Where's the Gold vs 50 Lions, Queen of the Nile and the other Aristocrat classics

The classics side by side

The table below uses the most reliable source we found for each cell. A figure marked “review sites” comes from third-party catalogues, not from Aristocrat; treat it as likely, not confirmed.

Aristocrat publishes no return-to-player figure for any of the classic versions above. The RTP guide explains what that means in a venue.

What makes Where’s the Gold different

Most classics of that era give you a fixed number of free games. Queen of the Nile’s pyramids hand out 15 free games with every win tripled [2]. Where’s the Gold makes you choose. When three, four or five Dynamite scatters land, you pick one of the characters, and what’s hidden under that character sets how many free games you get and how many gold wild symbols join the reels: up to 10 free games and up to 3 gold wilds [1].

The help file describes the pick as a reveal: the free games you win equal the number of nuggets shown under the character you chose [1]. Nothing in it says one character is better than another. The pick still makes the feature feel different from anything else on this list, and it’s why people search for the characters by name. The full walk-through is on the free spins feature page.

Where’s the Gold vs 50 Lions

This is the pairing people in Australia search for most. Both games live in the same Cash Express Luxury Line cabinet at The Star Gold Coast, which lists “three classic titles… Where’s the Gold, Queen of the Nile, 50 Lions” on its main gaming floor [6].

• Lines: Where’s the Gold plays 1 to 25 lines [1]; review catalogues list 50 Lions at 50 lines on a four-row grid.
• Feature: Where’s the Gold’s feature is a pick; 50 Lions’ free spins, per review sites, rely on stacked wilds.
• Theme: gold-rush prospectors and dynamite against African wildlife.

Neither is “looser” than the other in any way we can show. Aristocrat doesn’t publish either game’s return, and a machine’s configuration decides that in a venue.

Where’s the Gold vs Queen of the Nile

Queen of the Nile is the older of the two: Aristocrat dates its original release to 1997 and describes the feature as “scattered pyramids that offer players 15 free games with all wins multiplied by three” [2]. Where’s the Gold, which review catalogues date to 2003, swapped the flat multiplier for the character pick and the gold wilds.

Where’s the Gold vs More Chilli

Aristocrat says More Chilli, released in 2007, was “the first free multi-reel game in the industry” [3]: the feature plays several sets of reels at once. Its sequel More More Chilli goes to “up to 24 sets of reels in the feature” [4]. Where’s the Gold keeps one set of reels and changes what’s on them instead, by adding gold wilds.

Where’s the Gold vs Big Red and Buffalo

Big Red and Buffalo come up in the same searches and the same app lobbies: the Heart of Vegas App Store listing names Where’s the Gold next to 50 Lions, Big Red, Queen of the Nile, More Chilli and Buffalo [7]. For Big Red, review sites disagree even on the number of lines and on what starts the free games, so we’d rather show nothing than guess. Buffalo is a newer design with 1,024 ways to win instead of paylines, according to review catalogues.

Which classic to pick

If you like a feature where you make the call, even if the call is only a reveal, Where’s the Gold is the one. If you want the simplest free games on the floor, Queen of the Nile’s fixed 15 tripled games are hard to beat for clarity. If you want lots of reels spinning at once, More Chilli. All of them, on any floor, return what their approved configuration returns over millions of spins, and no pick, line count or theme changes that.