A sticky Wild stays where it fell for several spins in a row. It serves every following combination while the effect lasts, so the value of a round depends on when the Wilds landed: the earlier, the more spins they work across.
The reference point is NetEnt’s Dead or Alive, released on 10 November 2009. Only 9 lines run across a 5×3 grid, with no cascades, multipliers or feature buy. Everything rests on free spins with sticky Wilds, where each line through a locked Wild pays double. Its card reads 96.82% RTP, a 12,000x cap and very high volatility. Successors are plentiful, and the original can be set against its sequel in the Dead or Alive comparison.
Different ways to pin a Wild
In Quickspin’s Sticky Bandits (15 August 2017), seven free spins start from a Bonus on the first reel or a Wild on reel two or four, and every position that was Wild at the trigger stays Wild until the round ends. It returns 96.58% in theory. Sticky Bandits 3 Most Wanted (22 March 2021) changes nearly everything: three rows, five reels, nine lines, twelve spins at a 2x multiplier, 95.82% RTP and a 22,468x cap.
Big Time Gaming’s Danger High Voltage (1 May 2017) picks a random paytable symbol before its Gates of Hell bonus, and that symbol sticks as a Wild on reels two to five. Fill a reel with them completely and three more spins are added. In Yggdrasil’s Vikings Go To Hell (24 May 2018) the symbols stick after a clash, with a cap of 5,500x.
ELK Studios’ Kaiju (22 February 2018) hands out sticky Wilds as a prize for beating a monster: the last laser turns its whole vertical set into fixed Wilds. It reaches 1,305x at the very best. Play’n GO’s Return of The Green Knight (5 October 2023) uses Shield Spins to lock the multiplier for five spins, with a 40,000x cap. Volatility is rated very high.
In practice, the harder the condition for sticking, the rarer you will see it and the more a single bonus has to carry. A calmer session calls for stickiness in base spins, not only in free spins. How free spins themselves work is explained in the guide to retriggers and multipliers.