How to play
Pirate’s Cove is a three-row, five-reel slot with a deliberately short line count: ten paylines instead of the twenty found on most of our video machines. Each spin costs ten times the line bet, which you set with the row of buttons at 1, 2, 5, 10 or 20 credits. That puts a spin between 10 and 200 credits, and the opening balance of 1,000 covers a hundred spins at the bottom stake. Buttons for stakes you can’t currently afford are greyed out.
Press Spin. When the reels settle, the game checks all ten lines. Matching symbols have to begin on the leftmost reel and continue unbroken for at least three reels. The message under the reels names each winning line by number (“Line 4: 3 × Parrot”) along with what it paid.
The ship’s crew:
- Skull flag: the wild. It fills in for any symbol except the treasure map, and five flags on a line are a prize of their own.
- Treasure map: the scatter. Position doesn’t matter. Count how many reels show one; three or more pay a multiple of your total bet and award free spins.
- Pirate ship, parrot, compass and cannon are the picture symbols; A, K, Q, J and 10 are the low pays.
A line is paid once, for its most valuable reading. Flag, flag, flag, compass, compass could be three flags (45) or five compasses (200); you get the 200.
The ten lines
Line 1 runs across the middle row, line 2 along the top and line 3 along the bottom. Lines 4 and 5 are the V and its upside-down twin. Lines 6 and 7 are staircases: two reels on one outer row, the middle row on reel three, then two reels on the opposite outer row. Lines 8 to 10 are shallow dips and bumps: they start and end on one row and spend reels two to four on the neighbouring one.
With half the usual lines, more spins end with nothing at all. The return is not lower for it, though, because the machine’s payouts were set with ten lines in mind and the maps carry a bigger share of the load.
Pay table and treasure maps
Line pays, times the line bet:
| 3 | 4 | 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skull flag | 45 | 225 | 1,100 |
| Pirate ship | 25 | 100 | 550 |
| Parrot | 25 | 90 | 325 |
| Compass | 18 | 65 | 200 |
| Cannon | 14 | 40 | 125 |
| Ace | 9 | 25 | 80 |
| King | 5 | 25 | 70 |
| Queen | 5 | 18 | 55 |
| Jack | 4 | 14 | 40 |
| Ten | 4 | 11 | 35 |
The treasure map is where this machine stands apart. Three maps pay 3 times the total bet with 10 free spins. Four pay 15 times with 15 free spins. Five pay 60 times and hand out 25 free spins, tied for the longest bonus round in the five-reel family. No other slot here pays as much for three or four scatters.
At a line bet of 5 (50 per spin), three maps mean 150 credits up front and then ten spins on the house at that same stake. Maps that land during free spins add more spins to the count.
The odds
All five reels are 36 stops long with two flags and two maps each. A given reel shows a map in its window one time in six, so three or more maps arrive about once every 28 spins, and all five about once in 7,776.
Put together, the machine returns exactly 96.18% of wagers over the long run, figured from the reel strips with free spins counted. Roughly 37% of that comes from free spins, and the map payouts themselves add about 15% of your total bet on an ordinary spin. In other words, a good part of what you get back arrives in bursts rather than line by line.
Strategy
No choice you make affects where the reels stop, and a cold streak doesn’t make a win any more “due”. The house keeps about 3.8% of what you wager over time, whatever the stake.
- Ten lines means a cheaper minimum spin. If you want a long session from 1,000 credits, line bet 1 gives you a hundred spins.
- Free spins inherit the trigger stake. Since the bonus here is relatively frequent and can run 25 spins, the line bet you’re on when maps land matters more than usual.
- Expect more empty spins than on a twenty-line slot, offset by the bigger map prizes. Plan your bet around that rhythm.
For the same symbol counts spread over twenty lines with a fruit theme, try Fruit Slots. Scarab Tomb has the largest five-scatter prize.
If you enjoy Pirate’s Cove, try Poker Bonus Baccarat or Poker Dice next.
