Dancing Drums is a pokies machine produced by Shuffle Master, featuring 5 reels, 3 rows and offering players between 243 and 7,776 ways to win. This Asian-themed pokies is like 88 Fortunes pokies where the same Fu Babies are prominent characters, attempting to bring you good luck and vast riches. Above them you can see a big bowl which gets filled with coins every time you score a win.
Good fortune is the main motif in Dancing Drums; it is expressed through the red and gold colours which dominate the screen and through the echoes of lucky drums as you march onward one spin after the other. Further up above are the four jackpot values and the two smiling, cheerful Fu Babies.
Dancing Drum Pokies Game Symbol
Thought ths symbols in Dancing drum pokies are soft but they payout good. You will find symbols of flowers, a lion, a drum, golden ingots, a golden object that looks like a pot and a golden ship. Symbols 9 through Ace will stand for the smaller payouts.
The player needs to match at least three icons on adjacent reels to receive a payout. The drum is the Scatter and the Wild is represented by an ornate Chinese letter. The Wild can be seen only on the middle reels, substituting for other base game symbols and boosting the number of winning combinations.
Dancing Drums Game Features
Wild feature
Dancing Drums pokies has the Jackpot Bonus feature which is activated by random Wilds symbols on the screen. The feature offers you 12 gold coins which hide the jackpot symbols. You need to match three of the same jackpot to claim the prize. The jackpots are Mini, Minor, Major and Grand Jackpot, and the latter pays out the most – over 1,135 times your stake.
The Scatters
Then there are Scatters; three of the drum Scatter symbols will lead you into free spins mode. You will take advantage of one of five possible combinations: 15 free spins on a 5×3 reel set, 10 free spins on a 5×4 reel set, 5 free spins on a 5×5 reel set, 3 free spins on a 5×6 reel set or a mystery pick (one of the mentioned awarded randomly). Getting two more Scatters during free spins will add 3 additional freebies to the total count.
Free Spins Feature
The Free Spins feature is where you can profit the most while playing Dancing Drums. Should you opt for the 3 free spins on the 5×6 grid, this would give you 7,776 ways to win. It may be a long wait until you hit a win, but once it happens it will be worth it. Dance to the beat of the lucky Chinese drums and benefit from a return rate of 96.06%.
Dancing Drum Pokies Betting Options
Dancing Drums pokies has two betting options. The top row is a “gold symbol” bet. By default, you have 1 gold symbol, which is coins. Any symbols without any gold symbols have a lower payout. You can bet up to 5 gold symbols, which means all the symbols are at their maximum payout levels.
Unlike many pokies where you choose lines and the line multiplier, the top row on Dancing Drums is a Gold Symbols bet choice.
Progressive Levels
Betting more than one gold symbol also unlocks the chance to “close the pot” and win a progressive. There are four progressive levels, one tied to each of the gold symbols 2-5. Betting more gold symbols unlocks more progressives:
- 1 gold symbol (8 credits) – No progressives available
- 2 gold symbols (18 credits) – Mini unlocked
- 3 gold symbols (38 credits) – Minor unlocked
- 4 gold symbols (68 credits) – Major unlocked
- 5 gold symbols (88 credits) – Grand unlocked
As such, you don’t have to bet the max bet to qualify for the grand. But as you would expect, betting higher will give you higher chances at a progressive (although it appears, similar to other games where you can win progressives at any level, it increases your chances at winning A progressive, but not any specific one). More importantly, betting more gold symbols means a portion of your bet is going to feeding the progressive.
The second row of bets is your line multiplier. The credits you’re betting for the gold symbols is multiplied by 1, 2, 3, 6 or 10 (the general configuration for this game). So if you bet one gold symbol x10, you’re betting 80 credits, have no chance at the progressive, but all line hits pay x10. Because the game is an any-ways pay, which means there’s no lines but instead pays as long as symbols appear in successive reels, and you can have multiple symbols appear in a reel, coin pays in that scenario can get pretty exciting.
Dancing Drum Pokies Bonus
You get to choose from five options when the Dancing Drums pokies bonus triggers. Getting three drums and/or wild symbols in a minimum of the first three reels triggers the bonus. Getting four or five symbols does not offer a bigger bonus opportunity but instead amplifies the triggering line pay. The bonus is a free spins bonus with a choice from five options:
- 15 spins with a 3×5 reel set (243 ways to win)
- 10 spins with a 4×5 reel set (1024 ways to win)
- 5 spins with a 5×5 reel set (3125 ways to win)
- 3 spins with a 6×5 reel set (7776 ways to win)
Mystery: any of the 4 spins options, and any of the 4 reel sets.
Worst outcome: 3 spins with a 3×5 reel set
Best outcome: 15 spins with a 6×5 reel set
How To Win The Progressive Jackpot?
When the pot closes in Dancing Drums pokies, you get to win a progressive, which is a predetermined win but is played out through the selection of coins
When a wild symbol appears on the reels, you have a chance at closing the pot, which is how you enter the progressive picking screen. This pre-determined bonus has you choose coins until you find three of a kind. Note that the pot is a visualization that shows in rough terms how long it’s been since a progressive has been won – the more coins inside, the longer it’s been. It is not an indicator of how close the machine is to paying a progressive. Each wild symbol that appears is a chance; players have closed the pot. Play now at online casinos of your choice.
