Slots Like Wild Gambler: Safari Sticky Wild Games Worth a Spin

Wild Gambler runs an RTP of up to 97.00% on a 5-by-3 grid with 20 paylines, from Ash Gaming, the London studio Playtech bought in 2011. Released on 30 April 2013, its signature Lock & Spin gamble lets you pay to hold wild lions in place before a spin, so the effective return moves with how you use it, roughly 91.89% at one end up to that 97.00% ceiling. Main features include free spins, sticky wilds and the Lock & Spin wild gamble. If you rate Ash Gaming’s work on Wild Gambler, Nags To Riches and Nest Egg are a natural next step. Small wins arrive often and dry spells are short, which helps stretch a budget. The 97.00% figure is measured over many thousands of spins. If you enjoy Wild Gambler and want more games with the same feel, this page rounds up the closest matches, from lion-themed sticky wild slots to its official Arctic sequel.

Wild Gambler casinos

Play Wild Gambler slot game at these top casinos.

Reviewed by Paul Stone
Published: May 2019
Updated: 16 July 2026

Games like Wild Gambler

The best alternative games for Wild Gambler online slot are Elemental Beasts, Pride and Prey, White King and Silver Lioness 4x.

Elemental Beasts is a slot built by Inspired Gaming. It is played across a 5×3 grid with 20 paylines. Headline features include free spins, additional paylines and increasing multipliers. Specific touches include bonus symbols, extra bonus chance, spinsurance retrigger and spin chance. Bets start at 0.1 and reach 30 a spin, covering most bankrolls. Expect medium-low volatility here, so smaller wins come around often, so the balance moves more smoothly. It returns 96.00%, placing it in the medium-high bracket. In practice that means the game pays back around that share of stakes over a long run of spins, not in any single session. On return it gives back slightly less than Wild Gambler, which runs 97.00%. It is frequently grouped with Hot Safari and Roaming Reels. If you liked Wild Gambler, Elemental Beasts is an easy one to try next.

Pride and Prey leans into a Lions theme. The reels form a 5-reel, 3-row layout offering 20 paylines. Bets start at 0.1 and reach 200 a spin, covering most bankrolls. The RTP is 97.52% and counts as very high overall. As ever, that is a theoretical average measured over a huge number of spins, so short sessions vary. Headline features include free spins. Expect medium-low volatility here, so smaller wins come around often, so the balance moves more smoothly. On return it edges out Wild Gambler, which runs 97.00%. Players who like it tend to try Silver Lion as well. Fans of Wild Gambler should find plenty to like here.

White King is a King slot from Playtech. It is played across a 5 reel, 4 row grid with 40 paylines. That sits a touch below Wild Gambler, which runs 97.00%. It plays at medium-low volatility, which means wins land fairly regularly and tend to be modest, which keeps sessions steady. Bets start at 0.01 and reach 20 a spin, covering most bankrolls. On the bonus side you get free spins, expanding wilds and improving symbols. The RTP is 90.05%, which is low for the market. Treat it as a guide to long-run payback rather than a promise for any one session. Players who like it tend to try The King and White King 2 as well. If you liked Wild Gambler, White King is an easy one to try next.

Silver Lioness 4x is a slot built by Lightning Box. The reels form a 5×4 layout offering 1024 ways to win, so there are lots of winning combinations on offer. Headline features include free spins, expanding wilds and increasing multipliers. Expect medium-low volatility here, so wins land fairly regularly and tend to be modest, which keeps sessions steady. Stakes run from 0.4 up to 200 a spin, so it suits both small and larger budgets. That sits a touch below Wild Gambler, which runs 97.00%. It returns 95.69%, which is medium for the market. In practice that means the game pays back around that share of stakes over a long run of spins, not in any single session. It also draws comparisons with 5 Lions. Pick it over Wild Gambler when you want a steadier, lower-risk session.

