What VS does
VS lands as an ordinary single symbol. If at least one VS on the screen would be part of a win once expanded, every VS grows to cover its whole reel and those reels turn wild. Two outlaws then face off on that reel, each holding a multiplier, and the one left standing sets the value. That multiplier boosts every win that passes through the reel.
Hacksaw calls the mechanic DuelReels, and Wanted Dead or a Wild was the first game to use it. If no VS would be part of a win, none of them expands, which is why you will see plenty of lonely VS symbols sitting on dead spins.
The multipliers it can show
Hacksaw’s in-game rules list every value, thirteen of them, and AboutSlots gives the same list:
2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, 7x, 8x, 9x, 10x, 20x, 25x, 50x, 100x.
There is no 15x and no 75x in that list. The 25x is real: you can see it on Roshtein’s full screen further down. Don’t mix this list up with the 2024 standalone game Duel at Dawn, whose outlaw and sheriff multipliers run to 200x and include 15x and 75x.
Why two reels add, not multiply
Hacksaw’s rule: when more than one wild reel is part of the same winning line, their multipliers are added together, and the total is applied to the line win.
A worked example
Money bags land on reels 1, 2 and 4. VS reels expand on reels 3 and 5, showing 5x and 20x. The line reads as five money bags, which pays 10x the bet. The multipliers add to 25x, so the line pays 250x. If they multiplied each other, it would be 1,000x. They don’t.
One VS reel can sit under several lines at once, and each of those line wins gets the multiplier. That is how a modest-looking screen turns into a big number: one 20x reel in the middle of a board full of matching symbols.
The full screen: 300 × the sum
When VS covers all five reels, all 25 positions are wild. Each of the 15 lines is then five wilds, and five wilds pay 20x. So the screen pays 15 × 20 = 300x before multipliers, times the sum of the five reel values:
full-screen win = 300 × (sum of the five multipliers), up to 12,500x the bet.
We worked that out from the paytable and Hacksaw’s adding rule, and Hacksaw’s own rules back it up: the max win, they say, “occurs when 1 VS symbol appears on each reel at the same time and all VS symbols expand to display a combined multiplier value equal to at least 42x”. 42 × 300 is 12,600x, just over the cap. We also checked the sum against Roshtein’s documented full screens, all at $1,500 a spin:
| Win | Reels | Sum | 300 × sum | At $1,500 | What was reported |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base game, Feb 2022 | 5, 3, 6, 4, 3 | 21 | 6,300x | $9,450,000 | “$9.5 million” (roshtein.com); x6,300 = $9,450,000 (Book of Slots) |
| Free spins, Feb 2022 | 20, 2, 3, 6, 6 | 37 | 11,100x | $16,650,000 | $16,650,000 (roshtein.com). Book of Slots has $16,673,250 (x11,115.5); neither says whether its figure is the spin or the whole bonus. |
| Full screen, below | 4, 2, 3, 25, 5 | 39 | 11,700x | $17,550,000 | $17,550,000 on the game’s own win counter; x11,700 (Book of Slots) |
| Duel at Dawn, Jul 2022 | 8, 5, 8, 20, 3 | 44 | 13,200x | capped | The spin paid $18,726,900 and the game showed “Max win on a single round has been reached” (roshtein.com) |
Three of the four match a reported figure to the dollar. The fourth went past the cap: 13,200x on paper, so the game stopped the round at its 12,500x limit, about $18.7 million. The records and the rules’ 42x threshold both agree with the sum.
Two things follow from the sum:
- Any full screen adding up to 42 or more hits the cap, because 42 × 300 = 12,600x. A sum of 41 gives 12,300x, and there is a Roshtein clip on this site titled exactly that: 12300x Wanted VS full screen.
- The smallest full screen is still big. Five 2x reels add to 10, which is 3,000x. A full screen is never a small win; it is very rare.
Where VS lands
Hacksaw’s rules name two places: the base game and the Duel at Dawn bonus. Duel at Dawn is built around it; Hacksaw describes a “much higher chance of landing multiple VS symbols at once, potentially filling the screen”. That “much higher” is measured against the base game, where several VS reels on one spin are far rarer.
The normal wild, the sheriff’s badge, does not stand in for VS or for any of the three scatters. An expanded VS reel, on the other hand, is wild for every regular symbol on the lines it crosses.
DuelReels after Wanted
Hacksaw has reused the idea three times that we know of: Duel at Dawn (2024) adds a sheriff and multipliers up to 200x, Phoenix DuelReels (2025) swaps outlaws for a phoenix and a water dragon, and Eternal Duel (2026) moves it to Greek gods. Our DuelReels comparison lines them up, along with Wanted Salvation, which Bigwinboard describes as a Stake-exclusive remaster.
Questions people ask
What does VS mean in Wanted Dead or a Wild?
It is the DuelReels symbol. When a VS would be part of a win, the VS symbols expand to fill their reels and turn wild, and on each reel two outlaws duel. The winner's multiplier, from 2x to 100x, applies to every win through that reel.
Do VS multipliers multiply each other?
No. When more than one VS reel is part of the same win, their multipliers are added together and the total is applied to the line win. Two 7x reels give 14x.
What is the highest VS multiplier?
100x. Hacksaw's rules list every value: 2x to 10x, then 20x, 25x, 50x and 100x.
How much does a full screen of VS pay?
300 times the sum of the five multipliers, capped at 12,500x the bet: every line is five wilds worth 20x, and there are 15 lines. Hacksaw's rules confirm that a combined 42x or more reaches the cap.
Can VS land in the bonus games?
In Duel at Dawn, yes, and much more often than in the base game. Hacksaw's rules name the base game and Duel at Dawn as the places VS lands.
