Iron Bank review
Iron Bank is a Relax Gaming slot released on 5 November 2020, custom-built for the streamer community CasinoGrounds and billed by Relax as the industry’s first community-led slot. Set in Cuba, it teams you up with a criminal mastermind called the Jaguar to rob the Iron Bank. A 6×4 grid gives 4,096 ways, and its standout feature is choosing one of three heist strategies for free spins. At launch, Relax’s product chief Simon Hammon called it one of the most feature-rich slots on the market.
CasinoGrounds’ chief executive Tobias Svensen described designing the group’s own game as a dream come true, and the result reads like a wish list from people who watch slots for a living. You get a choice of bonus, a buy button that opens that choice instantly, and a ceiling near 50,000x.
Ways, Wilds and random features
Matching pictures pay once they cover at least three neighbouring columns, beginning with column one; which row they sit in is irrelevant. Two copies of a symbol on one reel double the ways, three copies triple them, and only the longest run of each symbol is paid. A five-reel chain therefore pays once as a five, never also as a three and a four.
The low tier is the royals from 10 to Ace; above them sit five themed premium pictures. In-game pays, converted into stake multiples:
| Symbol | 3 reels | 4 reels | 5 reels | 6 reels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top premium | 1x | 3x | 10x | 50x |
| 2nd premium | 0.5x | 1x | 3x | 10x |
| 3rd premium | 0.4x | 1x | 2.5x | 4x |
| 4th premium | 0.3x | 0.8x | 2x | 3x |
| 5th premium | 0.3x | 0.7x | 1.5x | 2x |
| Ace | 0.1x | 0.2x | 0.3x | 0.8x |
| 10 | 0.1x | 0.2x | 0.3x | 0.4x |
King, Queen and Jack pay x0.7, x0.6 and x0.5 respectively for six reels. Jaguar Wilds substitute for regular symbols but not bonus symbols, appearing on reels 2–6. As a regular spin begins, random events can add 1–3 bonus symbols, mystery cells revealing one common type or a full Wild reel with x2–x10 on position 2–5. Base-game mystery symbols transform once without sticking.
When several multiplier Wilds join one win, their coefficients multiply. For example, x4 and x5 apply x20 to the underlying pay rather than x9. A full Wild reel participates in qualifying ways through its column; calculations must distinguish its multiplier from regular-symbol counts on neighbouring reels.
Choosing a heist strategy
Three bonus symbols anywhere take you to the strategy screen. A fourth, fifth or sixth adds an instant 20x, 200x or 2,000x the stake before the round even starts.
Sticky Mystery Symbols starts with eight spins. A randomly designated regular symbol on reels 2–6 sticks as a mystery tile; after each spin all tiles reveal one common type. The original symbol’s pay is settled before conversion, then the grid is evaluated again. Each reel completely filled with mystery tiles awards one extra spin, up to five across the eligible reels.
Only reels 3 and 4 matter here. A Wild landing on either expands to cover its reel and awards a respin. Every win that includes an expanded Wild raises its multiplier by one. Respins keep coming as long as a win is made or a second Wild lands on the other marked reel.
Expanding Re-Spin Wilds starts with ten spins. Both coefficients apply when both expanded columns participate. Current values of x3 and x4 produce x12; progression depends on which Wilds joined each win. Both cannot automatically be incremented for a pay involving only one.
Reels 2 to 5 become special. Coconut crates landing on them add one to three coconuts to a counter above their reel. Every two coconuts raise that reel’s Wild multiplier by one and light one notch on a red meter. Fill all three notches and you get three extra spins, and the meter resets.
Progressive Multiplier Wilds starts with twelve spins. Multipliers persist through the round and multiply when sharing a combination. Crate and reveal frequencies are unspecified; initial spin count alone does not establish a mode’s average pay.
Buying, RTP builds and the limit
The buy button works only in the base game. For 100x the bet it opens the strategy screen straight away, and the choice stays yours. The game’s configuration file lists a 97% return for the buy, against 96.2% for ordinary spins.
Other regular RTP settings are 94% and a German 90% build. The selected figure appears in the client’s rules. Volatility is high; free-spin frequency and separate risk figures for the three strategies are undisclosed. A buy opens the bonus without guaranteeing repayment of its price.
The maximum is listed as 49,999x, while Relax’s description gives 49,998.9x; that rounding difference is preserved. The configuration lists odds of reaching the limit around 1:1.12 billion spins. This cannot establish a typical bonus result, the sole route to the maximum or immediate round-termination order.
The sequel and other heists
The sequel was the fifth collaboration between Relax and CasinoGrounds. It kept a top prize of about 50,000x but lets you pick a favourite base-game feature to stay active all the time. Its three bonuses, Mystery Reveal, Multiplier Collect and Expanding Wilds, each come in Standard, Super and Ultra versions, a Bonus Reels bet option was added, and the maximum bet rose to 100.
Wanted Dead or a Wild also offers three bonuses. Money Train 3 uses characters in a separate bonus with a 100,000x maximum; Beast Mode offers a free-spin choice with a 25,000x limit. In the original Iron Bank, Relax Gaming separates sticky mystery tiles, respins and stored multipliers into three distinct strategies.
