Wanted Dead or a Wild at Casoola Casino

Key facts

RTP and volatility shown are the studio's usual published default settings.

The bonus feature in brief

The game moves between Day, Night and Dead modes, and wilds and multipliers behave differently in each.

Top win published by the studio

According to the studio, the biggest win this game can pay is 12,500× your stake. That number is the mathematical limit of the game's design: the highest multiplier it can theoretically produce in an extremely rare, high-variance result. It is not what a normal session looks like. Almost no session gets anywhere near it, and no guide, this one included, can forecast or affect what happens on a certified random-number-generator game.

Background and theme

Wanted Dead or a Wild is part of the wave of Wild West slots that took off across online casinos in the early 2020s. Hacksaw Gaming built its version around an unusually detailed multi-mode structure instead of the single, unchanging bonus round most games in the genre use. The outlaw and frontier look frames what is, mechanically, one of the most ambitious designs among the twelve games in this guide — one that rewards players who take the time to learn its layered systems rather than just spinning and hoping.

How the mechanics work

Play moves between three separate modes. Day mode has ordinary wild multipliers and a fairly calm pace. Night mode adds sticky-wild respins, where wilds stay in place over consecutive spins and build up value. Dead mode mixes elements of both and adds a multiplier that keeps rising while it lasts. Switching between modes is driven by specific in-game triggers, and knowing which mode is active is key to understanding what a wild means on any spin, because the same wild symbol can act quite differently depending on the mode in force.

What the RTP and volatility mean for this game

The certified 96.42% RTP covers all three modes together, weighted by how often each one comes up in normal play. Dead mode accounts for an outsized share of the biggest wins even though it appears less often than Day mode. This multi-mode RTP set-up is more complicated than that of a typical single-feature slot, and it is one reason Hacksaw Gaming's games are known for rewarding players who read the paytable and mode-switch rules carefully rather than playing on gut feeling.

How it compares with other games in this guide

Next to Le Bandit, another Hacksaw Gaming game covered in this guide, Wanted Dead or a Wild's three modes give a more gradual build-up of risk and reward over a session, while Le Bandit focuses its build-up on a single bonus trigger. Both share the studio's very-high-volatility approach and Wild West look, but if you like a game that changes character as a session goes on, you will probably find Wanted Dead or a Wild's mode system more engaging than Le Bandit's more conventional single bonus.

Bankroll and approach

With very high volatility and three layered modes, newcomers to this game gain a lot from reading the in-game paytable and mode explanations before staking serious amounts, because the active mode changes what a spin can produce. A firm loss limit set before you start is sensible for any very-high-volatility slot, but it matters even more here, since Dead mode can cause big swings over just a few spins compared with the steadier Day mode.

Playing on your phone

The mode-change animations and sticky-wild markers are designed to stay readable on small touchscreens, and the active mode is clearly labelled at the top of the screen, so you always know which rules apply to your next spin without having to remember them.

The studio behind the game

Since it was founded, Hacksaw Gaming has made its name with high-variance, mechanically ambitious slots, standing alongside studios such as Nolimit City as a specialist in games for experienced players chasing maximum volatility rather than a broad mainstream audience. The three-mode design of Wanted Dead or a Wild reflects that style, putting complexity into the base game itself instead of saving all the depth for one bonus round, as many more conventional slots do.

Fairness testing and RNG certification

As a condition of its own regulatory licensing, Hacksaw Gaming keeps independent RNG and paytable certification from accredited test labs, which confirm that the chances of switching modes and each mode's share of the RTP match the studio's published maths model. That certification is separate from, and unaffected by, the disputes over Casoola's own operator and licensing jurisdiction set out in the full review — a game's fairness testing goes with the game, whichever casino offers it. And because the three-mode structure is unique to this title in Hacksaw Gaming's catalogue, knowing the studio's other games does not automatically mean you understand this one's rules; even experienced Hacksaw players should look at this paytable before betting. One more consideration: this game is officially described as very high volatility even within a catalogue that already leans towards high-variance titles, so players used to medium-volatility slots should expect noticeably longer gaps between meaningful wins than they are used to. That is normal for this design and not a sign of a problem. Looking beyond the mechanics, the game also reflects a wider industry trend in which studios compete more and more on mechanical complexity and thematic depth rather than reworking proven formulas — a trend that has generally given players more varied and engaging games, even if it makes titles like this one harder to learn than simple classics.

Worth knowing before you spin

Because Dead mode can feel very different from Day mode, it is a sensible habit with this particular game to check which mode is active before raising your stake, rather than assuming your bet should stay the same throughout regardless of mode.

Where a demo or free-play version is available, it is a genuinely useful way to see how the three modes switch in practice before risking real money, given how much more involved this game is than a single-feature slot.

Where it fits in Casoola's game library

Of the twelve games profiled in this guide, Wanted Dead or a Wild is among the most mechanically involved, asking for more upfront study of its rules than a simple game such as Starburst or Book of Dead. It suits players who enjoy learning a game's systems in depth as part of the fun, more than those who just want to start spinning straight away. And because it shares its very high volatility rating with several other games in this catalogue, matching session length and stake to a budget set in advance matters more here than with the gentler, lower-volatility games.

Spending a few minutes on the paytable's mode-by-mode payout tables before a long session, rather than relying on visual cues while you play, is well worth it, given how much the maths shifts between the three modes.

More games

Common questions