shows a message, ends the round at once and pays the win; any free spins or bonus play left are discarded.
Expect long quiet runs. The game's value sits in bonuses where wild reels with large multipliers line up, which is rare by design.
Where Wanted Dead or a Wild is listed
Licensed bookmakers whose published pages name the game or Hacksaw Gaming are listed at the foot of this page; whether it is live in a lobby on a given day is shown on the bookmaker's site. The legal status of casino-style games at bookmakers is disputed and depends on the province: a 2025 Supreme Court of Appeal ruling bars Gauteng bookmakers from casino games, while the Western Cape board says its licensees are not affected.
For other high-variance games, see Book of Dead and Gates of Olympus.
A budget for a high-variance shoot-out
What helps
- Checking which of the four RTP versions runs
- A small stake for long quiet runs
- Money for a bonus buy set aside in advance, if at all
What does not
- Buying bonuses to recover losses
- Expecting sticky wilds to fill the grid
- Raising stakes after a dry spell
Responsible gambling
Wanted Dead or a Wild spin budget
- Spins if nothing comes back
- -
- Staked per hour
- -
- Average cost per hour
- -
- Stop-loss to set
- -
- Set the deposit limit in your bookmaker account before you start, not during a session.
- Use a timer: the clock runs faster than it feels when rounds take seconds.
- Never raise the stake to win back a loss.
Averages only: a single session can lose the whole budget much faster. Free, confidential help: National Responsible Gambling Programme, 0800 006 008. 18+ only.
The game's advanced autoplay settings include a total loss limit and a single-win limit that stop autoplay when either is reached; if you use autoplay at all, set them. Slots are for adults aged 18 and over. For limits, self-exclusion and free counselling, see responsible gambling.
Wanted Dead or a Wild screenshots
Game images: Hacksaw Gaming, from the official demo. Screenshots show demo mode with play credits, not real-money play.
Listed in the game lobbies of
Names only, from the bookmakers' published game lobbies. Not a recommendation to play.
Questions and answers
Who makes Wanted Dead or a Wild?
Hacksaw Gaming. A reference source dates its release to 29 September 2021; Hacksaw does not publish the date.
What is the RTP of Wanted Dead or a Wild?
Hacksaw lists four versions: 96.38%, 94.55%, 92.33% and 88.42%. The bookmaker chooses one; the info screen shows which.
What are DuelReels?
VS symbols that turn their reel into a wild reel with a multiplier attached.
What bonuses does Wanted Dead or a Wild have?
The Great Train Robbery with sticky wilds, Duel at Dawn with more VS symbols, and Dead Man's Hand. A bonus buy is also available where offered.
What is the maximum win in Wanted Dead or a Wild?
12,500x the stake, according to Hacksaw's sheet.
How volatile is Wanted Dead or a Wild?
Hacksaw rates it 4 out of 5 on its own scale; a reference source calls it high or very high.
Where is the demo?
On this page: the demo frame loads Hacksaw Gaming's own demo launcher. Demo spins use play credits only and cannot pay out.
How do the VS multipliers combine?
Each VS reel shows a duel, and the surviving outlaw's multiplier, from 2x up to 100x, applies to that whole wild reel. With several VS reels, the multipliers are added together first and then applied to the line wins.
How much does the Wanted Dead or a Wild bonus buy cost?
In Hacksaw's demo: 80x the bet for The Great Train Robbery, 200x for Duel at Dawn and 400x for Dead Man's Hand. The info screen lists their RTPs as 96.27%, 96.33% and 96.43%.
What happens when the 12,500x cap is reached?
The game shows a message, ends the round immediately and pays the win. Remaining free spins or bonus play are discarded.