Wanted Dead or a Wild is Hacksaw Gaming’s high-volatility western slot featuring VS DuelReels, three buyable bonus rounds and a 12,500× max win; our guide breaks down features, RTP bands, bankroll tips and where Canadians can legally play it.
Rise of Hacksaw’s flagship Western slot
When Wanted dead or a wild hit lobbies in September 2021, it felt different from the very first spin. Blazing sunsets, cracked sheriff badges, and a Morricone-style whistle created an unmistakable atmosphere. The release marked a turning point for Hacksaw Gaming, a studio that until then had been known mainly for scratch cards and Chaos Crew.
Behind the cinematic surface sits a 5 × 5 grid with fifteen fixed paylines, a combination rarely seen outside the Hacksaw stable. The grid feels bigger than it is because symbols are oversized and isolated on dusty parchment, letting the reels breathe. Default RTP clocks in at 96.38%, although Ontario licenses sometimes run the 94.55% build to align with provincial averages. The studio published three smaller RTP bands as well, but those are chiefly used by grey-market sites outside Canada.
Maximum exposure of 12,500× stake put Wanted straight onto every Ontario streamer’s hit list. Even a modest fifty-cent bet can in theory reach a life-changing CA$6,250 payout, and large-stake grinders often run CA$100 bullets, hoping to turn them into seven-figure bounties. That high-risk, high-reward profile explains why the game still sits in the “Hot” carousel at BetRivers, DraftKings, and Mr. Bet almost three years after release. Very few titles manage to hold similar lobby real estate for more than a couple of months.
DuelReels and multipliers
Wanted’s core mechanic, DuelReels™, is simple on paper yet explosive in practice. Every time a VS symbol lands, it expands to cover the entire reel, flips into a stacked Wild, and triggers a quickdraw animation between two silhouetted outlaws. Each outlaw carries a multiplier between 2× and 100×. The winning value applies to that Wild reel, and if several VS reels appear on the same spin, their multipliers add together before boosting every crossing payline.
Because the game only has fifteen lines, most hits rely on lining up premium-rank outlaw symbols. DuelReels makes that task easier by guaranteeing full-reel Wilds while still letting premium rows show up on the other four reels. One VS multiplier is fun, two is gravy, and three or more turns the grid into a slow-motion standoff that can blow the roof off a balance. Streamer clips routinely show 25× × 50× combos turning tiny base hits into thousand-dollar paydays.
The feature is not restricted to bonus rounds. VS symbols can appear in any base-game spin, which injects a sense of anticipation even during long droughts. No wonder Canadian casino Reddit threads call Wanted “the fastest way to forget your coffee went cold.”
Before we dive deeper, take a look at how often each multiplier bracket shows up in real-money sessions. The numbers come from 1.6 million spins tracked by SlotTracker and reflect live Canadian traffic as of April 2025.
| Multiplier bucket | Share of VS reels |
|---|---|
| 2× – 5× | 61 % |
| 6× – 15× | 30 % |
| 16× – 50× | 8 % |
| 51× – 100× | 1 % |
As you can see, high-double-digit multipliers are unicorns, yet they remain crucial for landing the elite tiers of the paytable. That rarity maintains tension and keeps long-term volatility sky-high.
Importantly, multipliers stay qualitative, they never dilute the base RTP. Whether you hit a flurry of 2× gunslingers or a single 100× legend, the math model adjusts the rest of the spin set to keep the overall return on track.
Best bonus games
Wanted gives players three distinct bonus paths, each with its own risk profile, average bonus length, and theoretical hit rate. All three features trigger naturally from scatters, yet many gamblers prefer using the integrated Bonus Buy panel to cut the wait.
Train robbery costs 80× bet and awards ten free spins. Sticky Wilds lock whenever they land, so the earlier they appear, the better the outcome. With medium volatility, it acts as the “budget” option where 30×–150× wins are common. On a hot screen, however, every reel can end up smothered in Wilds and produce over 500×.
Duel at dawn raises the stakes by asking for a 200× bet for its ten free spins. In this mode, VS symbols land roughly three times more often than in the base game, and the multiplier range widens. It is the feature that most frequently generates 500×–2,000× session wins, but it is also notorious for returning less than 10× when reels go stone-cold.
Dead man’s hand sits at the top of the price ladder with a 400× buy-in and “extreme” volatility rating. The round unfolds in two phases. During the Collection phase, only Wilds, multipliers, or blanks can hit. Each Wild is banked for later, and multipliers add to a global “gun belt.” Three consecutive blanks end the build-up and launch three Final Spins where nothing but Wild symbols drop. Whatever number of Wilds and belt multiplier you gathered applies to every one of those spins. This is where all verified 12,500× screenshots come from, but it is also where plenty of grinders torch a large chunk of bankroll without seeing a single premium payout.
