Side by side
| Bonus | Trigger | Spins | Volatility | Buy | Buy RTP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Great Train Robbery | 3+ Train Robbery scatters | 10 free spins | Medium | 80x | 96.27% |
| Duel at Dawn | 3+ Duel scatters | 10 free spins | Very high | 200x | 96.33% |
| Dead Man’s Hand | 3+ DEAD scatters | Collect respins, then 3 Showdown spins | High | 400x | 96.43% |
The regular wild does not substitute for any of the scatters. In the rounds we watched, once two of one kind are on screen, the reel that could still land a third is framed in fire while it spins.
The Great Train Robbery
Three or more Train Robbery scatters in the base game give 10 free spins. The rule that matters: every wild that lands stays for the rest of the round, and each sticky wild can be part of any number of winning lines. Early wilds are worth the most, because they keep paying on every spin that follows.
Hacksaw’s rules put VS only in the base game and Duel at Dawn, so there are no VS multipliers here: the ceiling is lower and results are steadier. The rules also leave this round off the list of modes where the max win can be reached. Hacksaw labels it medium volatility, reviewers call it the most predictable of the three, and SlotCatalog says that for a max win it is probably not your best bet.
Duel at Dawn
Three or more Duel scatters give 10 free spins with a much higher chance of VS symbols, several at once, on up to five DuelReels. Hacksaw calls it “your best shot at a max win” and rates it very high volatility, which cuts both ways.
Plenty of Duel at Dawn rounds pay little. The ones that make the clips are the rounds where VS covers four or five reels on one spin, because the multipliers add and a full screen pays 300 times their sum. Roshtein’s $18.7 million max win came on the last spin of a Duel at Dawn he triggered naturally. The VS guide has the arithmetic.
Dead Man’s Hand
Three or more DEAD scatters start a two-part round.
Part one: the collect phase
You get 3 respins on which only three kinds of symbol can land: wilds, multiplier symbols (a gun cylinder with a yellow plus) and blank placeholders, the skull cards. Every wild or multiplier you land is added to a running total and resets the counter to 3. The phase ends after three blank spins in a row. The most it can hold is 20 wilds and a x31 multiplier.
Part two: the Showdown
Three spins. On each one, every wild you collected is dropped onto a random position on the grid, and the collected multiplier applies to all wins. More wilds means more lines that connect; a bigger multiplier means each of them pays more. In Bigwinboard’s test session the best haul was 10 wilds with an x27 multiplier.
Dead Man’s Hand is rated high volatility and costs 400x to buy, the most of the three. Its buy RTP is the highest, at 96.43%, but the gap to the others is at most a sixth of a percentage point.
Can a bonus retrigger?
Almost certainly not. Hacksaw’s in-game rules, which we read in full, describe no retrigger or extra spins for The Great Train Robbery, Duel at Dawn or Dead Man’s Hand, and none of the review sites mentions one. The rules never say “no retriggers” in so many words, so if you have seen one, write to us.
Which one to hope for
In the long run the differences are small: bought, the three return between 96.27% and 96.43%. The bigger difference is the shape of the result.
- The Great Train Robbery pays something more often and rarely pays a fortune.
- Duel at Dawn often pays little, and is the round the game’s records come from.
- Dead Man’s Hand depends on the collect phase. A short one leaves the Showdown with little to work with; a long one can be very large.
What each buy costs you on average
Using the buy RTPs: a Train Robbery buy loses about 3x the bet on average (80 × 3.73%), Duel at Dawn about 7.3x (200 × 3.67%) and Dead Man’s Hand about 14.3x (400 × 3.57%). Those are averages over many buys. Any single one can pay 0x or thousands.
More on whether buying is worth it in the bonus buy guide.
Questions people ask
How many free spins do you get in Wanted Dead or a Wild?
10 in The Great Train Robbery and 10 in Duel at Dawn. Dead Man's Hand works differently: collect respins that run until three blank spins in a row, then 3 Showdown spins.
What triggers Dead Man's Hand?
Three or more DEAD scatter symbols. Where bonus buys are allowed it can also be bought for 400x the bet.
What is the most wilds you can collect in Dead Man's Hand?
20 wilds, with a multiplier of up to x31, according to Bigwinboard and SlotCatalog.
Which Wanted bonus pays the most?
Duel at Dawn is the one Hacksaw calls your best shot at a max win, and Roshtein's biggest documented wins came from it. On average the differences are small: bought, the three bonuses return between 96.27% and 96.43%.
