Cats Slot Review

Theme and Storyline

The Cats slot online is one of IGT’s classics, featuring an African Savannah theme with wild cat symbols dominating the reels. The game was initially released in 2013, but it wasn’t before 2017 that it received its online casino adaptation. 

It features a rather basic layout and a distinctive difference between wild cat premiums, and regular Aces, Kings, Jacks, and Queens. Premium symbols are framed, making it easier to differentiate between them and the regulars.

Among those high-paying symbols, you’ll see panthers, lions, tigers, and leopards, designed in a classic IGT retro fashion. This casino game has a timeless design, so it’s no wonder that it was rightfully represented by Las Vegas casinos featuring IGT’s slot collections for years now. 

Playing the free Cats slot game comes pretty close to enjoying a popular version of the game in venues on the Vegas Strip, including all the same symbols, theme, and sound effects represented in the original release.

Graphics, Sounds, and Animations

In terms of gameplay visuals, the Cats slot isn’t your everyday classic game, but it’s not the sharpest video slot either. It features relatively modern graphics with lifelike animal icons that truly stand out from the visual perspective. Their design faithfully represents the glory of these wild animals in real life, while the low-tier symbols are rather simple.

As you play, there’s a signature IGT soundtrack during the spins, much like with their other classic titles like Da Vinci Diamonds or Cleopatra. Once you stop spinning the reels, the fun also stops between the spins. Animations are also on a quite impressive level for a slot that was released more than a decade ago.

You can see the grid getting transformed as you enter the bonus round with free spins, as well as colorful active payline settings as you customize them. 

Cats Screenshots

Gameplay and Features 

Our main point of focus in this Cats slot review is to give you an accurate depiction of the gameplay and all the features that the game has to offer. Among these, we have to especially appraise the famous SplitSymbols feature, which is an original gameplay option designed by IGT.

So, make sure to watch out for those double symbols as you play bursting through the reels, and most importantly – awarding higher wins. To break it down for you, landing five split symbols counts as ten individual icons, so the more split elements you land, the higher your payout will be.

Besides these split symbols, the game also has a few other tricks, starting with the wild symbol. Whenever it lands, it substitutes for regular elements in the game, including all of them except for the free spins bonus scatter. 

One more thing worth noting is that this game has customizable pay lines, with a maximum of 30 active lines. However, you can also reduce the amount of active icons, and play with 5, 10, 15, or 20 active paylines. Plus, you can also increase your bet size per spin, and reduce the number of active pay lines to increase your chip size per active pay line.

So, the game is rather customizable and you can optimize it to suit your preferences. You can also use an autoplay option and choose the number of spins that will automatically be initiated as you sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. The main dish is the free spins bonus round in this game, and it’s initiated by landing five or more paw scatter symbols.

Bonus Rounds and Free Spins

Among the special features of the Cats slot, the bonus round stands out as the highlight of the game. You can enter it by landing at least five paw scatters, but you can get a prize payout for even less. Here’s how it works, depending on the number of scatters landed:

• Four scatters – prize payout
• Five scatters – 5 free spins
• Six scatters – 10 free spins

The only potential downside of the bonus round in this game is that it can’t be re-triggered. However, you can get a maximum of 10 spins by hitting six scatters, even though you’ll be looking at five on most occasions. 

As soon as the scatter symbols land, the grid gets transformed, and you can enjoy stunning animations and wild cat themes all around. When the bonus starts, you’ll be able to see even more split elements scattered across the grid, as well as more wild symbols. Plus, wild symbol connections during the bonus lead to a x2 multiplier payout, giving you even more to play for.

The best thing is – you can also get split scatters. That greatly helps in triggering the bonus round, since a single split scatter symbol counts as two, making it easier to hit at least five of them for a bonus entry. What’s more, you don’t need to connect the scatters in any way, it’s just important to land five or six of them scattered between the reels 2 and 4 to enter the bonus.

Betting and Payouts

Available bet sizes for the Cats online slot vary and depend on the casino where you are playing the game, but they mostly range from $1 to $500 as the max bet. As for the symbol payouts, we’ll discuss them in coins, since that’s how you place your bet here. With 30 active pay lines, you can bet 30 coins per spin, and these are the payouts you can expect:

• Jacks, Queens, and Kings – 100 coins for a five-of-a-kind
• Aces – 200 coins for a five-of-a-kind
• Tigers, Leopards, and Cheetahs – from 10 coins for a three-of-a-kind to 1,000 coins for 10 symbols via split symbols
• Panthers – from 10 coins for three symbols to 30 coins for four symbols and up to 2,500 coins for 10 symbols via split symbols

Your real money bets are also reflected through these coins, but it also depends on the number of active pay lines. If you increase the number of coins you’ll bet per line, and reduce the number of pay lines, you’ll be looking at higher payouts accordingly.

To get the best insight into how payouts work on this game, we suggest that you make a few spins on the Cats slot demo game, since it works in the same manner as the real money version. From there, you’ll also be able to check the “Paytable” option, where all the payouts are displayed by symbols and numbers of elements in a winning combination.

RTP and Variance

Now we come to the fun part, and that’s the RTP and variance of this slot. Interestingly, the game has two RTP setups depending on the number of active pay lines, so the RTP ranges from 93.04% to 94.93%. Overall, it’s not exactly the highest return rate among online slots, and it’s well below the industry average of 96.00%.

However, the lack of the RTP contributes to a higher variance of the game, which means you can’t exactly expect frequent wins, but once they hit, you’ll be looking at a higher win potential. 

The RTP and variance of this game truly kick in during the bonus round. As you play Cats slot machine and enter bonuses, you’ll notice how differently the game behaves during the free spins. You’ll be able to see more split symbols, meaning you’ll have more winning combinations, courtesy of the changing RTP.

Plus, the payout rate also increases during the bonus round due to the wild icon doubling up your wins when part of the winning combination. During the regular game, you’ll be able to see the lower RTP in action, with a lower chance of hitting massive wins due to a lower number of split symbols active and no wild multipliers.

Jackpots and Limits

One of the few shortcomings of this slot is the lack of a jackpot feature, but our experts feel like it’s not even that necessary. After all, it’s not one of IGT’s progressive games like Cleopatra Jackpots, but there were some jackpot iterations of the game in land-based venues as part of IGT’s Wide-Area Progressive system.

Sadly enough, you won’t be able to access slot jackpot prizes by playing online, but you can look forward to a massive, x10,000 max payout potential instead. The best way to learn more about the game’s limits and the payout potential is by making a few spins on the free Cats slot game demo. 

We gave it a few spins before testing the real money version of the game, and to our surprise, it’s identical to the real money Cats slot. Thanks to IGT’s efforts to use the same RNG and apply the same return levels in the demo as in the real money version, you can get an accurate depiction of what to expect by playing the demo game mode.

Conclusion

Overall, our impression after playing the Cats slot online is very positive, and our team had quite a few remarks about the exciting and fun gameplay experience it provides. It’s both visually appealing and a fun game to play, especially if you manage to hit that six-scatter bonus round.

Of course, it’s by no means a perfect option, and we’d love to see some improvements, especially considering the lack of a re-trigger potential in the bonus round. Still, knowing IGT, they might just do it with a new version of the game, just like they did it with Double DaVinci Diamonds following up on the sequel. 

Only time will tell, and meanwhile, you can use this Cats slot review to get familiar with the details and start playing right away.