Swag Bag Bonanza

Swag Bag Bonanza: Slot Overview

Time to get your rob on folks, virtually speaking, in the online slot Swag Bag Bonanza from Relax Gaming. This isn't the first time the studio has flexed its crime-ridden tendencies, having displayed them not too long before this game in Mega Heist. However, the two slots, while steeped in criminal activity, are very different on the gaming front. Where Mega Heist has a unique shuffle to the finish line type bonus round, Swag Bag Bonanza delivers a more typical money symbol collection feature, with a levelling up element in free spins where multipliers are thrown into the bag.

An exclusive release, Swag Bag Bonanza takes place in the capital of the UK, as evidenced by Union Flags swaying in the breeze, a double-decker bus, and the famous Big Ben clock tower in the distance. As one of the world's main centres of finance, and a possible UK gambler focus, it makes sense that a heist slot would be set in London. Apparently, according to the Guardian and Wikipedia, the biggest heist in London took place at Graff jewellery store in New Bond Street, where thieves made off with 43 jewelled items worth ￡40 million in 2009. The robbers were later caught, reinforcing the idea that crime doesn't pay. Will Swag Bag Bonanza? Let's see.

Wedged into the side of the bank in Swag Bag Bonanza is a 5-reel, 4-row game grid which evaluates wins across its 12 paylines. A highly volatile math model runs the show, producing one fixed RTP of 96.3% when regularly betting 20 c to $/€100 per paid spin. Swag Bag Bonanza creates winning combinations by landing matching symbols left to right, starting from the leftmost reel.

Ten regular symbols appear on the paytable. They are 10 to A card rank low pays, awarding 4 times the bet for a 5 symbol hit, while the high pays are gold bars, gems, bags of loot, a Faberge Egg, and a crown, awarding 8 to 32 times the bet for a 5 matching picture symbol result. Robber symbols and cop symbols are both wild, so they replace any regular pay symbols. A line of 5 cops or 5 robbers is worth 10 times the bet, too. However, wilds only appear in free spins where they have other abilities, making all those money symbols in the base game redundant.

Swag Bag Bonanza: Slot Features

In this swag bag of goodies, wannabe robbers are able to extract a Buster Respins feature, Swag Bag free spins, Super Swag free spins, and a bonus buy feature.

Busted Respin Feature

In the base game, landing 2 scatter symbols activates the Busted Respin feature. The reels holding scatters are locked in place, and a single respin occurs on the remaining unlocked reels. After the respin, any wins are evaluated, and if any additional scatters land, the free spins bonus game is awarded.

Swag Bag Free Spins

Scatters exist on all reels, and landing 3 scatters grant 10 free spins, while 4 scatters grant 15 free spins. This number of free spins also applies when higher stages are achieved. Free spins have a stage progression system with increasing multipliers the higher the stage. There are 5 stages with respective multipliers of x1, x2, x3, x10, and x50, which are applied to swag symbol collections. Swag values in free spins are 2x to 10,000x the bet.

Each stage has four segments. Each time a robber symbol lands, it not only collects any swag symbols in view, it fills a segment. Filling 4 segments progresses to the next stage, and additional free spins are awarded. The current batch of free spins and multiplier play out first before the next stage of free spins with the higher multiplier activates.

Each time a cop symbol lands, it removes all filled segments from the current collection progress – cops cannot move the stage to a lower stage, though. Super Swag free spins are achievable from Swag Bag free spins by reaching the last stage.

Super Swag Free Spins

Landing 5 scatter symbols in the base game also triggers Super Swag free spins. During this feature, the robber and the cop both collect swag symbol values. All swag values collected have the x50 multiplier applied. This round cannot be retriggered.

Buy Feature

From the buy feature, players can gain access to the free spins round for 49x the bet. When buying the free spins feature, the RTP is 96.6%, and either Swag Bag free spins or Super Swag free spins may be the result.

Swag Bag Bonanza: Slot Verdict

Swag Bag Bonanza was one of the more frustrating games reviewed for a while. First thing, let's acknowledge that luck is luck. Sometimes it's with you, sometimes it's not, and maybe we just got unlucky while reviewing Swag Bag Bonanza, fair enough. However, it proved to be exceptionally difficult to bring Swag Bag Bonanza's parts together to produce much of interest. A lot of repeat bonus rounds didn't really go anywhere, despite the reasonable buy cost, and the cast of characters and features seemed to delight in frustrating. So it felt.

You can see how positive stuff could be achieved here, but for whatever reason, Swag Bag Bonanza continually refused to do so. For example, robbers would hit, progress the meter, then cops would show up to blast the progress back, treading water, going nowhere. Or, progress would occur through stages, then swag symbols would land in abundance, but no robbers would hit to collect them and make use of the multiplier. And round and round it went like some slapstick cops 'n robbers film where the cops are just as inept as the bumbling robbers, turning the heist and crime-busting into a comedic shambles.

If Swag Bag Bonanza was running hot for someone, it would likely be a different story. Some of the upper swag symbol values are quite decent; well, hitting the top 10,000x one, the most desirable one of them all, would be extraordinary. For the record, Swag Bag Bonanza's win cap is 10,000x, so should anyone manage to collect the biggest swag symbol, then it's game over, in a good way, no multiplier required. Outside this, there could be entertainment value here for the right player, perhaps someone looking for a Big Bass Bonanza-like experience in a bank job setting, but Swag Bag Bonanza really did its best not to be likeable during the review.