Cool Buck Pokies
A classic 3-reel and 5-payline layout, with equally classic symbols of bars, cherries and 7’s will make Cool Bucks a top choice for fans of older style Poker machines. It may look simple, and indeed it is, but these sorts of games have an appeal that’s lasted for decades and will attract players looking for no-frills opportunities to land some big wins, including a 6000-coin jackpot prize.
It’s part of the Microgaming range, and this developer has a great track record of releasing online pokies of all shapes and sizes, but 3 reel ones like this have been the bedrock of their collection and Cool Bucks is the bedrock of their bedrock.
A cute cartoon Dollar character is there to host the game, although being a basic pokie, he doesn’t do much other than stand there grinning at players as they spin the reels. It’s laid out much as expected for this type of game, with the reels above the picture of Buck and a paytable taking up the rest of the screen. All the information that’s needed is there, so all players need to do is decide how much to stake and then they are good to go.
Adjusting the bet size is just as straightforward as the rest of the game, with + and – buttons taking coin values from 0.25 to 5.00 and a Bet One button giving the players the option to decide how many of the 5 lines they want to activate.
There’s a graphic of the game in one corner, and each activated line will be lit up. With 3 lines running horizontally across the reels and the other 2 being diagonals.
Of course if only a few lines are being played, any winning combinations that land on the ones not active won’t count, so it’s up to the player to decide if they want to be spinning the reels and watching potential payouts pass them by or not. If all lines are in play the minimum stake is still only 1.25 per spin, with the maximum being 25.00, which isn’t the biggest bet range in the world, but should satisfy all but those on the tightest of budgets and real high stakes gamblers.
Cool Buck
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Cool Wins
Working out what wins are possible isn’t tricky, with the paytable outlining the number of times the bet amount per line will be paid for each combination. A single cherry across a line will be worth 1x, while two of them will equal a win of twice the line bet amount. Moving up the scale we see the first of the Bar symbols, with Any Bar rewarding players with 4x and then it’s back to the cherries for a 10x payout any time a full line of them lands.
Single, double and triple Bar symbols make up the next levels and should 3 stop on an active payline the prize will be 20x, 50x or 100x the amount staked on a line. The top-paying regular symbol is a 7, presented here in a nice shiny silver, and getting this across a line will result in a 300x reward.
Those are all pretty standard prizes, but Cool Bucks gets its name from the ‘$’ symbol that serves up the biggest wins by far and also acts as a wild, meaning that it will substitute for any other and help bring in more wins.
The wild function is the one most frequently seen, so we’ll look at that first. If just a single $ symbol lands on a line it will pay a 1x prize, but if it lands in combination with 2 examples of any other symbol then it will count as a third and complete the line. Unlike some pokies, the wild doesn’t multiply any wins when it does this, however it will be worth some decent payouts when making up a line on its own.
Three $ across the first payline that runs across the middle of the reels will win 1000x the bet per line amount, while getting it across the second, third, fourth and fifth will be worth 2000x, 3000x, 4000x and 6000x in that order.
At the maximum 5.00 stake per line, that’s a very nice pile of 30,000 Bucks added to the player’s bankroll.
The Verdict
Aiming criticism at Cool Bucks wouldn’t be fair to what is a perfectly reasonable example of 3-reel pokies. It’s pretty much devoid of bonus features other than that wild symbol, but that’s just how these games are and this is the major appeal of them.
So you will either love it for the ease of play and frequent winning spins, or avoid it like the plague for that exact same reason.