Original Release: Light & Wonder, 2022
Fatten up the hogs for slaughter in the bonus round in this “vultureable” slot that has caused some contention on casino floors
Rich Little Piggies (Light & Wonder, 2022)
Review by: C. M0use
My interest in the Rich Little Piggies games was piqued by scuttlebutt around the interbutts that they’re an “advantage play” opportunity; but looking into it further, it’s the oldest and most crude of video slot AP methods – vulturing.
Rich Little Piggies literally banks spins in one of three piggy banks, which stay accumulated if a player gets up and walks away from the machine. So you’ll get people hovering around looking for machines that are “primed” in this way that someone might be about to step away from. There’s also a little subtlety in that each bet amount retains its own set of pig statuses, so you have to sit down and cycle through the possible bets to see where each one is at.
Of course all that only applies to brick-and-mortar casinos, but the game is also available online in New Jersey and such. The fundamental structure is the same no matter which version you play: your spins on a standard 3×5 set of reels will sometimes randomly produce yellow, red or blue coins, which go to the corresponding piggy bank and increase the bonus it’s holding, which is added in when the free spins bonus feature pops. The blue pig stashes away an added cache of free spins (on top of the standard seven), the yellow pig increases the jackpot amounts, and the red provides more wilds scattered throughout the reels (up to 100).
Everything is just centered on this one bonus feature that gives you free spins. The game’s big trick is that the size of the piggy bank doesn’t indicate the probability of the bonus feature hitting; that can actually happen any time you uncover a coin. Like, theoretically you could hit the free spins with the yellow piggy, then immediately hit them again on the next coin you uncover during regular play with the yellow piggy that you just depleted.
You also don’t necessarily cash in all the piggy banks each time you hit the bonus feature, one to three will be randomly selected. So hitting big money requires passing a number of different “checks” of rather low probability – first you have to trigger the bonus feature (the easiest part), THEN you have to hope all three pigs (or at least two really fattened-up ones) are included, THEN you have to hope the free spins produce enough to hit the two larger jackpots. The free spins are about the same as the regular game in terms of line wins, ie not very good, but instead of the red-yellow-blue coins they randomly produce coins unique to each of the listed jackpots. This ranges from needing two coins to win the Mini up to six to win the Grand, which is the only one that offers really massive money; however these bonus spins can at least catch you up pretty effectively as you can win each of the jackpots multiple times (though your progress on these is not “saved” between free spin sessions, the needed coins start at zero every time and go back to zero for each jackpot you win).
So people will obviously vulture the game when the piggies are fat, but even then you don’t know when the bonus feature will pop or if you’ll actually be in a substantially advantaged state when it does. The consensus seems to be the game is at positive expectation when the blue piggy bank has built up at least 20 free spins, but as it starts at 9 this takes some doing and is not a common state for the machine to be in. It also helps substantially if the red pig is bloated out to 100 wilds, but again you have to hope that the bonus feature includes both at the same time when it lands. So the whole thing technically has an AP state, but it’s very limited and obvious even to tipsy ploppies to the point I can’t see swooping around casinos looking for it being a very good use of time. And all of this is just academic if you’re playing online, you’ll get your own personal instance of the game that isn’t shared by others.
Just in terms of playing Rich Little Piggies straight up, it seems pretty volatile. Regular line wins are few and small, and you’re not just hanging in for the bonus game but also hoping that it delivers a very unlikely result. Only the largest jackpot is really worth a damn, but you’ll probably need 20+ free spins at minimum to have a shot at it. On your shorter free spin sequences you usually snag at least a couple of the smaller jackpots, but those make up maybe 10 to 100 of your many dead or fragmented spins getting there. I see it listed at a pretty respectable 95.70% RTP overall, but of course casinos have some leeway to tighten or loosen it at least a few percentage points.
The game seems to have two “core” variants that were first released, Hog Wild and Meal Ticket. Aside from a bit of graphical tweaking the only difference seems to be in how certain of the piggy bank bonuses are handled … they’ve also since done some theming variants that are basically the same game, like Rich Little Hens: Rule the Roost.
Links
More detailed info at Wizard of Odds
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