Release the Bison Slot Review

Release the Bison - Slot Overview

Release the Bison drops Pragmatic Play’s Release series onto dry land, swapping tentacles for hooves and the underwater gloom for glorious open countryside. You get a 5-reel, 4-row setup with 20 fixed paylines framed by green slopes, rocks, and a distant herd. The visuals are bright without being overbearing, and the whole thing feels like a classic high-volatility Pragmatic built around a couple of headline mechanics.

Betting starts at 20p a spin and goes right up to hefty high-roller territory, so both casuals and more serious punters can take a crack. From my first few sessions, the base game felt streaky, as you would expect from something rated highly volatile, but the roaming wilds and random Guaranteed Wins pop up often enough to keep you from zoning out between bonus rounds.

Symbols and Paytable in Release the Bison

The paytable in Release the Bison is classic Pragmatic. You have nine regular symbols, five low pays and four premiums, all paying for three to five of a kind from the leftmost reel on one of the 20 lines. Payout values scale with your stake, so I like to flick through the dynamic paytable before I start and get a feel for what a decent line actually looks like.

Low-paying symbols are the outgrown 10, J, Q, K, and A card ranks. Depending on the value, a full line of five will land you between 0.5x and 1.5x your bet, so they mostly act as balance toppers rather than game changers. They do show up a lot though, and when you connect several lines together during a wild-fuelled spin they can still stack up to a respectable hit.

The premiums are a bobcat or puma, hyena, eagle, and wolf. These pay between 2x and 10x for five of a kind, and you only need two wolves for a win. The bison itself is the wild, substituting for all regular symbols and paying up to 12.5x for a full line, while sparkling diamond scatters handle bonus triggering duties without carrying line wins of their own.

Symbols and Paytable

Symbol	Quantity	Payout
	5	x10
	4	x3
	3	x2
	2	x0.5
	5	x4
	4	x2
	3	x1.5
	5	x3
	4	x1.5
	3	x1
	5	x2
	4	x0.75
	3	x0.5
	5	x1.5
	4	x0.6
	3	x0.4
	5	x1
	4	x0.5
	3	x0.3
	5	x0.7
	4	x0.4
	3	x0.25
	5	x0.6
	4	x0.3
	3	x0.2
	5	x0.5
	4	x0.25
	3	x0.15
	Wild
	5	x12.5
	4	x5
	3	x2.5
	2	x0.5
	Scatter

Release the Bison RTP, Volatility & Max Win

When you talk numbers, Release the Bison looks solid on paper but not spectacular. The main RTP setting sits at 96.54%, with alternative configurations going as low as 94.49% and as high as 97.49%, so I always check the info screen first. Volatility is rated high, the hit rate hovers around 28.90%, stakes run from 0.20 to 240, and the maximum win is capped at 3,000x your bet.

Bonus Features in Release the Bison

The Wild Respins feature in Release the Bison is the mechanic you will notice most. Hitting four or more wilds in the base game shifts the slot into respin mode, with every wild turning into a roaming symbol that walks to a new random position between spins. Each fresh wild adds one extra respin and nudges the global win multiplier up by one, which is where things can start to snowball.

On top of that, you have random Guaranteed Win spins in Release the Bison. Any dead spin can be transformed into a hit worth between 10x and 40x your stake, which has bailed me out more than once. The real goal, though, is the free spins round. Landing three or more diamond scatters, or collecting them during respins, takes you to a two-part wheel that decides spins and starting multiplier.

With three scatters you can get 8 to 18 free spins with a 1x to 5x multiplier, four scatters upgrade the starting multiplier to 2x to 5x, and five scatters mean 10 to 18 spins with at least 3x. Every wild that lands in the bonus becomes a roaming wild that sticks around and is counted into a meter; from the fifth onward, each new wild adds one extra spin and another point on the multiplier. If patience is not your thing, you can crank up the Ante Bet for a 25% higher stake and better free spin odds, or buy straight into the bonus for 80x, 150x, or 300x depending on how many scatters you want guaranteed.

How to Play Release the Bison for Real Money

Playing Release the Bison for real money is completely straightforward. Once the slot loads, I set my bet size with the plus and minus buttons, then check the paytable and rules via the information panel. There are 20 fixed paylines, so you are always covering the full grid, and wins land when at least three matching symbols hit from left to right, except for the top wolf and wild that pay from two.

You can spin manually or let the autoplay handle a batch of rounds, which is handy when you are trying to grind out those Wild Respins or a bonus. I tend to keep Ante Bet off while I gauge how the game is behaving, then flip it on if the session is going well. As with any high-volatility slot, you need a bit of cushion in your balance before chasing those 3,000x dreams.

Release the Bison Slot Verdict

For me, Release the Bison sits in that middle area between rock-solid and forgettable. I enjoy the roaming wilds, the way the free spins wheel mixes volatility, and the occasional slap from a 40x Guaranteed Win, yet the 3,000x cap and fairly stripped-back feature set make long sessions feel a touch flat. If you fancy a scenic grind with clean mechanics, though, it does its job perfectly well.

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