Buffalo free games explained: coins, retriggers and sunset multipliers

Buffalo’s bonus is a free games round started by three, four or five coin scatters, which award 8, 15 or 20 free games played at the same bet as the spin that triggered them. During the round, any two coins add five more games, three or more coins trigger the feature again, and every sunset wild in a winning combination multiplies that win by 2 or 3. The online classic’s rules describe no other bonus round.

How do you trigger the Buffalo free games?

Coins are scatters, so they count anywhere on the reels and do not need to line up. The award depends on how many land on one spin:

The coins also pay a scatter win, multiplied by your total bet. Once the bonus is awarded, you press Play to start it, or it starts by itself after two minutes.

How do retriggers and the two-coin rule work?

The rules give two ways to add games once the round is running:

• Two coins: any two coins on a free game add five more free games. This rule applies only inside the free games.
• Three or more coins: the free games feature can be triggered again from inside itself, which BetMGM describes as retriggering the whole free spins sequence.

Every added game plays at the same total bet as the spin that started the bonus.

How do the sunset multipliers stack?

The sunset wild appears only on reels 2, 3 and 4. In the base game it substitutes for any symbol except the coin. During free games, each sunset that forms part of a win multiplies it by 2 or 3, and because each one multiplies, they combine:

The 27x ceiling is BetMGM’s figure: three sunsets at 3x each in the same win (3 x 3 x 3). The other values in the table follow from the same arithmetic. The rules do not say how the game decides between 2x and 3x on a given sunset, so treat any combination as luck, not something to aim for.

How is the Gold Collection bonus different?

Buffalo Gold Collection costs 60 credits a spin at a multiplier of 1, 20 of them for the Gold Bonus. Its free games use the same 8, 15 or 20 award, the same two-coin extension and the same 2x or 3x sunsets, and add a collection ladder.

At the start of the bonus the reels carry 15 gold buffalo. Each gold buffalo that lands is counted on a meter and then becomes an ordinary buffalo for the rest of the round. As the count rises, whole groups of animals turn into buffalo:

If the 15th gold buffalo lands on the last free game and no more games are awarded, the rules add one bonus free game so the full conversion gets a spin.

What are Buffalo Chief’s Grand, Major and Minor?

Buffalo Chief’s three top prizes are fixed amounts, not progressive jackpots that grow:

• Grand: 200,000 credits, when a Grand coin appears in a scatter win.
• Major: 37,500 credits, from a Major coin.
• Minor: 5,000 credits, from a Minor coin.

Each is multiplied by your bet multiplier. The jackpot coins land on reel 1 only, and only on paid spins, never in free games or the Stampede feature.

Chief’s free games also award 8, 15 or 20 games for three, four or five coins, and inside the round two to five coins add 5, 8, 15 or 20 more. Each special coin (Super, Grand, Major or Minor) in a scatter win spins the Ribbon Wheel once, which adds 10 to 50 Chief symbols to the free-game reels per spin, up to 250 Chief symbols and 10 wheel spins per feature. Separately, the Stampede feature can start at random on any paid spin and plays 16,000 ways.

For how fixed prizes differ from jackpots that grow with every bet, see progressive jackpots on US online slots.

How much the free games and everything else return over time depends on the casino’s RTP setting, covered in Buffalo RTP and volatility. For the base game and bet, read how Buffalo plays online, or return to the Buffalo overview.