Wild Buffalo here is NetGame’s 2019 online slot, not an Aristocrat pokie: a 1,024-ways plains wildlife game on a 5×4 grid with stacked buffaloes and wilds on the middle three reels. The Buffalo Fortune bonus wheel awards free spins or one of four fixed jackpots, and the return is 96.22% at medium-high volatility. The free demo below is a similar buffalo pokie you can play free online, with no download.
Wild Buffalo runs on five reels and four rows with 1,024 fixed ways that pay left to right from the leftmost reel. Bets start at 40 cents a spin, and databases list the top bet as either $40 or $80, sometimes on the same page. The return to player is 96.22% on two independent databases, with a third listing 96.15%; NetGame publishes neither figure, and no lower settings have been reported. Volatility is rated medium-high. One database lists a hit frequency of 32.18% and a bonus roughly once every 96 spins. The maximum win is where sources part company: published figures differ, with one database giving 5,000x the stake, another 2,000x and a third a cap of 30,000 coins, so no single number can be stated as fact.
Wild Buffalo Pokies Characteristics
Wins are paid on 1,024 ways: matching symbols on adjacent reels from reel 1 count wherever they sit in each column, and every combination is added together. Buffaloes can land stacked, and a column full of them multiplies the number of ways a single win can take. The wild is a silver buffalo that lands only on reels 2, 3 and 4 and substitutes for every symbol except the scatter.
The scatter is a shaman that pays anywhere. Three or more of them pay a scatter prize and spin the Buffalo Fortune bonus wheel. There is no bonus buy, so landing scatters is the only way to the wheel, and none of the databases mentions a gamble option.
NetGame publishes no paytable and no database prints the two to five of a kind values, so the list gives the regular symbols from highest to lowest as one database names them, then the wild and scatter, without prizes.
The scatter pays are the only figures with a stated unit. One database lists three, four and five shamans at 10x, 50x and 100x the bet; another lists 400, 2,000 and 4,000 credits, which works out the same if the bet is 40 credits. Without a published table there is no reliable figure for the top line as a multiple of the total bet, so exact line values can only be read inside the game.
Two databases describe the same wheel: it can land on free spins, on one of four fixed jackpots, or on a segment that opens a smaller multiplier wheel, and a jackpot win comes with a respin of the wheel. Only one database gives the details: 16 segments and one spin, jackpots of 10x the bet for the Mini, 50x for the Minor, 100x for the Major and 500x for the Super, and a +Bonus Wheel segment whose smaller wheel multiplies the jackpot won by 2x to 10x. Another lists the multiplier values as 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 10.
The jackpots are fixed multiples of the bet, not a progressive pool. The largest jackpot on that list times the largest multiplier comes to 5,000x, which matches the highest published maximum win, but that is our arithmetic, not a NetGame statement.
When the wheel stops on free spins, one database reports the award as 8, 10, 12 or 15 games. During the round the wilds on reels 2 to 4 carry a random 2x or 3x multiplier on every win they are part of; a second database describes them as wilds that double or triple wins. Retriggers are possible according to one database, which does not explain how, and no cap is published.
This is where the stacked buffaloes matter most. A full buffalo column on reel 1, a wild or two in the middle and buffaloes on reel 5 can produce many ways at once, each multiplied by the wild.
At 96.22% the game keeps a little under 4 cents of every dollar staked over the long run; at the 96.15% one database lists, it keeps about 4 cents. Both are averages over millions of spins and say nothing about one session. Medium-high volatility means long runs of small or no wins are normal, with much of the return held back for the wheel and the free spins.
At the 40-cent minimum, $40 buys 100 spins. If the bonus really arrives about once every 96 spins, as one database estimates, that budget gives a better than even chance of seeing the wheel once, and a Mini on the wheel, which that database puts at 10x the bet, would be $4 at that stake. At $2 a spin the same $40 lasts 20 spins, and most sessions that short will not reach the wheel at all.
Aristocrat’s Wild Wild Buffalo is the game most often confused with this one. It launched in mid-2021 on Aristocrat’s Neptune Double cabinet for US casino floors, with five reels, reels 3 to 5 that can grow and six jackpot levels. No Australian approval for it was found; the ACT’s 2014 approval list shows the original Buffalo instead, which our Buffalo review covers.
NetGame has added two sequels. Wild Buffalo Hold ‘n’ Link (April 2022) keeps the 5×4, 1,024-ways layout and adds a Hold ‘n’ Link respin round with Mini, Minor, Major and Grand jackpots. Wild Buffalo Fortune Wheel (April 2023) has a wheel with 250x and 1,000x jackpots and free spins with a Gold Buffalo meter that turns animals into buffaloes. Wild Buffalo Bonanza is not part of the series: it comes from NetGaming, a different company, and plays on 20 lines. Other studios’ near namesakes include Belatra’s Big Wild Buffalo, Spinomenal’s Majestic Wild Buffalo and 4ThePlayer’s 5 Wild Buffalo.
The setting is the North American plains: a buffalo herd with an eagle, a puma, a wolf and a bear as the other high symbols, a Native American shaman as the scatter and a silver buffalo as the wild. The bonus is a large Buffalo Fortune wheel with a smaller multiplier wheel. The game follows the formula Aristocrat’s Buffalo made famous, stacked buffaloes, wilds on the middle reels and multiplier wilds in the free spins, and adds nothing new to the look. One database lists it for desktop, tablet and smartphone.
Wild Buffalo is an online-only game with no land-based presence here: the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission’s 2014 approval of Aristocrat’s MK6 catalogue lists Buffalo but no Wild Buffalo, and no Australian approval for any game of this name was found. We found no NetGame statement on Australian players, and one database lists the game in 20 countries without mentioning Australia. Availability varies, so the lobby search is the way to check, and the studio tag should read NetGame. NetGame publishes no official free demo that we found; free versions of the wild buffalo slot machine are hosted by third-party database sites.
Wild Buffalo is a competent take on the buffalo formula with one idea of its own, the Buffalo Fortune wheel. It suits players who like 1,024-ways games, stacked symbols and a bonus that can land on a fixed jackpot as easily as on free spins, and 96.22% is in line with most modern online pokies. It does not suit anyone who wants to know exactly what they are playing for: there is no published paytable, the maximum win figures disagree, and the free-spin counts and jackpot values come from a single database. The one thing to check is the studio name in the information screen, because several studios use the name.
96.22% according to two databases, with one listing 96.15%. NetGame does not publish the figure itself.
Land three or more shaman scatters anywhere. They pay a scatter prize and spin the Buffalo Fortune wheel, which awards free spins or one of four fixed jackpots.
Published figures differ: one database gives 5,000x the stake, another 2,000x and a third a cap of 30,000 coins. NetGame publishes no figure of its own.
In the free spins they do: wilds on reels 2 to 4 carry a random 2x or 3x multiplier on every win they are part of. The databases describe no multiplier on base-game wilds.
Only online, as there is no land-based version here. We found no NetGame statement on Australian players, so availability varies and a lobby search, with the studio tag checked, is the way to find it.
No. Wild Wild Buffalo is a 2021 Aristocrat machine for US casino floors, while Wild Buffalo is NetGame’s 2019 online slot. NetGame’s own sequels are Wild Buffalo Hold ‘n’ Link and Wild Buffalo Fortune Wheel.
