Hell Butcher Slot (Pragmatic Play)

The Hell Butcher slot takes place on a 6x6 grid with Cluster Pays. A winning combination, or cluster, is formed when 5 or more matching symbols appear connected horizontally or vertically: the bigger the cluster, the larger the payout with the top award for 15+ of the same symbol.

With a minimum bet of 20p a spin, the most you can spin for in the UK is £5 a spin (or £2 if under 25). Players outside the UK can make use of Autoplay and Turbo Mode functionality.

The Hell Butcher RTP rate is 96.55%, which is in the higher range compared to other Pragmatic titles and the 96% slots average. However, there are 95.53% and 94.48% RTP versions. If you had a £20 balance and played at 20p a spin, the number of expected spins before running out of money is below for each variant:

• 96.55%: 2,870 spins
• 95.53%: 2,215 spins
• 94.48%: 1,794 spins

Medium volatility, a cluster win will land, on average, every 1 in 3.53 spins as the hit frequency rate is 28.33%. Triggering the free spins will occur every 243.94 spins.

When it comes to win potential, Hell Butcher comes with 20,000 x bet max wins. The chances of landing this (i.e. the max win probability) is 1 in 21,367,521 spins whilst winning 1,000, 5,000 or 10,000 x your total bet will occur every 36,872, 2,369,668 or 8,196,721 spins, respectively.

With a horror theme, the Hell Butcher slot takes you on a gory trip to the underworld. When I fired up the game, the first thing that crossed my mind was Shady Lady’s Devil’s Finger. Anyway, the setting is the underworld, which is full of bubbling lava and molten rock.

You’ll see skulls and the Hell Butcher himself in a stone structure that encases the 6x6 grid. Below the grid, you’ll see 4 terrified prisoners in chains with multiplier values underneath them (more on those later). The soundtrack is serious and suspenseful, setting the tone perfectly.

On the grid, symbols include shackles, eyeball rings, cleavers, mugs of blood, skulls with the brain showing, hearts with a dagger through them and cauldrons filled with eyeballs. The cauldron symbol is the highest paying, awarding 150 x your total bet if you land 15+ in a cluster.

There is a Hell Butcher Wild symbol that substitutes for all paying symbols. You’ll also see a Scatter, No Miss Scatter and Madness Scatter: more on these below. In the free spins, there are No Miss Wilds, Butcher Wilds and No Miss Butter Wilds. Again, their functionality is described below.

Hell Butcher Mobile

Hell Butcher can be played on desktop, mobile and tablet devices, with HTML5 technology detecting and adapting to your chosen devices. Compatible with iOS and Android smartphones, mobile play will take place in Portrait Mode to make better use of the screen setup.

Hell Butcher benefits from tumbles, wilds that hook multipliers worth up to 128x in the base game and up to 512x in the free spin. With 4 free spins modes, you benefit from guaranteed hooks, multipliers permanently being destroyed and a combination of both.  

Tumbles 

When you land a winning cluster (5+ matching symbols connected horizontally or vertically), you’ll trigger the Tumble feature. The winning symbols disappear with the remaining symbols falling into the empty positions. New symbols then tumble in from above to fill the newly vacation grid positions. The process continues as long as you keep forming winning clusters.

Wild Multiplier

In the base game, you’ll see 4 terrified prisoners in chains with multiplier values of 2x, 4x, 8x and 16x underneath them. When a Hell Butcher Wild lands, it can randomly hook 1 of the 4 multiplier values. The hooked multiplier is replaced with a new one with the value double the highest one currently visible: the multiplier can reach 128x in the base game and 512x in the free spins.

The multiplier applies to all winning clusters the Hell Butcher Wild is part of. If more multipliers are part of the same cluster win, the multiplier values are added together. At the end of a tumbling sequence, the multipliers reset to 2x, 4x, 8x and 16x.

Free Spins

There is a Free Spins feature with 4 modes, due to their being 3 different Scatter symbols. Landing 3, 4, 5 or 6 Scatters of any kind anywhere during a base game will reward you with 12, 15, 20 or 30 free spins, respectively. Importantly, multiplier values can double up to 512x. Below are the details of each mode:

Finally, landing 3, 4, 5 or 6 Scatters of any kind will retrigger the feature with 12, 15, 20 or 30 extra free spins, respectively.

