Paul Diamond Blow's Casino VIP Lounge

Tips, tricks, advice and reviews for casino high rollers, low rollers, and everyone in between...


Slot Machine Review: Aristocrat's Buffalo Slots
Buffalo is a popular slot machine with the potential for large wins

by Paul Ace Diamond "Huggy" Blow


A big win spin on a Buffalo slot machine paying $976 on an 80 cent bet.



There are very few casino slot machines that have the potential to win large amounts of money without betting maximum credits, but Aristocrat's BUFFALO slot machine is one of them. The Buffalo slots are a very popular game that you will find in most casinos, and it has become one of my favorite slot machines to play due to the fact that you can win big payouts on this game without having to bet maximum credits, plus it gives more frequent smaller wins than most slot machines do.

Buffalo slots is one of Aristocrat's "Xtra Reel Power" games that features 1024 possible ways to win (not one of the traditional video game slots with pay lines), and has wild card symbols that turn into multipliers in the bonus rounds that create the big wins.The best paying symbol is the Buffalo symbol, and if you were to fill the entire screen with Buffalo symbols (which in theory could happen) you would win $3072 on just a 40 cent bet. On the Buffalo slot machines in most casinos, the minimum bet is 40 cents per spin, and you can also bet 80 cents, $2.00, or $4.00. There are wild card symbols on Buffalo slots that appear only on rows 2, 3, and 4, and the best you can do with the wild cards is to get one on all three reels. There also is a bonus round -- which features wild card symbols that turn into multipliers -- which comes into play when you get three or more Gold Coin bonus symbols on a spin.

The BUFFALO bonus round
The Buffalo bonus round is where you have the best chance to win large amounts of money even without betting maximum credits. Getting three or more "Gold Coin" bonus symbols on a spin gives you the bonus round with 8 free spins. Four "Gold Coins" symbols will give you 15 free spins, and five symbols gives you 20 free spins. It is easy to retrigger the bonus round during the Buffalo bonus round spins: during the bonus round, if you get two more Gold Coins on a spin, you get an additional five free spins, three Gold Coins gets you 8 more, and so on...

During the Buffalo bonus round, the wild card symbols turn into multipliers, which will be either 2x or 3x. The best you can do is to get all three wild card symbols (one each on reels 2, 3, and 4) that turn into 3x multipliers, which would multiply all your winning combinations by 27x. If you were to get a good amount of Buffalo symbols on the reels along with all three wild card multipliers, that will give you the large payouts. My personal bests on the Buffalo slot game so far has been a $2200 jackpot (with a $1.20 bet) and a $1549 jackpot (with an 80 cent bet).

Other BUFFALO slot machine variations
The original Buffalo slot machine game came out in 2009 and is the game you will find in most casinos, but Aristocrat has also made variations of the original game, including BUFFALO LEGENDS, BUFFALO GRAND, and the latest version BUFFALO STAMPEDE. All these variations play the same as the original Buffalo game with just a few differences. In BUFFALO LEGENDS you can play either the original Buffalo game, or the Deluxe version (for a slightly higher bet per spin) that features higher multipliers (up to 125x with all three 5x wild card symbols) and more free spins during the bonus rounds. BUFFALO GRAND gives you a spinning wheel to spin with each bonus round, where you can possibly win one of four progressive jackpot amounts, free spins, or both. BUFFALO STAMPEDE also features two random jackpot amounts (major and minor) that can be won randomly (no matter what combinations you get on a spin) and the jackpot amounts can be won even with just a minimum bet (the spins are more expensive with the Stampede jackpot option turned on), plus stampeding buffalo that can add more tiers or more buffalo symbols on spins when the stampede happens which increases the possibility for winning combinations.

All in all, Aristocrat's BUFFALO slot machine is a good game to play if you are looking for some big wins without having to bet maximum credits. As I've said, I've had my success just betting 80 cents a spin, and can attest to the fact that you can indeed win big amounts on this game. Plus, the game will give you more frequent smaller wins than most other slot machines do, which makes it more fun to play than your average slot machine.




$$$ Go to the Paul Diamond Blow Casino VIP Lounge homepage for more casino tips and advice articles $$$