The Dog House Dog or Alive is in all probability Pragmatic Play’s best slot release for the year so far. It’s the long-awaited sequel to The Dog House. What better way to kick off the New Year than with a bunch of pooches cowboy style, Yee-haw!
Playing out on a grid of 5 reels, 3 rows, and 20 paylines, the slot’s default RTP is 96.08%. Knowing Pragmatic Play it dishes out RTP ranges as low as 95.08% and 94.08%.
The hit frequency is 25% dropping a winner on every 4th spin. That’s not bad, plus the jackpot of 10,000x coats it with a high variance flavor.
The special features include a Free Spins feature that triggers every 1 in 217 spins. Moreover, there are Wild Multipliers with random values of 2x, and 3x, and a Buy Option.
Graphics, Sound, and Symbols The Dog House Dog or Alive
The visual side and the audio track are similar to Pragmatic Play’s original The Dog House. What makes the sequel different is that PP bolts on a few extras. A dustbowl of a town serves as the backdrop for the reels. Flanking the reels is the dog sheriff with a cigar and a grin on his face.
The betting range is as wide as the Grand Canyon starting at 20 cents up to $240 per spin. Moreover, the symbols start with the low-value card suits from 10 to Ace paying up to 2.5x for 5 matches.
The top symbols are the 4 dogs, collar, bone, and safe full of gold coins. The premium symbol pays 37.5x your stake when 5 of them grace the reels.
Gameplay and Features
Wild Multipliersc
The Wild symbol enjoys center stage and only lands on reels 2, 3, and 4. When it pitches it awards random multiplier wins of 2x or 3x. When more than one Wild pops up, their respective values combine.
Free spins
The vault brimming with gold coins serves as the casino game’s Scatter. The Free Spins feature triggers when 3 of them appear awarding a cash prize of 5x your stake.
The interesting thing is a free spins randomizer decides the number of free spins you’ll play with. The Wilds also play a prominent role by sticking to the reels until the end of the bonus game.
Each sticky wild has its multiplier value. Depending on the number of wilds, they award an extra 3 or more free spins. Plus, their respective values will double improving your chances to land a big win.
Buy Option Free Spins
You can trigger the free spins feature outright by paying 120x your stake with an RTP of 96.54%.
Paylines
Paytable
What We Like About The Dog House Dog or Alive
Those Sticky Wilds with their combining win multipliers jolts the free spins feature. As such it’s easy to land wins of 250x the stake or more.
That’s better than the average win of most free spins features. Hope we’re not getting ahead of ourselves here but that’s the way we see it.
Tips & Strategy
Playing slots for real money can be risky and calls for “mitigating” circumstances. You have a few options at your disposal to increase your odds of winning the $2.4 million jackpot.
First, play the slots for free at the online casino that hosts it. Once you tested it for at least 250 spins including the buy option, play it for real. Play it for the minimum stake of 20 cents for at least 100 spins.
If you’re happy with the results you can increase your stake by 10x. Taking the volatility into consideration and the hit frequency, you could more than double your bankroll.
How to Win Money The Dog House Dog or Alive
In line with the above, we played for $2 stakes which yielded an amazing win. Setting up the auto-play feature to 50 spins we triggered the free spins feature on our 12th spin.
A new screen opened up which awarded us 12 free spins via the free spins randomizer. We managed another 3 free spins during the free spins bonus.
Three sticky wilds pitched with values of up to 14x. Upon conclusion of the free spins, we won $100.50 or 50x our stake. We ended up with a profit of $74.80 after 30 spins.
Verdict: The Dog House Dog or Alive
The Dog House Dog or Alive is one of Pragmatic Play’s finest slots but we do have a few caveats. We hear a few sighs and “How could you guys possibly say that”! Hear us out.
Since play pivots around the sticky wild, it’s the symbol you need the most. Whether it’s in the base game or the free spins feature, without it you’re dog meat!
The payout we got from $2 bets was good and we made a tidy profit of $74.80. Not touting our horns but we played smart. Note that was with real cash with a budget of $100.
We also tested the slot for free at the maximum wager of $240 that’s when things went South, fast. The hit frequency of 25% dropped to 10% both in the base game and free spins. Yes, we tested the buy option with dire results.
We paid $24K for 12 free spins for a win of $7,300 but suffered a loss of $17,700. Had that been real cash we’d be crying in our beers by now. If you want to reserve a seat on the entertainment express, keep it real.
Catch 4 or more sticky wilds along with 5+ matching symbols in the free spins the world is your oyster. Otherwise, discretion here is the better part of valour, cute dogs or not.
Equally brutal is Nolimit City’s Fire In The Hole 2. It offers a jackpot of $6.5 million with more bonus games than some dogs have fleas.
