Black Gold is an html5 video slot adaptation of a fictitious oil tycoon Bill’s oil well. Betsoft Gaming launched it in March 2012. The slot title “black gold” is borrowed from an informal noun that means oil. Specifically, this online game is centered on both the oil extraction aspect of the oil industry and the cowboy culture.

Relatable games from Betsoft include Gold Canyon (July 2019), More Gold Diggin’ (March 2014), and Gold Diggers (June 2010). Black Gold’s rival games include Oil Mania (February 2013) from NextGen, Slick Riches (December 2015) from Greentube, Black Gold Megaways (November 2019) from StakeLogic, and Well Oil Be! (November 2020) from Genii.

Eight symbols (oil tycoon Bill, horse, oil drums, cowboy hat, oil tap, shut-off valve, decorative horns, and chain-link fence) require three, four, or five winning combinations.

Black Gold Game Characteristics
Black Gold is set in a private Texan oil well. Its 5X3 grid is embedded on an old wooden shed that is fitted with rusty corrugated iron sheets and serrated partitions. The spots on both wall studs indicate the 30 left-to-right adjustable paylines.

There are eleven symbols, eleven coin denominations, five bet levels, seventeen payline choices, 935 total bets, win multipliers, no regular substituting wild, a special substituting wild reserved for free games only, three scatters, a bonus game, a click-and-reveal game, a lone respinning reel, free games, no side game, and pays from $2.00 to $2000.00.

Black Gold has three special symbols and eight ordinary symbols. Special symbols: the free games-unlocking scatter is an orange-roofed monitor barn made of yellow birch, with oil drums nearby; the click-and-reveal game-triggering scatter is an annular cutter; and the bonus game-unlocking feature is a brown pump jack.

Ordinary symbols: face-hiding cowboy-and-oil tycoon Bill from Texas, with a white weasel moustache and folded arms; a front view of a comical dark bay horse; blue oil drums; a cowboy hat beside wads of banknotes; a trickling oil tap; a brown shut-off valve; decorative white horns; and a “private property no trespassing!” chain-link fence.

Black Gold’s coin denominations: $0.01, $0.02, $0.03, $0.04, $0.05, $0.10, $0.15, $0.20, $0.25, $0.50, and $1.00. The bet per line (bet levels) options: 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. The number of active paylines can be: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, and 30. Minimum bet: $0.01. Maximum bet: $150.00.

The $150.00 bet yields these Black Gold payouts for three, four, and five winning combinations. Oil tycoon Bill pays $500.00, $1000.00, and $2000.00. Horse pays $250.00, $500.00, and $1000.00. Oil drums pay $125.00, $250.00, and $500.00. Cowboy hat pays $100.00, $200.00, and $400.00.

Oil tap pays $75.00, $150.00, and $300.00. Shut-off valve pays $50.00, $125.00, and $250.00. Decorative horns pay $25.00, $50.00, and $125.00. Chain-link fence pays $10.00, $25.00, and $50.00.

A regular win prompts the third reel to start spinning on its own. Further winnings resulting from the re-spins attract progressively increasing win multipliers—from (or, after winless spins in between, reset to) X1 before the re-spin to X2 during the first re-spin to X3 during the second back-to-back re-spin to X5 during the rest of the consecutive re-spins.

3+ barns load at least eight free games, wherein the grid is shroud in midnight blue and the drawn nightly substituting barns offer orange-and-blue random wilds comprising of win multipliers ranging from “2X wild” to “10X wild”.

Three scattered annular cutters load a click-and-reveal game, where the player clicks one of the annular cutters that then unveils the won amount on an oil splash. 3+ pump jacks load a bonus game.

There is a flow meter with reeling digits that are first chosen for comparison with the next number; players predict if the next oil level meter reading will be comparatively lower or higher than the previous number—hitting or missing four times ends it. Black Gold’s non-progressive jackpot is $42640.00.

The good Black Gold software features: piping-based paylines; icons embedded on white oil drums; quick spin; and 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, and 100 autospins. Ambient background: country instrumental music.
Sounds effects: plinking, grito, whirring, creaking, ringing, clanging, barking, mooing, and neighing. The cinematic 3D graphics include dolly zoom, tilting video clips, oil drips, oil splatter, dramatic horse-riding tycoon, and galloping and rearing horse.

Luck in Black Gold
A game of chance, the RTP rate of Black Gold is 94.31% and the house edge is 5.69%.