"The Big Five" started out as a hunters' label for the five animals deemed to be the most dangerous to track on foot – the lion, the leopard, the rhino, the elephant and the buffalo. These days we all carry a small game reserve in our gatsak, because the Reserve Bank has printed one on the back of every Mandela banknote since 2012. Those early hunters needed a rifle to get close to all five, while we collect them in our change at the Spar… without firing a single shot!
Here at Springbok Casino, we have a slot with five animals of its own called Buffalo Mania: Thunder Springs. The symbols on a slot paytable are ranked by what we pay for them, in much the same way as the notes in your wallet. Plenty of us open a paytable, see a column of multipliers and close it again. Well, we'll turn those multipliers into rand that makes sense, symbol by symbol. What's more is we've given one of the five animals a very different job… but we'll get back to that!
The Big Five in Your Wallet – Which Animal Is on Which Note?
Turn a few of your notes over and you'll find the whole herd right there, with Madiba's portrait on the flip side. The Reserve Bank put the animals in order of note value, so the elephant, the biggest of the five, is printed on the second-smallest note! If you're from across the pond, you might not be as familiar with our paper money as beloved Mzansi citizens are. Here's the full lineup of what you've got stashed in your back pocket right now:
- The rhino is on the R10.
- The elephant is on the R20.
- The lion is on the R50.
- The buffalo is on the R100.
- The leopard is on the R200.
It's the buffalo on the R100 that we're after in this lineup… In Buffalo Mania: Thunder Springs, the herd is North American instead, so strictly speaking, our buffalo is an American bison and a cousin of the Cape buffalo on your note – but we won't tell the Reserve Bank if you don't! Either way, we've handed it the most lekker job of all five animals. Call that a promotion, straight out of your wallet and onto our reels here at Springbok Casino!
Buffalo Mania: Thunder Springs & Its Five Animals – Meet Our Premium Symbols
You'll find Buffalo Mania: Thunder Springs in the Popular row of our Springbok Casino lobby, and on the info panel of its tile, it's marked as medium volatility. The game has 5 reels and 4 rows, and wins are counted across 1,024 ways from the leftmost reel. Four of the five animals are paying symbols – the cougar, the eagle, the wolf and the bear, in that order of value. The cougar at the top of our slot paytable is the symbol we pay the most for!
Where does the R100 buffalo come in, then? It's our wild, Bokke! We treat the wild buffalo as any symbol on the slot paytable except the Scatter Buffalo, the Scatter Geyser and the Golden Coin, so we count it towards a cougar win just as easily as a win on the 10s. On our reels we pay the wild at the value of the win it completes… so the buffalo can be worth well past R100! As with every win on our reels, we pay only the highest award on each winning combination.
Translating the Buffalo Mania: Thunder Springs Paytable Symbols to ZAR
Tap the "i" button next to the BET field, where you set anything from R0.40 to R200 a spin, and the full slot paytable appears on screen. The four animals are listed first and the five royals after them, each with a number for three, four and five of a kind. The cougar is at the top with 120 for five of a kind, and the 10 is at the bottom with 4. At a R2.00 spin, every one of those numbers is valued at R0.05, so you're three steps away from a rand figure:
- Find your symbol and the number beside three, four or five of a kind.
- Multiply that number by R0.05, so five cougars at 120 come to R6.00.
- Change your stake and the rand figure changes with it, so five cougars come to R1.20 at our R0.40 minimum and R600 at our R200 maximum.
How far apart are the animals and the royals on our slot paytable, then? They're further apart than your banknotes, as it happens! A R200 note comprises twenty R10 notes, while we pay thirty times more for five cougars than for five 10s. Even the bear, which is the lowest-value animal at 40, is worth more to you than the Ace at 25, the best of the royals, nogal! Here are both symbol tiers side by side at a R2.00 spin, per way:
|
Feature |
Animal symbols |
Card royals |
|
Symbols in the tier |
Cougar, eagle, wolf, bear |
Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10 |
|
Five of a kind at R2.00, per way |
R2.00 to R6.00 |
R0.20 to R1.25 |
|
Three of a kind at R2.00, per way |
R0.50 to R1.50 |
R0.05 to R0.30 |
Would you like to test those figures before a cent of yours is on the line? Tap Try It! on the Buffalo Mania: Thunder Springs tile at Springbok Mobile Casino or on desktop, and we'll give you a R1,000 fun balance in practice mode. The paytable and the features in practice mode match our real-money game, so every sum you work out with fun money applies when you play for rand. It's the lekker way to learn a slot paytable, all for mahala!