Ante Bet, Super Spins & Bonus Buy

Hell Butcher comes with several Ante Bet, Super Bet and Bonus Buy options. With Bonus Buy not available in the UK, below are all the details:

• Ante Bet 1: costing 4 x bet, there is an 8 x chance of triggering any free spins mode (RTP is 96.42%)
• Ante Bet 2: costing 5 x bet, there is a 160 x change of triggering No Miss Free Spins mode (RTP is 96.51%)
• Ante Bet 3: costing 5 x bet, there is a 160 x change of triggering Madness Free Spins mode (RTP is 96.55%)
• Ante Bet 4: costing 10 x bet, there is a 360 x change of triggering No Miss Madness Free Spins mode (RTP is 96.54%)
• Super Spin 1: costing 5 x bet, you are guaranteed a standard Butcher Wild (RTP is 96.49%)
• Super Spin 2: costing 10 x bet, you are guaranteed a No Miss Wild (RTP is 96.53%)
• Super Spin 3: costing 250 x bet, you are guaranteed a standard Butcher Wild & 512x multipliers (RTP is 96.49%)
• Super Spin 4: costing 500 x bet, you are guaranteed No Miss Wild & 512x multipliers (RTP is 96.54%)
• Standard Free Spins: costing 100 x bet, you will trigger the standard free spins (RTP is 96.52%)
• No Miss Free Spins: costing 300 x bet, you will trigger the No Miss free spins mode (RTP is 96.52%)
• Madness Free Spins: costing 300 x bet, you will trigger the Madness free spins mode (RTP is 96.49%)
• No Miss Madness Free Spins: costing 750 x bet, you will trigger the No Miss Madness free spins (RTP is 96.49%)

Hell Butcher Slot

Rating: 4/5

Hell Butcher is graphically-superb slot that focuses on wilds hooking multipliers that increase in value up to 128x in the base game and up to 512x in the free spins for up to 20,000 x bet max wins.

Chris Taylor

On first impressions, the Hell Butcher slot doesn’t look like it was produced by Pragmatic Play. The graphics are edgy, gory and very detailed. I must applaud the visuals as they are superb.

In terms of the gameplay, it comes with tumbles for continuous wins and Wild Multipliers worth up to 16x. When a Hell Butcher Wild lands, it can hook 1 of the 4 mulitplier values. Importantly, the hooked multiplier will be replaced by a new multiplier that is double in value, reaching up to 128x in the base game.

The free spins is where things get a little more interesting, as they is a standard version plus 3 other modes. Dependant on which combination of Scatters you trigger them with, the Wild symbol can guarantee to hook a multiplier, miss or hook a multiplier and destroy it or always hook and destroy multipliers.

Destroying multipliers is the key as multiplier values can reach 512x in the free spins: manage to destroy and land wins including the wild and you’ll soon seen a carousel of big multipliers. Once a multiplier value has been hooked and destroyed, it won’t appear again ensuring bigger multipliers are in order. That said, you do need the wild to be part of a winning cluster for the multiplier value to apply.

With 20,000 x bet max wins, Hell Butcher has higher max win potential than most Pragmatic Play games. It’s high 96.55% RTP rate also sits above their average (just under 96.5%). For me, the game takes Pragmatic Play in a new direction as they are obviously trying to create new mechanics rather than just focus on Big Bass clones. If you like theme, their Sanatorium Secrets slot is recommend.

Want more horror-themed slots? My article lists the top 13: you have games inspired by serial killers, mental asylums, vampires, zombies, ghosts, werewolves and much more. If its Cluster Pays slots you’re after, my guide highlights games such as Jammin’ Jars (Push Gaming), Cluster Tumble (Relax Gaming) and Reactoonz (Play ‘n GO).

The Hell Butcher slot review was written by Chris Taylor from our OLBG Expert team who has written over 10,000 slot game reviews in an iGaming career spanning over 2 decades.

Chris Taylor

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Chris Taylor is an industry veteran originally from Gibraltar. Having worked in the online gambling industry since 2004, Chris loves slots and has reviewed over 10,000 online slot games. Running a slots-focused website for 13 years, Chris is the go-to guy for everything slots-related.