Ontario streamers often argue in chat about which feature is “best,” yet data tells a clear story. Train robbery returns the highest median payout, Duel at dawn delivers the best risk-to-reward mix, and Dead man’s hand owns the top percentile. Players should pick based on their own comfort with drawdown, not on social media hype.
Critics and streamers’ opinions
Professional reviewers largely agree that Wanted deserves its cult status. CanadaCasino.ca highlighted the “brutally honest” volatility and gave the slot a 96/100 score, praising the audio design for making every VS duel feel important. OLBG’s slot panel handed out perfect marks for presentation but warned casual players that the math can be “relentless.”
Content creators magnified the hype. Roshtein’s CA$1.52 million max-win clip racked up more than three million Canadian views across Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok. On Kick, Montréal-based streamer KapowSlots logged seventeen sessions in January 2025 and chose Wanted as his opening game twelve times. That kind of repetition normally kills viewership, yet his numbers grew because audiences never seem to tire of watching those dusty reels.
Community data backs up the anecdotal buzz. SlotTracker shows an aggregate RTP of 157 % across 1.6 million recorded spins, obviously skewed by a handful of colossal hits. Still, such an inflated short-term figure suggests the title dishes out outsized wins more often than peers with similar top caps. Meanwhile, the hit frequency sits near 19%, meaning roughly one in five spins produces a payout of any size. In practice, sessions often feel like feast or famine—exactly what high-volatility fans crave.
Essential slot terms
To navigate Wanted intelligently, you need to understand a handful of concepts. First is RTP, or Return to Player. Hacksaw publishes multiple versions: 96.38%, 94.55%, 92.33%, and 88.42%. Operators pick one when they integrate the game. Inside Ontario, iGaming rules force sites to disclose the exact percentage in the paytable, so always check that little “i” icon before placing a bet.
Volatility describes how spread out the wins are. Hacksaw rates Wanted 4/5 stars, community statisticians put it even higher. In plain language, the slot will happily gobble one hundred dead spins and then spew out 1,000× in under ten seconds. If your nerves fray easily, look elsewhere.
DuelReels is a trademarked mechanic but behaves like the expanding Wild reels you may know from earlier Western titles. Sticky Wilds, Collection phases, and multipliers are other recurring terms. Once you grasp how these work in Wanted, you will feel at home in newer Hacksaw releases such as RIP City and Itero.
Knowledge is power because it turns random animations into predictable triggers. That familiarity lets you set realistic expectations and avoid emotional, bankroll-draining tilts.
Bankroll and bonus buy strategies
Let us turn theory into action. Most Canadians deposit with Interac or Instadebit, so bankrolls tend to use round figures like CA$100, CA$250, or CA$500. Whatever your starting roll, establish two stats before spinning: session stop-loss and feature budget.
Regular spin fans usually stake between 0.1% and 0.5% of bankroll per click. On CA$500, that equals CA$0.50–CA$2.50 spins, creating a buffer of 200-1,000 spins. The range is wide because player tolerance differs. If you are buying bonuses, treat each purchase as a cluster of spins. An 80× Train Robbery on a CA$1 stake equals eighty base spins. Make sure your balance can withstand at least five buys of whichever feature you target.
Below is a practical grid that many streamers reference on air. Notice how the feature allocation never exceeds 40% of total bankroll, leaving enough back-up funds for recovery base play.
| Bankroll (CAD) | Base-game stake | Max feature buy size | Number of buys |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA$200 | CA$0.40 | 80× at CA$0.40 (CA$32) | 2 Train Robbery |
| CA$500 | CA$1.00 | 200× at CA$1.00 (CA$200) | 2 Duel at Dawn |
| CA$1,000 | CA$1.25 | 400× at CA$1.25 (CA$500) | 2 Dead man’s hand |
Remember, lists are guidance, not gospel. Some grinders alternate one bonus buy every fifty base spins. Others chase nothing but organic scatters. The winning formula is the one that lets you play relaxed while respecting your stop-loss.
Specs comparison
Hacksaw loves reusing its 5 × 5 chassis, but each reskin comes with bespoke math twists. Comparing specs helps you choose which title matches your bankroll psychology.
| Slot | RTP (top band) | Volatility | Max win | Bonus focus | Fun fact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wanted dead or a wild | 96.38 % | High | 12,500× | VS DuelReels | First Hacksaw to top 100,000 concurrent Twitch viewers |
| Chaos Crew | 96.30 % | Very High | 10,000× | Expanding cat multipliers | Highest single spin ever recorded at Mr.Bet (CA$2.4 million) |
| RIP City | 96.22 % | Medium-High | 12,500× | Wild Cat reels | Debuted with NeedForSpin promo where all RTP bands were 96 % |
Wanted sits in the middle on raw volatility but feels sharper because its premiums pay lower than Chaos Crew’s, forcing you to rely on VS reels for meaty hits. RIP City calms things down slightly thanks to more frequent base multipliers, making it a friendlier stepping stone for newcomers.
