Where’s the Gold

Where’s the Gold Review

Aristocrat’s Where’s the Gold pokie is one of the hottest slots in Australia, even though it’s been available for more than 20 years. I’ve played it in a real casino, so I was excited to give it a spin online, where it has a classic, 5-reel, 3-row grid with a mining theme.

The game’s max payout is equal to 1,000x when 5 miner symbols land on any of the game’s 25 paylines.

It’s a super popular game among Aussies because it’s everything a classic slot should be – easy to play, widely available, and with considerable payout potential.
Here, I explain everything you need to know to play Where’s the Gold online pokie for real money and run through the key features of this iconic slot game.

Editor’s Verdict

Where’s the Gold deserves my healthy 4-star rating. It’s an iconic pokie with players, with 25 paylines in the base game and a wild symbol in the bonus round that can help you land wins.

Though Where’s the Gold features are a tad light (which would have helped push the pokie to 5 stars), I love the free spins bonus round, which awards 10 free spins when at least 3 dynamite scatters land – it’s your best chance to land the game’s max payout.

💡Personal opinion: If you’re looking for a classic, no-frills pokie to play in Australia, I think Where’s the Gold is the perfect choice.

About Aristocrat Gaming

Where’s the Gold pokies are a product of Aristocrat Gaming, one of Australia’s most prominent casino studios. Aristocrat is one of the oldest slot machine creators in the world, releasing its first slot machine game way back in 1953, and I love playing these games at any online casino.

Established by Len Ainsworth, Aristocrat now offers gaming solutions in more than 200 jurisdictions, brick-and-mortar venues and online casinos.

Alongside the studio’s much-loved Where’s the Gold pokie machine, popular Aristocrat titles I enjoy playing include games like Dragon, Bat Blessings, and 8 Wishes.
I love that Aristocrat also offers numerous single-site progressive and multi-site progressive jackpot games, offering you the chance to land huge potential payouts.

💡Personal opinion: Aristocrat is one of my favourite game developers because I first got to enjoy its games in real venues before online casinos became a big deal.

Theme of Where’s the Gold Pokie

Where’s the Gold is a mining-themed pokie. I found that it features classic J-A royal symbols as the low pays, and mining symbols like a pickaxe, mining cart, and the miner himself as the high-value symbols.

While typically classified as a mining-themed slot, Where’s the Gold is also a classic slot game with vintage graphics and old-school audio that evoke the nostalgia of slot machines of old.

How to Play Where’s the Gold

In reviewing Where’s the Gold, I found it a super easy pokie to play. If you’re new to online gaming in Australia, I’ve created this simple step-by-step guide to getting started:

1. Choose a casino. This site recommends lots of casinos, so pick one that takes your fancy.
2. Check for a welcome bonus. All leading online casinos in Australia offer a welcome bonus. Carefully check the terms and conditions to unlock the bonus with your first deposit.
3. Make a real money deposit. Check the supported payment methods at your chosen online casino and deposit cash to unlock the bonus and play the slot.
4. Adjust your stake amount. With funds in your casino account, adjust your stake amount each time you spin the reels. The limits for this game are $0.25 to $100.00 per spin. Please gamble responsibly.
5. Spin the reels. Finally, press the spin button to play. Sit back and watch the action unfold as you play one of Australia’s favourite pokies.

Payout Symbols and Odds

In Where’s the Gold Pokie base game, you win a payout by matching between 3-5 of any of the low-value symbols, which are the J-A royals. The pickaxe and wagon also offer payouts for 3, 4, or 5 of a kind, while the mine and the miner deliver wins when 2-5 symbols are on a payline.

As well as triggering the free spins bonus round, the scatter symbol offers a payout when at least 3 are in view. Check out Where’s the Gold pokie paytable below to see how much you can win:

Paytables and Winning Combinations

When you play Where’s the Gold online pokie for real money, you must pay attention to the paylines and the pay table. This game has 25 paylines on which winning combinations can form, and they pay out from left to right as you look at the screen.

The paylines in Where’s the Gold are adjustable, and you can play any game with 1 to 25 paylines in play. When I played this game, I was able to adjust the number of paylines as well as the coin value. This ultimately affects the minimum and maximum bet permitted.

As noted above, winning combinations pay out when at least 3 matching symbols land on a payline. The mine and the miner even offer wins when just 2 of these symbols land on a line.

💡Personal opinion: I recommend studying Where’s the Gold pay table before spinning the reels, so you know how much you stand to win.

Where’s the Gold Bonuses

Though Where’s the Gold is a tad light on in-game bonuses and special features, the main Where’s the Gold feature is the free spins bonus round, which you can access with 3 scatters in view. I run through the main features available in this game below:

Free Games

The scatter in this game is the dynamite symbol. When at least 3 scatters land, you will win the following:

• 3 scatters = 2x the bet
• 4 scatters = 10x the bet
• 5 scatters = 50x the bet

In addition to the payout, you will trigger access to the free spins bonus round in Where’s the Gold when 3, 4, or 5 dynamite scatters land. This awards up to 10 spins and 3 wild gold icons, the best route to the game’s max payout.

At the start of the bonus game, you also get to pick a character symbol from Peter Panner, Professor Gold, Mary Money, Happy Lucky, and Winnie Fortune. I was delighted to play the bonus game with Professor Gold when I tested Where’s the Gold pokie for this review.

Each of the characters has special mining expertise to help you unlock subsequent spins by unearthing golden nuggets. Every gold nugget that you retrieve adds a spin to your total.

💡 I also loved that the mining tools can randomly transform other symbols into golden wilds during the bonus round, a unique way of adding potential wins to the bonus round. Unfortunately, you can’t buy access to the bonus round in Where’s the Gold, so you must be patient as you spin the reels and hope that at least 3 scatter symbols will land in view.

