Empty the Bank Slot from Pragmatic Play

Empty The Bank Online Slot new from Pragmatic Play in July

One of the more inspirational digital slot machine labs of the last few years, Pragmatic Play is impressing the iGaming community once more. On July 1, developers were proud to release their latest creation, Empty The Bank Slot. Due to minimal features, it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. However, for those of you who enjoy high-volatility slots with high payout potential, and don’t mind paying a bit more for a higher feature hit rate, this new online slot is definitely one worth taking out for a spin.

Empty The Bank Online Slot Review

Like so many popular online slots before it, Empty the Bank revolves around a comical, caricature-style bank heist theme. It’s a traditional video slot with 5×3 reels and 20 paylines. It comes with a min/max bet range of $0.20/$100, and high variance, and an RTP of 95.48%.

The game’s symbols include things like jeweled crowns, bags of precious gems, gold bars, stacks of cash, and gold coins; all of which represent the game’s high-paying symbols, in that order. On the lower end are steel bolted A, K, Q and J. The robber is Wild, and cash vaults represent the Scatter.

Wilds play the typical role of substituting for other symbols to create or boost a winning combination. Landing three scatters – one each on reels 1, 3 and 5 – triggers Empty The Bank’s one and only Hold-and-Respin feature.

Respin Round Feature

When the feature triggers, the robber runs across the screen with his loot back, revealing a 7×6 wall of cash vaults. Only the bottom-middle, 5×4 section of vaults are open to start, representing the active reels. In this standard lock-and-spin feature, players start with 3 spins. If any symbol lands in any empty position on a spin, it locks in place and resets the spins back to 3. If all blanks land in empty spaces, the number of spins drops by 1. Land all empty spaces three times in a row, and the feature is over, with all current prizes awarded.

With just a little luck, this feature can be very lucrative – as it should be in a high volatility slot with no other features to speak of. Along with basic multipliers of 1x to 10x, special items can land in the reel positions. Here’s what they are, and what they do:

Money: A money bag is the most common symbol in the feature. Every money bag comes with a multiplier of 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, 7x, 8x or 10x. This number can increase when some of the additional items below appear.

Walkie-Talkie: Aside from a trio of Safe Doors, this is perhaps the best item to spin, especially early in the bonus round. The walkie-talkie has a “+x1”, meaning it adds +x1 to every money bag multiplier on the screen with each and every spin.

Burglar: The robber runs by and collects all the current money bag prizes on the screen, making room for new prizes to land in their place.

Computer: Worth x1 on its own, this item doubles the current value of all money multipliers on the screen.

Alarm: The alarm might sound bad, but it’s actually a good thing. The number of total spins increases from 3 to 4 for the remainder of the feature. It’s also worth x1 on its own.

Drill: The drill will open one closed position on the first reel, and is worth x1.

Hammer: The hammer will open one closed position on the last reel, and is worth x1.

Ladder: The ladder opens 5 new positions on the next highest row. Up to 2 ladders can appear, opening the two highest row sections. Each ladder is also worth x1.

Safe Door: Alone, the safe door is just worth x1. Land two of them, and they’re x1 each. Land three, and they’re worth their weight in gold, unleashing the game’s highest prize of x10,000.

Ante Bet & Buy a Respin Feature

This is where Pragmatic Play’s new Empty The Bank Slot gets really interesting. As we’ve previously mentioned, it’s a high volatility slot with just one feature. That means you could easily spend a great deal of time spinning the reels without ever seeing the bonus round. For the impatient and easily subject to boredom, there are short-cuts.

Ante Bet: The Ante Bet is an extra wager of 25% of your chosen stake; (i.e. bet $0.20, Ante is $0.05; bet $1.00, ante is $0.25, etc.). Making that extra ante bet will increase the odds of scatter symbols appearing, thus increasing the chance of triggering the feature. The game’s paytable does not indicate how much higher the chance of triggering the feature is. See “Our Experience” below for more info.

Buy Respin Round: If you’re truly impatient, you can also spend a big chunk of change to purchase the feature at any time. It will cost you 80x the current bet size to do so. That should give you an idea of the average payout when the feature does strike; somewhere below 80x the bet.

Our Experience With and Without Ante Bet

We tested out Empty the Bank Slot to see if, on average, it was worth paying the extra Ante Bet. We did this in demo mode, of course, but the results should be comparable with or without real money wagers. Here’s what happened…

500 Spins @ $2.00 Standard Bet: In 500 spins, without employing an ante bet, the Respin feature only struck one time. It happened on spin #341, and resulted in a payout of 333x the bet. In total, 1 strike worth 333x bet.

500 Spins @ $2.50 w/ Ante Bet: Paying the 25% extra ante bet did make a difference. Out of 500 spins, the feature was hit four times. The first was at spin #136, paying out 76x. Just four plays later on spin #140, it hit again, paying 40x the bet. Then again on spin #188, we won 67x the bet. Finally, on spin #466, the feature paid out 214x the bet. Total 4 strikes worth combined 397x bet (average 99.25x per strike).

Is it worth paying the ante bet? For entertainment’s sake alone, I’d say yes, it’s absolutely worth paying that extra bit of money. As far as profitability, in our experience, it wasn’t worth it because that single feature without ante bet paid more than the four combined feature payouts, when you subtract the extra 25% it cost to pay the ante. The feature with ante would have had to pay a combined total of 417x to be worth more.

Then again, that single feature strike w/o ante that paid 333x the bet is surely well above average, and not a typical payout for the feature. Having about two decades of experience with online and mobile slots, I think it’s safe to say we got lucky with that one.

It’s also worth noting that, out of 1,000 total spins, we only hit one “Big Win” in the base game. It happened without betting the ante, and was wroth 42.5x the bet.

More New from Pragmatic Play in July 2021

Empty the Bank Online Slot hit online and mobile casino shelves on July 1, 2021. Pragmatic play has two more new online slots schedule for release this month. Both feature a Nordic Vikings theme. The first is Lucky, Grace and Charm, featuring all female lead characters, due out July 15. The second is Book of Vikings, set to release on July 22.