Licensing and availability
Hacksaw Gaming secured its AGCO supplier licence in May 2022, then expanded distribution via deals with BetRivers, BetMGM, DraftKings, and Caesars. These partnerships guarantee legal access for Ontarians. When you open any of those lobbies, you will see an AGCO seal in the footer, confirming regulatory oversight.
Players in the rest of Canada can load the game at Mr. Bet, NeedForSpin, Wildz, and other Kahnawà:ke or Caribbean-licensed sites. Even though those platforms operate under different frameworks, the game file and math model are identical to the Ontario build—the only divergence is which RTP band the operator picks.
100% + 200 spins
5% - 15% Cashback
100% + 100 spins
Up to 225% + 180 FS on first 3 deposits
110% + 120 spins
Up to C$2,900 + 290 FS on first 4 deposits
150% + 70 spins
400% Bonus on first 4 deposits + 5% cashback
100% + 150 spins
Up to 255% + 250 FS on first 3 deposits
Geolocation fencing means your IP decides whether you land on an Ontario or international domain. Travellers crossing provincial lines should therefore check the RTP read-out every time they log in.
Influence of RTP levels on payouts
RTP bands matter because they change long-term performance, especially for grinders who pound thousands of spins per week. Dropping from 96.38% to 94.55% looks tiny yet equates to twenty-odd base spins lost per thousand. Over a year of regular sessions, that difference compounds.
Ontario operators defend the lower band by citing market averages and higher operating costs. Offshore sites do not share those constraints, so many stick with the full-fat code to entice volume play. The choice lands on you. If your favourite regulated brand runs the 94% version and you value provincial protection, that may outweigh a slightly worse return. Bankroll planners should nevertheless account for the haircut when calculating loss limits.
Big-win video insights
Marketing lines promising five-figure multipliers only matter if real players hit them. Wanted passes that test. Several verified clips show the game printing its entire 12,500× ceiling.
- August 2023 – Stake user “ghostofmtl” lands CA$1.26 million from a CA$100 stake in Dead man’s hand. The run collected twenty Wilds and a 21× belt.
- June 2024 – YouTube channel SpinningWheels posts a CA$3,125 win off a CA$0.25 bet, proof that small-stakes spins can also toast the max cap.
- March 2025 – Kick streamer LanceKick nails back-to-back 12,500× hits on CA$1 stakes within 48 hours, both during Duel at dawn.
What do these monsters have in common? All lined five premium outlaw symbols on at least one payline and benefited from stacked Wild reels holding 25×+ multipliers. Those two ingredients—line-up plus multiplier—form the secret sauce for breaching the 5,000× mark. If you ever glimpse three VS reels expanding side by side, buckle up.
Bonus buy risks
Every Bonus Buy looks tempting after a string of dead base spins. That impulse spawns the three mistakes most frequently reported on Canadian forums.
Mistake one is buying Dead man’s hand with a balance smaller than 300× stake. Extreme volatility rounds easily whiff. Busting bankroll on the first blank collection phase stings harder than waiting for an organic trigger.
Mistake two is chasing losses by upping the stake each time Train robbery returns under 20×. Sticky Wild features can remain ice-cold for several attempts, so progressive staking often magnifies the pain.
Mistake three involves ignoring the RTP line after a lobby switch. Some international brands silently default Bonus Buys to the 88% code even when their base game runs 96%. Always re-read the info panel before clicking the Buy button, five seconds of diligence can save hundreds of dollars.
Seasoned grinders avoid these pitfalls by pre-selecting a number of buys before the session starts, logging each result, and walking away when the quota is met regardless of outcome.
Final recommendations for safe play
Wanted dead or a wild remains the archetype of modern high-volatility slots. Its visuals ooze Western grit, its mechanics build continual suspense, and its 12,500× ceiling is proven rather than theoretical. Canadian players enjoy broad access through both AGCO-regulated and offshore lobbies, giving ample choice over RTP bands and welcome perks.
If you crave white-knuckle roller coasters, load the 96% version, strap in with a bankroll of at least 200 base bets, and let the dust clouds settle where they may. Those who prefer steadier rides might start with RIP City and circle back once they feel ready for deeper drawdowns.
Either way, set stop-loss limits, celebrate wins by cashing out early, and remember the unwritten code of every frontier: no spin owes you anything. Respect the math, and you will keep your bankroll—and your nerves—intact while hunting that legendary duel.