Special Symbols

In the base game, the only special symbol you will see is the dynamite scatter. And as mentioned above, it paves the way to the bonus round when at least 3 land in view.
However, during the bonus round, I like how you get to pick your own special character, and several other special symbols then appear.

Any gold symbol that features during the bonus round serves as a wild symbol. This means that this symbol can substitute for all regular symbols in the game to help you form winning combinations.

Also, when your character unearths golden nuggets from the mine, free spins can be added to your total, which happened to me while I played this game.
Scatter symbols can also land during the bonus round, and the feature can be retriggered with another 3 scatters in view.

💡Personal opinion: I love a pokie that immerses you in a theme. Mining is a theme I enjoy, so it’s great to see many features here.

Jackpot in Where’s the Gold

There isn’t an in-game or a progressive jackpot in Where’s the Gold pokie when you play at online casinos. The maximum win in the game is capped at 1,000 coins, available when 5 miner symbols land on any of the paylines.

You can win the max payout in the base game or during the bonus round, but with the addition of golden wilds in the bonus round, the max payout is more likely to drop during the free games feature.

💡Personal Opinion: While I would love to see a progressive jackpot available in Where’s the Gold, I recommend other Aristocrat games if you’re looking for huge jackpot wins, including games like 5 Coin Frenzy Jackpots, Dollar Storm, and Dragon Tower Jackpots.

RTP and Volatility

The theoretical return to player percentage (RTP) of Where’s the Gold is 94.72%. Frankly, I think this is a little on the low side. I like to see pokies with RTPs higher than the industry average of 96%, and it’s one of the reasons why I didn’t award this game the full 5 stars.

If you’re unaware of this metric, the RTP indicates how much the game typically pays out over time. So, in this case, for every $100 spent on Where’s the Gold, roughly $0.94 is returned to the players, and around $0.06 is retained as the house edge.

💡 The higher the RTP is, the better it is for you as a player.

Coupled with this, RTP is medium volatility. While RTP indicates how much the game pays out over time, volatility indicates how often it pays out. Low-volatility pokies tend to pay out smaller amounts more frequently, while high-volatility pokies pay out higher amounts less frequently.

Medium volatility games, like Where’s the Gold or Dolphin Treasure, sit somewhere in between, and they are my favourites. I like medium volatility games because you don’t need to wait too long for wins to come along, and they’re reasonable sizes when they do land.

Therefore, you probably won’t need to wait too long to see wins land on the reels, and they will vary between low and high payouts.

How to Win Playing Where’s the Gold

Now that you know the basics and how the game works, it’s time to dive into Where’s the Gold strategies and tips. After playing the game for some time, here are some of my tips that will help to increase your enjoyment of this classic slot game:

• Play Where’s the Gold pokies for free first. My first tip is to play this game in demo mode before risking any of your real-money balance. You can find free online pokies like Where’s the Gold easily, without downloading. This allows you to spin the reels and test the game mechanics yourself to see how it works with no risk attached. If you like it, you can then switch to real-money play.
• Gamble responsibly. The bet limits in Where’s the Gold pokie range from $0.25 to $100.00 per spin, catering to both low-budget players and high rollers. I remind you to always gamble responsibly and bet within your means. Adjust the stake to reflect your available bankroll, and don’t chase your losses.
• Understand how pokies work. Pokies like Where’s the Gold are powered by Random Number Generators (RNGs), meaning every spin is random. This means that you can win or lose every time you spin the reels, and no strategy can help increase your winning chances. As such, pokie games should be regarded as a form of entertainment and not as a way to land guaranteed wins.
• Play on mobile. You don’t have to load your laptop or desktop computer to play Where’s the Gold. Rather, you can play the pokie on an app at your chosen online casino. The game is HTML5 enabled, meaning it easily adjusts to different screen sizes, and I can recommend it as a good mobile game.

💡Personal opinion: Following these tips won’t guarantee a win, but they should help you enjoy games more and help your bankroll go further.

Mobile Usability and App

Although Where’s the Gold pokie was released in 2003, it is an HTML5 slot game that can be played on any mobile device. For the best experience, download a casino’s native app for iOS or Android and head to the game library to find Where’s the Gold.

Alternatively, if your chosen online casino doesn’t have an app, you can log into your account on any mobile browser and play Where’s the Gold for free or real money.
I tested Where’s the Gold on computer and mobile and found it equally impressive on both, with very few differences between the gameplay.

Similar Games

Aristocrat is well-known as one of Australia’s leading providers of classic slot games. If you have enjoyed the no-frills, classic nature of Where’s the Gold, here are some of my favourite Aristocrat titles to check out:

• Happy Lantern: Featuring cash-on-reels and the hold & spin feature, Happy Lantern is an Oriental-themed slot from Aristocrat that is just as popular as Where’s the Gold.
• Buffalo Grand: This sequel to Aristocrat’s original Buffalo release features a reel expansion, multipliers, and sky-high jackpot prizes.
• Crazy Cherry: The perfect slot game for fans of classic fruits, Crazy Cherry features 7s, BARs, and various fruit symbols, as well as a stunning jewel hunt bonus game that delivers big payouts.

My Final Opinion of Where’s the Gold

I rate Where’s the Gold as one of the best classic pokie games you can play in Australia. It has truly stood the test of time and has retained its popularity over the past 20 years. I love the simplicity of the gameplay and the feature-rich bonus round, which gives you 10 free spins and special wild symbols to land payouts.

On the other hand, I’m disappointed with the game’s relatively low RTP and would love to see a remake with enhanced graphics that mirror those in the most popular video slots available today. Still, I’m confident in my 4-star rating of Where’s the Gold and recommend it as one of the most iconic pokies that you can play at Australian online casinos