Buffalo Gold pokies are Aristocrat’s sequel to Buffalo, sold today as Buffalo Gold Collection: five reels, four rows and 1,024 ways. A 20-credit Gold Bonus on top of the 40-credit bet brings gold buffalo into the free games, where they fill a meter that turns eagles, cougars, wolves and finally elk into buffalo. It has been online in regulated markets since late 2023. The free demo below is a similar buffalo pokie.
The Buffalo Gold slot machine runs on five reels and four rows with 1,024 ways and no paylines, a format Aristocrat calls Xtra Reel Power. A full bet is 60 credits, 40 for the ways and 20 for the Gold Bonus, so a one-cent machine in Las Vegas in 2021 had a 60-cent minimum, which players could multiply by two to six. Online, one US review site lists 60 cents to $120 a spin; other sources differ. Aristocrat publishes no RTP: online figures range from 94.2%, a database’s figure for the Collection, to 96% on several review sites, and no land-based setting is on record. There is no official volatility rating; review sites split between medium and high. Hit frequency and a maximum win are not published, though wilds can multiply a free-game win by up to 27x.
Buffalo Gold Pokies Characteristics
Learning how to play the Buffalo Gold slot means forgetting lines: the 1,024 ways are every combination of one position on each reel, so a symbol on two rows of a reel counts twice. Reel Power games normally pay adjacent reels from the left, though no rules summary we found confirms it here. The sunset wild lands only on reels 2, 3 and 4 and replaces everything but the gold coin scatter. In the free games each wild carries 2x or 3x, and multipliers on the same win multiply together, so three 3x wilds make 27x; one first-hand reading of the Collection’s rules adds multiplier wilds in the base game.
The rules let players drop the Gold Bonus or play fewer reels, but venues can lock both, and without the Gold Bonus there is no gold buffalo collection. No source mentions a bonus buy, and there is no jackpot of its own, though a casino can link machines to an in-house progressive, and the double-up gamble two review sites mention is unconfirmed.
Aristocrat publishes no paytable, and the only full table in circulation states no unit, so the symbols are listed from highest to lowest pay, without figures.
Three or more coins also start the free games. Without a unit, the top buffalo pay cannot be stated as a multiple of the total bet, so the machine’s help screen is the table to trust. The order matters more than the figures here, because gold buffalo can lift every other animal to the buffalo’s pay.
Three, four or five gold coins award 8, 15 or 20 free games with 2x and 3x wilds, as given by a first-hand reading of the rules, a US review site and Aristocrat’s page for the Revolution spin-off. Two coins during the round add five more, and Aristocrat advertises Unlimited Free Games, so there is no cap; larger retrigger awards are not reliably documented.
Forum players describe bonuses of more than 68 spins and rounds of over half an hour, and one recorded round ran to 129 spins in 28 minutes.
The Gold Bonus is the extra 20 credits a spin, which Aristocrat says makes a player eligible for the big bonus, with substitute symbols and additional multipliers. In practice it switches on the collection: gold buffalo land only in the free games, count as buffalo and add one each to a meter.
Four gold buffalo turn every eagle into a buffalo for the rest of the round, seven do the same to the cougars, 13 to the wolves and 15 to the elk, after which only the cards, wilds and coins are not buffalo. A round that ends before the fourth gold buffalo converts nothing, so the same feature can feel ordinary one day and decisive the next.
On the online figures, the game keeps 4 cents of every dollar at 96% and about 6 cents at 94.2% over the long run. Those figures do not carry over to casino machines, whose settings are unpublished; trade press has reported that the online maths may be adjusted because the online game has no linked progressive. A third of every 60-credit bet pays for the Gold Bonus, and skipping it skips the reason to play.
Aristocrat’s Buffalo brand manager has called high volatility part of the Buffalo formula, and in practice a session turns on whether three coins arrive and how long the round runs. At the 60-cent minimum, $60 covers 100 spins at a long-run cost of about $2.40 to $3.50, though one session can land far from that. At $1.20 a spin the same money lasts 50.
Buffalo Gold grew out of Buffalo, which has the same 1,024 ways but no gold collection; our Buffalo review covers it. Buffalo Gold Collection is the name the classic game is sold under, on land by 2021 and online since December 2023. Buffalo Gold Revolution opens every free games round with a wheel of jackpots, credit prizes, gold buffalo or more games and gives every wild a multiplier; a slot database lists it online at 95.05% with a 1,000x top win. Buffalo Gold Max Power went online in New Jersey, Ontario and the UK in December 2024 with up to 46,656 ways and a jackpot feature.
On casino floors there are also Buffalo Gold Cash Collection, with cash prizes on the reels, Buffalo Gold Wheels of Reward, with Hold & Spin, and the four-game Wonder 4 Boost Gold pack, which includes Buffalo Gold. Buffalo Grand, Buffalo Diamond, Buffalo Stampede, Buffalo Link and Buffalo Chief are separate families. A slot database also lists a Buffalo Gold from Skywind, which we could not verify, and a Buffalo Gold Canyon from Gamebeat; neither is this game.
Buffalo Gold is set on the North American plains at sundown: a rugged desert backdrop in golden tones, painted-looking animals, card symbols from A to 9, a sunset wild and a gold coin scatter. The sound follows the Buffalo template, known for the screech of the eagle: a drum-heavy score that builds with wins and a shouted “Buffalo” when buffalo land in a win. One review site finds the art dated next to newer video pokies, unsurprising for a cabinet game from around 2013. The online Collection runs in HTML5 on desktop and mobile.
We could not confirm Buffalo Gold on Australian floors: the ACT approval notices we checked list the original Buffalo but no Buffalo Gold title, and Aristocrat’s own Buffalo Gold pages cover the US and Latin America, not Australia or New Zealand. Other states were not checked, so this proves nothing either way. As far as we can find, Aristocrat offers Buffalo Gold real money play online only in regulated US states, Ontario and the UK. We could not confirm it at any offshore casino that accepts Australians, and a game of that name there may be another studio’s, so availability varies and the lobby search, plus the provider tag, is the way to check. Searches for a Buffalo Gold demo or Buffalo Gold slot online free play find nothing official: Aristocrat publishes none that we found, and databases list it as unavailable.
Buffalo Gold is Buffalo with a reason to stay in the free games: every gold buffalo brings the round closer to a screen where all the animals pay as the top symbol, and nothing caps how long that runs. It suits players who like the original and will pay 60 credits a spin instead of 40 for that. It does not suit anyone who wants a published return, a fixed top prize or real-money play from Australia. The one thing to check is the bet panel: if the Gold Bonus is off, so are the gold buffalo.
Aristocrat does not publish one. Online figures range from 94.2% to 96% depending on the source, and casino machines run whatever setting the venue chose.
Land three, four or five gold coins for 8, 15 or 20 free games. Two coins during the round add five more, with no cap.
No official maximum is published. Wilds can multiply a free-game win up to 27x, and the largest documented result is a 129-spin bonus worth almost $16,000 at an unstated bet.
They land only in the free games with the Gold Bonus on and fill a meter: at 4 the eagles become buffalo, at 7 the cougars, at 13 the wolves and at 15 the elk.
We could not confirm it in Australian venues, and Aristocrat’s own pages cover the US and Latin America. Real-money online play is limited to regulated US states, Ontario and the UK.
It keeps Buffalo’s five reels and 1,024 ways and adds the 20-credit Gold Bonus and the gold buffalo collection. Aristocrat now sells it as Buffalo Gold Collection.
