The original Buffalo slot machine was released by Australian
casino gaming manufacturer Aristocrat Leisure in 2008.
Harkening back to the era of America’s frontier wilderness,
Buffalo by Aristocrat is one of the most recognizable slot
machines ever produced. Even if you’ve never played the game
yourself, anybody who has walked through a casino since
Buffalo’s debut has probably heard the game’s unforgettable
calling card. The unmistakable cry of a red tailed hawk piercing
the air is followed by the rumble of a herd on the move, sounds
that echo above the din of normal slot bells and whistles.
The standard Buffalo slot machine. Buffalo Keno Slot Machine is one of the most-played slot games of all time. This is a fast-paced and exciting game where you have to fill the screen with Buffalo symbols to win. This game is a part of the Xtra Reel Power feature of some Aristocrat games, and you have 1024 ways to win in this no-pay lines slot. At the core, Buffalo is a standard five-reel video slot machine featuring 4 rows populated by up to 1024 betways or ways to pay. All winning combinations pay from the leftmost end towards the right and are paid as multipliers of the wager on a per reel basis.
Continue reading to learn more, and also find a free version
of the game that you can play.
That’s right. The first step is admitting you have a problem. We all do, when it comes to the Buffalo slot. Why is that? As much as we may like other slot machines, the Buffalo calls to us, almost like that slot machine in the old Twilight Zone episode that calls out the hapless hero’s name (and at one point, follows him up to his hotel room). Très creepy.
The Buffalo slot machine (in all its manifestations) has none of that creepiness. The sound effects are benign, even friendly. Buffalo seems like such a good-natured machine. And it’s generous, too. So what if the wins tend to be less than huge?
Ask anyone who’s shoveled a hundred bucks or more into a “cold” slot machine, and they’ll tell you that small-but-frequent wins are easily preferable to huge-but-rare wins. Well, they’re both nice, but in our heart of hearts, we slot players know that the pay tables eventually favor the house.
Somehow, the Buffalo slot manages to convince us we’re ahead of the game (or drawing closer to it), even when we’re clearly not. How does Aristocrat achieve this?
It’s a clever and skillful combination of those frequent small wins with bonuses inside bonuses, free spins, re-triggers, multipliers that multiply other multipliers, and at the heart of it all, Aristocrat’s own invention, Reel Power.
Reel Power (and its own spin-offs, Xtra Reel Power and Super Reel Power) is a departure from the time-tested single-line slot machine that required symbols to line up along a horizontal line etched into the glass face of the machine.
Oh, there were some innovations, such as three-line and five-line machines, but these all required a bet placed on each line to activate it as a winning option.
Other manufacturers built three-line and even five-line machines, all of which required an escalating coin-in to qualify for the full number of win-lines.
Enter Aristocrat. In the 1990s, Aristocrat developed what it called Reel Power, which did away with the “lines” concept and made the entire face (the five mechanical reels were now mere digital images on a video screen by this time) a winning field.
Instead of five pay lines (three horizontal lines for the three rows of symbols, along with the two diagonal lines), Aristocrat made a lineless screen, and five matching symbols appearing in any of the three horizontal rows resulted in a win.
Buffalo Slot Machine Wins
Not to go all mathematical on you, but with five reels, each presenting three symbols, this gave the slot player 243 ways he or she could win.
Naturally, with this arrangement, wins would occur much more frequently, and since slot players aren’t paying for those machines — casinos are — Aristocrat had to downsize the wins.
Along with more frequent wins, Aristocrat tossed in bonus rounds, nested multipliers, and wild cards that double as win-multipliers, and you have a winning combination.
By the way, Xtra Reel Power is the addition of a fourth horizontal row of symbols to the game, which gives the player 1024 ways to win, and Super Reel Power is the addition of a fifth horizontal row of symbols (giving the player over 3000 paths to glory).
Me, I’m waiting for Aristocrat to develop Super-Duper Reel Power, in which I win without leaving the house and they just mail me a check.
How To Win On Slot Machines Tips
But we were talking about Aristocrat, the American success story from Australia.
Buffalo Slot Machine How To Win
It took some time for the Buffalo to catch on, particularly in “destination” cities like Las Vegas and Reno.
Best Slot Machines To Win On
Vegas and Reno (and even Atlantic City) weren’t the only places with casinos, as it happens. Tribal casinos were springing up in the oddest places, and — more often than not — they catered to locals much more than the “destination” casinos did.
Aristocrat put Buffalo slots in these tribal casinos, and — wouldn’t you know it? The locals liked the reality of many small wins to the fantasy of the big jackpot. They adored the cry of “Buffalooooo!” whenever even the smallest win took place. And they were enamored with the idea of “lineless” slots, where even the minimum bet could reap real rewards.