How Wild Gambler Plays: Lock & Spin, Sticky Wilds and Free Spins

Wild Gambler drops you on the African savannah with lions, rhinos, leopards, zebras and meerkats across its 20 fixed paylines. The snarling lion is both the wild and the top payer, worth 1,000x the line bet when five land on a payline. The clever part is Lock & Spin: before any spin you can pay a fee to hold wilds already on the reels, or place fresh ones, with the price scaling to how valuable the position is. Left alone the game behaves like a gentle low volatility slot; gamble hard on locked lions and both the risk and the potential swing up sharply. Ash Gaming has never published an official hit-frequency figure for Wild Gambler, so treat any exact “wins per 100 spins” claim you see elsewhere as an independent estimate rather than a developer number.

Land five meerkats and you trigger eight free spins, with any wilds on screen at the trigger frozen in place for the whole feature. That mix of player-controlled sticky wilds and a ceiling of 1,000x your total stake for a full screen of lions made it a standout high RTP slot for its era, and several later Ash Gaming releases borrow from it.

Wild Gambler Arctic Adventure, the Official Sequel

Ash Gaming followed up with Wild Gambler Arctic Adventure, swapping the savannah for polar bears, penguins and ice floes. The sequel keeps the wild-locking idea and the 20 payline layout but adds increasing multipliers and runs a lower 95.99% RTP, so the original stays the better value pick on paper. For the same mechanics in a colder setting, it is the most natural follow-on of all.

More games like Wild Gambler

Wild Gambler is mainly a Lions themed game with some references to Animal themes.

Our favourite Lions slots

Wild Gambler is a Lion themed slot game. Similar Lion themed slots include Exotic Cats, Elemental Beasts, Super Lion and Silver Lioness 4x.

Wild Gambler was created by Ash Gaming

The studio behind Wild Gambler is Ash Gaming. Ash Gaming is licensed by the UK Gambling Commission. Branded games tied to UK TV and film, like Britain’s Got Talent and Little Britain, were an early speciality. The Ash Gaming slots below share the same maker as Wild Gambler.

The leading Ash Gaming slots to play, these slot games are all created by the same game provider as Wild Gambler, the online slots are Cash Bang Wallop, Time Machine, Britains Got Talent and Cash of the Titans.

Wild Gambler key information 2026

Here are all the key statistics for Wild Gambler slot.

Wild Gambler slot information last reviewed: July 2026

Wild Gambler screenshot

Clones and Copies with the same features as Wild Gambler

Wild Gambler has similar slots with the bonus features: Free Spins, Sticky Wilds and Improving Symbols.

Games with Free Play Demo

The top slots with Free Spins are Crusader, Miss Kitty, The Real King Aloha Hawaii and Blazing X.

Other slots with Sticky Wilds

Our Recommended slots with Sticky Wilds are The Monkey Prince and Mystic Monkeys.

Slot games with Improving Symbols

The best matching slots with Improving Symbols are The Monkey Prince and Mystic Monkeys.

Sources & Verification

Primary sources re-checked and expanded 16 July 2026: Playtech’s official site confirms Ash Gaming has been a wholly-owned Playtech studio since the acquisition completed in December 2011 (corrected from an earlier version of this page, which gave 2012), and Wild Gambler is distributed through Playtech’s casino platform. The UK Gambling Commission was checked for the studio’s UK licensing status. RTP, the 30 April 2013 release date, max win, layout and bet limits were cross-referenced across multiple independent slot database listings and the game’s published paytable figures; no official hit-frequency figure has ever been published, so this page does not state one.

Wild Gambler slot sites FAQs

Wild Gambler Pros and Cons

A quick look at the main pros and cons of Wild Gambler, based on its RTP, volatility, features, ranking and gameplay.

Pros

• A 1,000x total-stake ceiling when wild lions fill the screen
• An RTP of up to 97%, well above the typical UK slot
• A top-three Ash Gaming title in our list
• Includes sticky wilds that hold in place for repeat wins
• The Lock & Spin gamble lets you buy or hold wild lions before any spin, still a rare mechanic

Cons

• The animal and lions theme won’t be for everyone
• No progressive jackpot on offer
• Low base volatility keeps the very top wins in check, and locking wilds can drain a balance fast if overused