Front Runner

Front Runner Odds On: Slot Overview

Grab your form guides, folks; we're off to the races with Pragmatic Play and friends Reel Kingdom in the online slot Front Runner Odds On. Let's be clear up front: Front Runner Odds On is a bit of a gimmicky game that feels like it was sketched out on a tomato sauce-stained napkin at a racing event. Perhaps it occurred during a Prag/RK team-building outing day at the track? Where some workplaces may do paintballing, go bowling, or take part in online quizzes, it makes sense that a gambling outfit might prefer to head to the track to have a punt. Apologies for the stereotypical speculation about a Front Runner Odds On origin story, so without further procrastination, why don't we take a closer look at the actual game?

Front Runner Odds On's grid has been built into a starting gate in the middle of a lush green race course. Either it's an off day, or we're between races because there are virtually no horses in sight in the base game, apart from on the game logo. Trigger free spins, though, and 3 gee-gees are placed on the screen, tasked with racing to a finish line to award extra free spins and multipliers. Till then, Front Runner Odds On is a little lifeless, not helped by the fact there are no features in the base game.

Instead of picking a horse, either on past form, how strong its legs look, or how glossy its hair is, players pick a stake of 10 c to $/€250. Another decision to make is whether to use the ante bet or not. When the ante bet is activated, the stake increases by 50% in order to have an extra chance of getting scatter symbols needed to trigger free spins. Whether you use the ante bet or not, the default RTP is 96.51%, while the math model volatility is high.

Ten paylines cross the 5-reel, 3-row gaming matrix, where the pay symbols award wins left to right from the leftmost reel. Ten to Ace royals are the low pays, worth 3 to 6 times the bet for 5 OAK, while the highs are horseshoes, ribbons, and awards, paying 50 to 200 times the stake for a 5 symbol win. Wilds may land on all reels, substituting for the regular paying symbols and possessing the same value as the top pay symbol.

Front Runner Odds On: Slot Features

The base game is like that part of a horse race where you've picked a horse, and you're waiting around twiddling your thumbs for the event to begin since it lacks any features. However, hitting 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols on any of the reels awards 10, 12, or 15 free spins, respectively. In the base game, when just 2 scatter symbols are in view, 1, 2, or 3 scatter symbols may be randomly added to the reels.

Free Spins

In the free spins round, a blue, green, and red horse symbol may appear on reels 2, 3, and 4. In front of the gaming grid, 3 horses gallop, each one linked to its respective coloured horse symbol. The track they run on has 6 positions in front of the finish line, and each horse has an x3 multiplier. Each time a horse symbol hits on the reels, its corresponding horse moves one position towards the finish line and +1 free spin is awarded for each.

When a horse crosses the finish line, a multiplier of x3 is awarded. When 2 horses cross, the multiplier becomes x6, and when all 3 horses finish, the multiplier becomes x12, as an extra x3 multiplier is also added. At the end of the free spins round, the collected multiplier is applied to the total win. For each horse that crosses the finish line, +3 free spins are granted. When the third horse crosses the finish line, +9 additional free spins are awarded.

Symbols can randomly land marked by a wreath. If this happens, the wreath moves onto a random position on the track in front of the horses. If a horse lands on a wreath's position, it takes it, and from then on, the horse moves 1 position forward on the track for each free spin.

Buy Free Spins

For 100x the bet, players can buy the free spins feature. When buying free spins, 3, 4, or 5 scatters randomly land on the triggering spin, and the RTP is 96.51%.

Front Runner Odds On: Slot Verdict

One highlight of a horse race must be when the picked horse is charging out front, thundering towards the finish line while thousands of people rise to their feet to cheer on their chosen nag. Despite featuring a miniature racing element, Front Runner Odds On never managed to reach those peaks of excitement. It's actually pretty low energy a lot of the time. More so during the non-bonus phase since Front Runner Odds On has one of those feature-free base games which gets pretty boring pretty quickly.

Free spins were not exactly super exciting either, but they have the potential to be fairly amusing depending on how far the three horses can progress along the track and/or reach the finish line. They didn't seem very keen to do so during our test sessions, however, and without the aid of the extra free spins they bestow or, more importantly, their win multipliers, free spins could be quite boring as well. Max payouts are capped at 3,000x the bet, and if the race is going well, okay, Front Runner Odds On might be good for a laugh or two.

The whole show had a gimmicky stench to it, though, so when the bonus round had been scoped, the horses done a bit of racing, and the limitations digested, Front Runner Odds On's novelty soon wore thin. It might be alright for a bit of pretend horse racing next to a spinning set of reels, but for the most part, Front Runner Odds On recreated a mere shadow of the charged atmospheric energy possible when attending the real thing.