San Francisco is one of the most famous cities in the United States, and it’s the inspiration for Merkur Gaming’s Golden Gate slot. We’ll take a close look at the game in this Golden Gate review, covering everything from the symbols and the payouts to the bonus features. Golden Gate is a 5x3 slot with 10 paylines and medium volatility. You can play the optional Gamble feature after a winning spin to boost the size of your prizes, and the Max Win Action Lottery feature can award the biggest payout of 20,000,000 coins.
Golden Gate is a slot with 5 reels, 3 rows, and 10 fixed paylines. Stakes available range from £0.10 to £10.00 per spin.
If you can land at least three matching symbols on any payline, you’ll win a cash prize. The size of a payout is based on the symbols matched and how many make up a winning combination.
The slot game has a theoretical 96.01% RTP, which is around the industry average, and medium volatility. I found that payouts occurred on a pretty regular basis in my test, though the prizes tended to be on the small side. The biggest payout on offer in Golden Gate is 20,000,000 coins, which is awarded through the Max Win Action Lottery.
Various online casino sites in the UK host Golden Gate, and here’s our list of the best to help you choose the right slot site for you:
Golden Gate is named after the strait connecting the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, as well as the iconic Golden Gate Bridge that spans it. The visuals are bright and colourful, with a slight sepia tone.
The sound is a bit more hit and miss than the graphics. While you’ll hear a celebratory, laid-back jazz tune whenever you win, the music that accompanies each spin can be a bit frustrating.
While you play Golden Gate, the background shows a close-up image of the strait with a crisp sunset above, and most of the symbols relate to San Francisco itself. These include an orange tree, street lantern, a vintage fire engine, a blue Cadillac, a cable car, and the Golden Gate bridge.
Symbols become animated when they appear in a winning combination. For example, the Golden Gate symbol turns from daytime to nighttime and zooms in to show ‘BONUS’ made up of lights across distant hills.
There are nine symbols in all. The Fire Engine pays the highest prize of the standard symbols, worth up to 100,000 coins. The Cable Car symbol is the Scatter. The Golden Gate symbol is the Wild, which substitutes for all other symbols except the Scatter and doubles any wins it helps create!
Orange Tree
3 — 3,000 coins / 4 — 6,000 coins / 5 — 25,000 coins
Street Lantern
3 — 3,000 coins / 4 — 6,000 coins / 5 — 25,000 coins
Blue Cadillac
3 — 5,000 coins / 4 — 10,000 coins / 5 — 50,000 coins
Fire Engine
3 — 10,000 coins / 4 — 25,000 coins / 5 — 100,000 coins
You can play Golden Gate on mobile as well as desktop, and its performance is the same across devices. The colourful graphics translate well to smaller displays, and the streamlined control panel suits touchscreens. Spinning the reels, changing your bet, and browsing the paytable is easy.
You can trigger two bonus features in Golden Gate: the Max Win Action Lottery and the Gamble game. There are no free spins available.
Get three Scatter symbols anywhere on the reels to trigger the Max Win Action Lottery. This can award the following wins:
The Gamble feature is available after each winning spin, but not when using the Autostart function. It allows you to wager your prize for a chance to increase its value in one of two games. If you don’t want to play this feature, click the ‘collect’ button to keep your prize and continue the base game.
The card gamble game involves predicting the colour of a playing card before it’s turned over. Get it right to double your win! But if you get it wrong, the feature will end and you’ll go back to the base game.
In the ladder gamble game, press the ‘1:1’ button to either climb up or down the prize ladder randomly. This can increase or decrease the size of your wagered win.
Golden Gate is far from being a classic slot, but I enjoyed playing it for this review. The San Francisco setting feels distinctive and gives the game a laid-back style. The graphics are solid and colourful, and the symbol animations triggered by wins are a great little addition.
The RTP is average and the volatility is medium, so wins are likely to be fairly moderate. Golden Gate has little in the way of bonuses: the Max Win Action Lottery can award big wins (if you manage to trigger it), and the Gamble feature may increase the value of prizes if you’re prepared to wager them. Think carefully before you do, though.
Overall, Golden Gate is a decent slot that should suit players looking for a game with an easygoing style and atmosphere.
Rating: 7.0
Here are five common questions about this slot: