Play Texas Tycoon for Free

To most people it's the kind of thing that you wouldn't want to go anywhere near, but in Texas they call it black gold. It is, of course, good old crude oil. You could say, even, that the black stuff makes the world go round with our reliance on it for fuel.

What is beyond doubt, however, is the fact that it makes the 5 reels of this slot machine go round, revealing all of the trappings of the stinking rich oil tycoons who have struck it lucky in the Texan oil fields. There are cases of cigars, snifters of bourbon, expensive watches, big houses, wives with pearl necklaces, fast convertible cars, and scantily clad blond bombshells. It really is as wonderfully gaudy as it sounds – but that's the American way! And of course, we cannot forget about the Texas Tycoon himself, depicted as an American bulldog-like dude with a bright white suit, 10-gallon cowboy hat and fat Cuban cigar.

In terms of visual alone, this slot machine is perfectly well designed to emulate the flashy and grandiose nature of the theme, with some two dimensional illustrations set over a dramatic sunset sky. There are even some simple animations involved, such as when our Texas Tycoon friend demonstrates by giving us a big cheesy wink and thumbs up whenever he lines up in a winning sequence.

Admittedly, this slot machine doesn't offer the bonus bonanzas that you might expect from such a big and bold theme. With that in mind, players who are after free spins or gimmicky side games will be best to prospect for their feature-rich spins elsewhere. However, the video slot isn't completely void of any special elements, because there is a wild symbol that will help players to complete winning lines for all other icons in the game. What's more, this symbol – depicted by a towering oil derrick – will appear stacked as three icons, meaning that it has every chance of completing multiple winning lines at once.

In the oil game, it's all about taking the big risks in order to find those big paying oil reserves, which often means investing in extra drills and tools to prospect over a larger area of land. In many ways, that's just how a video slot machine works since players have the opportunity to lay down more paylines in order to have a better chance of finding those sequences of matching symbols. In this particular slot, players can choose to play with either 5 or 10 paylines, depending on whether they are feeling like taking a risk or not.

However many paylines are placed on the reels, players will have to choose a bet per line value from the following coin options: 0.01, 0.02, 0.05, 0.10, 0.20, 0.50, 1.00, 2.00, 5.00 and 10.00. It is important to know how much you have placed on each active line because all of the wins awarded in this slot machine are given as line bet multipliers whenever three or more of the same symbol align:

Players can also boost their smaller valued wins up to a total of 140 credits by playing one of two gambling games – a 50/50 card based gamble or a special prize-ladder gamble with added insurance for losses.

Texas Tycoon is a slot machine that just oozes with rich luxury. Admittedly, the nature of the theme means that the design is somewhat cheesy and gaudy, but that might just appeal to a select section of the spinning public. However, the game could use some more exciting gameplay features if it is to keep punters spinning happy over some of the more feature-rich slots out there.