The Belt and Road Slot Machine
The Belt and Road initiative is a huge construction project across much of China and South-East Asia, which online casino games developer Vela Gaming has used as the inspiration for a slot machine. It’s a pretty strange thing to base a game on, and the choice of symbols is equally offbeat, but The Belt and Road video slot has decent gameplay, is fully mobile-optimised and comes with a good return to player percentage.
While the real Belt and Road is in China, for some reason, there’s a background picture of San Francisco sitting behind the 5 transparent reels. 30 paylines run across the game and win-lines run on adjacent reels across any line from the left or right sides.
Playable from 0.01 per spin, to a high limit of 250.00, it’s got a good bet range and even an option to practice on the free The Belt and Road video slots that are provided at online casinos which carry the Vela Gaming range.
Taking a Trip on The Belt and Road
A paytable outlines how much each line of symbols is worth and how many times the coin value is awarded when they land in the right places. Brightly coloured J and Q symbols are the lowest-paying ones, and when 3, 4 or 5 cross a line on adjacent reels, the prizes will be equal to 3, 10 or 50 coins, while the equally vivid K and A icons are worth 5, 25 or 200. The rest of the symbols are made up of loosely connected buildings, bridges, different types of transport and so on, each with a vague relevance to the theme of construction.
Only 2 of a kind will be needed on a line from the left or right sides, and the subway station and military base will each return 2, 10, 50 or 300 coins when landing on 2, 3, 4, or 5 reels. The construction site and the bridge will each return winnings of 5, 20, 150, or 1,000 coins, while an airport flies high, with wins of 5, 25, 250 and 5,000 coins.
All of this construction must cost a fortune, so there’s a big pile of cash that can turn up on the reels as well. It’s the scatter symbol, so can appear in any places to be worth a prize, and rather than the coin value, it will be multiples of the total bet per spin. If 2 scatters appear at once, there’s a win of 1x the stake paid out, and any 3 equals a 5x prize, with 4 paying out 10x and 5 are worth a win of 100x.
Wild Symbol Substitutions
The top wins in this game come from the wild symbol, which is a picture of a bank building, although the word ‘Wild’ doesn’t actually appear on it. Despite the paytable saying that it only lands on reels 2, 3 and 4, it actually appears across all reels, which seems a strange oversite by Vela Gaming, but all is forgiven, as the rewards can be massive.
A single wild pays 2 coins, but a full line of this symbol returns the best real cash prize of the game, with lucky gamblers seeing 10,000 coins returned to their balance. Of course, being a wild symbol, it will also be able to substitute for any other, apart from the scatter, to complete win-lines, either bridging any gaps in a continuous run of matching symbols across a line, or extending the length of a line which will lead to a bigger win.
In practice, the wild symbol turns up very frequently for some reliable payouts, although getting a complete line of them is a much rarer occurrence.
Is it Worth the Journey?
This is an unusual online slot machine, where a unique choice of symbols leads to lots of winning spins and it’s common to see more than a single win-line created each time, although as a consequence, prizes can be on the low side.
The way that lines can run from either side of the game certainly helps punters as well, while the wild substitutions are an added attraction. Although there’s no separate bonus round, such as free spins or a mini-game, players who like to see frequent returns on their wagers should check The Belt and Road video slot out at any online casino that features the Vela Gaming range.
