Wanted Dead or a Wild pokie: play free online and where to play for real money in New Zealand

Wanted Dead or a Wild in two minutes

Wanted Dead or a Wild is a five-reel, five-row pokie with fifteen fixed lines, released by Hacksaw Gaming on 29 September 2021 and still the studio’s best-known title. The western dressing hides an unusual structure: three separate scatter symbols leading to three separate bonus rounds, each with its own volatility, over a base game whose only mechanic is a duel. The cap is 12,500x stake. Hacksaw prints four return builds on the game’s own page — 96.38%, 94.55%, 92.33% and 88.42% — and the casino, not you, picks which one runs.

How it plays

Fifteen fixed paylines across a 5 × 5 grid, so there is no line adjustment and no ante bet. Hacksaw’s page does not publish a bet range; Bigwinboard and SlotCatalog both give it as 0.20 to 100 a spin, which at an Australian-dollar casino is A$0.20 to A$100 within the operator’s limits.

The base-game mechanic is DuelReels. In Hacksaw’s words, “DuelReels™ are triggered by landing VS symbols, which expand into wild reels if they form part of a winning combo after expanding”, and when the duel resolves “the victor’s multiplier is applied to the whole reel, boosting all wins that pass through it”. Bigwinboard records those multipliers running from 2x to 100x, and multiple DuelReels on one spin combine — the only route to a large base-game win, since the symbol pays are small.

Hacksaw rates the volatility at 4 out of 5 on its own scale, one step above Le Bandit, and Bigwinboard and SlotCatalog both measure the hit frequency at about 19.3%, so roughly one spin in five returns something.

Bonus features

The Great Train Robbery. Three or more train scatters award ten free spins in which “all Wild symbols that land are sticky and can be part of any number of winning combinations again and again”. It is the gentlest of the three, and the one Bigwinboard rates only medium volatility.

Duel at Dawn. Three or more duel scatters award ten free spins with a much higher rate of VS symbols — Hacksaw describes “potentially filling the screen with dueling outlaws on up to five expanded DuelReels”. Every reel can turn wild with its own multiplier, and this is where the big multiplier stacks come from.

Dead Man’s Hand. Three or more DEAD scatters open a two-phase round. The collection phase gathers wilds and multipliers, with the spin counter resetting on each collect; then in Showdown, Hacksaw’s rules say “all collected Wild symbols are added to random positions on every spin, before the accumulated multiplier is applied to all wins”. Bigwinboard records a ceiling of roughly twenty wilds and a x31 multiplier.

Bonus buys. Where the casino enables them, the three rounds cost 80x, 200x and 400x stake. Paying 400x for a feature that returns the same percentage as the base game does not improve your odds; it compresses the same return into one spin instead of several hundred. Check the bonus terms too — plenty of operators exclude bought features from wagering entirely.

RTP and volatility

Hacksaw publishes the builds it ships directly on the game page: “RTP: 96.38%; 94.55%; 92.33%; 88.42%”. SlotCatalog and Bigwinboard list the same four. The 96.38% version is the default and the one the demo runs; the other three exist so an operator can order a cheaper game with identical artwork.

The gap is what matters. On A$1,000 of turnover, two percentage points of RTP is A$20. Here the spread is nearly eight points: A$1,000 through the 96.38% build costs about A$36 on average, the same A$1,000 through the 88.42% build about A$116 — more than three times as much, for a game that looks and sounds identical. Hacksaw ships the widest RTP spreads of any studio we cover, so naming the build is not pedantry. None of the casinos below publishes which version it runs, and the only figure that applies to you is the one in the game’s info screen at your casino, in real-money mode; our RTP guide explains why the headline number is a ceiling rather than a promise.

The maximum win is 12,500x stake: A$12,500 at a A$1 spin, A$1.25 million at the A$100 maximum. It is a Duel at Dawn outcome — several expanded DuelReels with high multipliers on one spin — and at a 19.3% hit rate the realistic session is a long run of small returns punctuated by a bonus that usually pays back less than it cost to reach.

Where to play Wanted Dead or a Wild in Australia and New Zealand

Five of the casinos we recommend name Hacksaw Gaming in the pokies section of their review, and two name this game by title. RocketPlay, our highest-rated casino, is one: Casino Guru’s game check lists Wanted Dead or a Wild among its most-played titles, and RocketPlay takes AUD and NZD accounts on a Curaçao GCB licence. LTC Casino is the other — its provider filter carries Hacksaw and this title is confirmed present, Casino Guru’s game check found no fake games there, and it is one of the four casinos on this site we have tested ourselves: our 8 LTC withdrawal was paid five minutes after the request with no documents asked.

Just Casino and National Casino name Hacksaw Gaming on their provider lists without naming this title, and both take AUD accounts. Ripper Casino’s provider filter includes Hacksaw too, but it publishes no licence, so we have not listed it above. Royal Reels, WinSpirit and ThePokies.net also carry the studio and are all sites we warn against.

Free demo

The demo button above opens Hacksaw Gaming’s own build in demo mode, using the launcher parameters the “Try it” button on hacksawgaming.com uses. It runs the full game, bonus-buy menu included, with play-money credits at the default 96.38% build; the display currency is euros because that is what the studio’s launcher uses. If it stops loading, Hacksaw has shipped a new build and the link needs updating — the studio’s game page always carries the current one.

Verdict

Wanted Dead or a Wild earns its reputation on structure: three bonus rounds with genuinely different shapes is more than most pokies offer, and DuelReels give the base game something to do. What should give an Australian pause is the RTP spread. An eight-point gap between top and bottom build, on a 12,500x game with a 19.3% hit rate, is the difference between an ordinary pokie and one you should not be playing. Run the demo, then open the info screen at your casino before the first real spin.

FAQ

Is there a Wanted Dead or a Wild free play demo? Yes — Hacksaw’s own demo, linked above, at the default 96.38% build with play-money credits.

What is the RTP of Wanted Dead or a Wild? 96.38% by default, with 94.55%, 92.33% and 88.42% builds also shipped. The casino chooses one; check the game’s info screen.

Is Wanted Dead or a Wild available online in Australia? Only at offshore casinos carrying Hacksaw Gaming. Of the sites we recommend, RocketPlay and LTC Casino name the game itself; Just Casino and National Casino name the studio.