Wanted Dead or a Wild (Hacksaw Gaming) RTP review: 96.38% (configurable)
Skip if: you won't check the version you're on — the worst build of this game sits almost eight points under the best
Here is our position on the most famous slot Hacksaw has ever made: Wanted Dead or a Wild absolutely deserves its cult status, and it deserves it only at 96.38%. Get the right build and you have the definitive feast-or-famine Western — a 5x5, 15-line showdown from 2021 whose three bonus rounds are practically three different games. Get the wrong build and you are paying a premium for the same drought. That double-edged reality is the entire review in miniature; everything below is detail.
The game's endurance owes everything to its bonus architecture. Sticky wilds, win multipliers and duelling VS symbols populate the base, but nobody plays this title for base spins: they play for Dead, for Wild, and above all for the Wanted round, the high-tier feature whose blown-open multiplier potential built a thousand highlight clips on its way toward the 12,500x cap.
Dead, Wild, Wanted: a three-lane bonus
Each round has a distinct personality. Dead leans on sticky wilds accumulating across a fixed set of spins; Wild runs hotter with multiplier interactions; Wanted is the shootout — the rarest trigger, the widest outcome distribution, and the reason the game's variance grades high despite a 4/5 score rather than the studio maximum. The VS duel symbols resolving head-to-head add a coin-flip drama the imitators never quite copied. Feature buys exist at separate price points for each round outside Great Britain; GB operators are obliged to remove the store.
Four builds, one of them severe
SlotCatalog documents the ladder: 96.38%, then 94.55%, then 92.33%, and finally 88.42%. We would call the bottom rung disqualifying — an edge north of 11% on a game whose returns already cluster into rare events is a bankroll incinerator. The middle rungs are merely bad value given how many casinos do run the default. The game's own info screen declares the active percentage; consult it the way you'd check a taxi meter, every time, and vote with your deposits when a casino cheaps out.
The dynasty it founded
Hacksaw turned this hit into a lineage. 2 Wild 2 Die (2024) is the direct sequel — revolver multiplier symbols, a taller 15,000x cap, meaner 5/5 math. Duel at Dawn (2024) closes the trilogy on a 5x5/19 grid, importing the DuelReels mechanic and keeping 15,000x. The original remains the most balanced of the three and, tellingly, the one whose bonus rounds people can name from memory. Newcomers to the series should still start here.
| Slot | Provider | RTP | Volatility | Max win |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wanted Dead or a Wild (this slot) | Hacksaw Gaming | 96.38% | High | 12,500x |
| Le Bandit | Hacksaw Gaming | 96.34% | Medium | 10,000x |
| Hand of Anubis | Hacksaw Gaming | 96.24% | High | 10,000x |
| Chaos Crew | Hacksaw Gaming | 96.30% | High | 10,000x |
| Stack 'Em | Hacksaw Gaming | 96.20% | High | 10,000x |
Riding it without getting thrown
Treat this as a target-shooting game: define the bonus as your objective, size stakes so a few hundred spins can't hurt you, and consider the session successful based on features reached rather than balance direction — the math will do what it does. The 12,500x exists; your plan should behave as if it doesn't. And keep some perspective on the legend: clips are a survivorship museum, and every one of them was recorded against the same house edge you face.