Irish Locks Slot Machine

If you are familiar with European land-based casinos, you are also familiar with Novomatic. They are the dominant slots provider in Europe, and Irish Locks is, for my money, one of their very best games.

What makes a great slots provider great is their ability to imbue their games with a consistent and unique personality. From a designer’s point of view, an ideal world is one where players play one of your games and immediately know who made it without even looking.

Novomatic is definitely one of the very best at that, and titles like Book of Ra and Charming Lady lead the way for them. However, Irish Locks is starting to make a name for itself, too. That is mainly due to a relatively unique bonus mechanic, which we'll go into in more detail later.

So, let’s take a closer look at the Irish Locks slot machine by Novomatic and see if it’s worth a try for you. Spoiler: it is.

Slots with an Irish theme are commonplace. The Irish have fortune and luck running through their culture with four-leaf clovers and leprechauns, and slot makers have always been keen to cash in on the perceived luck of the Irish.

Irish Locks, unsurprisingly, leans heavily into that Irish theme. The feature symbol is the four-leaf clover, while pots of gold and little leprechaun boots are among the other symbols.

As you play, you will also hear a cheery Irish jig in the background, and everything, naturally, has a strong green and gold coloring. 

Irish Locks is no different from any other slot in the sense that you sit down, spin, and hope for the best. What is slightly different about it is its bonus mechanic.

You need six feature symbols to trigger the bonus, but there is a catch. One of them must be either bronze, silver, gold, or diamond. That gets a bit confusing, as the general feature symbol is gold, but the ones you need to complete the six will have the actual words on them.

It is possible, as I have discovered once or twice, to get six of the standard feature symbols without triggering the bonus. No bronze, silver, gold, or diamond feature symbol means no bonus, simple as that.

What you really want, though, I’d suggest, is the big multicolored four-leaf clover dancing across your screen immediately after you hit spin. That is the game telling you that you have triggered the bonus. All you need to do then is sit back and see what you get.

There is no secondary bonus, as is common with Novomatic games. However, you can win big in just general play. If the top symbol, a red-headed Irish woman, lines up, the line pays can be spectacular. That has happened for me before, and it was glorious.

At a glance:

• Layout: 5 x 3
• Denominations: 0.01
• Minimum Bet: 0.50 on a 0.01 denomination
• Theme: Irish Mythology
• Return to Player (RTP): Approximately 90 - 95% but dependent upon casino and local regulations
• Volatility: Medium to high

Let’s take a bit of a closer look at that unique bonus, as it is a very good one. So, you have triggered the bonus on any level, let’s say bronze for argument’s sake, the lowest level. You then get a hold and spin with six spins.

They don’t reset as they do in most other titles, but you can get more by landing the +1 Spin symbol. You will see it fairly often, too. What you really want, though, is the upgrade symbol. Land that, and it will upgrade all the coins on your screen to the next level: bronze to silver, silver to gold, gold to diamond.

The values on all of the coins you already have increase too, and the upgrade can make a huge difference to the payout. Furthermore, you can get multiple upgrades in one bonus, so the wins can really build nicely.

And that is that, really. It sounds complicated, but it’s actually very intuitive and simple when it’s on the screen in front of you. It’s also quite refreshing as it’s a relatively unusual bonus mechanic, which isn’t all that easy to find nowadays.

Since Irish Locks is mainly found in Europe, where player rewards programs are more akin to marketing memberships, the usual rule of making sure you insert your card in the machine before playing doesn’t really apply to Irish Locks.

You can still do it if you want, and in certain casinos, you might get small perks for it, but nothing like the benefits you would in places like Las Vegas and other parts of North America and Macau.

What you should still get offered, though, is a drink. Almost all casinos have some kind of waitress service, so you might as well use it. The general rule here is that soft drinks are complimentary and alcoholic ones are not. That said, most places will still let you buy them, and some may comp them. It’s worth asking, either way.

Irish Locks is one of those games I took to immediately. I played it with no prior knowledge of it or any idea of what to expect, but it really knows how to endear itself to you.

It also knows how to explain itself to you and will almost certainly do so better than I have. The bonus sounds relatively complicated, as does the trigger, but it’s really not. It’s simple and intuitive, and it works really well.

The only minor complaint I have is that I think you should still get something for six feature symbols at once, even if one of them isn’t a bronze, silver, gold, or diamond symbol. That did irk me. However, I can’t say it has happened enough times to really be an issue.

Oh, and I keep mistaking the best symbol (the red-headed Irish woman) for the wild. That leads to disappointment when it turns out it’s not, and the uncooperative second reel ensures I win nothing, but I can’t blame Novomatic for my own delusions. Can I, actually? I’d certainly like to. But no, I probably can’t. (I might).