What Happens When a Geyser Erupts on Our Buffalo Mania: Thunder Springs Reels?
Now for the one symbol on our paytable that's tied to the size of the board itself! A Scatter Geyser on the second, third or fourth reel in the base game triggers the Geyser Eruption Expansion. We pay your wins on the standard board first, and then we add three rows to the geyser's reel and two to each reel beside it. Do you want to know the lekker part? You get three free respins on that taller board, all on the stake you've already placed!
How many more ways to win does that give you? On the taller board you have 4,032 ways across those three respins – almost four times the count on the standard 5x4 board, Bokke! The count comes out the same on any of those three middle reels, and we do the sums for you. In the Free Games, every reel grows by three rows to seven, and the count rises to 16,807… that's the tallest board in the whole game!
Your Next Deposits & Our Bonus – Every Slot Counts Towards It
Now that you've got the paytable sorted, how about a little extra in your bankroll? Once your first deposit is in, our welcome package has two more steps, and here at Springbok Casino, we cover both with a single coupon code that you redeem twice. That coupon code is on our promotions page, and on the 7th of every month we send the Lucky 7 code to your account inbox. Terms can change, so confirm them before you redeem – these are the current ones:
- You redeem SPRINGBOK50 for a 50% match on your second and third deposits.
- We cap the bonus at R5,000.
- We set the wagering at 30 times your deposit plus the bonus.
- You enter the code under Redeem Coupon in our cashier.
Which games count towards that playthrough? Every slot in our Springbok lobby does, and so do Keno, Bingo and Scratch Cards! Say you deposit R200 through BetterEFT, where the minimum is R35: we add R100, and 30 times the R300 comes to R9,000 of wagering. At R2.00 a spin, that's 4,500 spins, each one paid out on the same slot paytable you've just worked through. You'll know what every cougar is worth to you before the reels stop… now that's a kiff head start!
Track the Buffalo Across Our Springbok Reels – Play Buffalo Mania: Thunder Springs!
You started with the rhino in your change and you've finished with the cougar on our reels, so you can put a rand figure on every symbol in between, royals and all! Open Buffalo Mania: Thunder Springs at Springbok Online Casino, set your stake and work out the cougar's rand value before you spin. Have you got a R100 note in your wallet, okes? Then you're already carrying our wild… now gooi a spin at the herd and chase that cougar!
Quick FAQs on Reading a Slot Paytable at Springbok Casino
Have you still got a question or two about the slot paytable? We'd be surprised if you didn't, Bokke – we've covered five banknotes, nine paying symbols and three board sizes in one sitting! Below, you'll find where the paytable opens, which animal tops it, what happens to your wins at a bigger stake and how to test your sums in practice mode. If yours isn't among the four, shoot your questions through to our support team at Springbok Casino on live chat!
Q: Where do I find the paytable on a Springbok Casino slot?
A: Behind the "i" button on the game screen, beside the field where you set your bet. On Buffalo Mania: Thunder Springs, the slot paytable covers every symbol value and feature, the geyser included, mense!
Q: Which Buffalo Mania: Thunder Springs symbol is worth the most?
A: The cougar, at 120 times your bet unit on the slot paytable for five of a kind. The eagle is next at 100, and the bear is at 40, so the cougar is the top cat in every sense!
Q: Do the paytable values change when I raise my bet?
A: The multipliers on the slot paytable stay fixed, and the rand amounts rise with your bet. At R4.00 we pay R12.00 per way for five cougars, double the R6.00 at R2.00!
Q: Can I study a slot paytable before I bet real rand?
A: Yes, in practice mode, which opens from the Try It! button on the game's tile. You spin with fun money on the same slot paytable, so the rand figures match what we pay in real-money play.