Verdict: Four fixed jackpots topped by a 500x Grand, plus medium volatility, make this the steadier of Playson's two Buffalo Power games. The 2023 sequel has the bigger ceilings, and US players will not find either at a regulated casino.
The respin round first
Most of what matters in Buffalo Power: Hold and Win happens in its bonus, so start there. Six or more Bonus or Power symbols in one spin trigger it. Those symbols lock in place and the player gets 3 respins. Every new Bonus or Power symbol that lands sticks and resets the count back to 3. When a respin goes by with nothing new, the round ends and the prizes on the grid are added up.
The grid has 15 cells: five reels of three rows. Fill every one and the total of the round is doubled. That is the moment the whole game is built toward.
Four fixed jackpots sit inside the round. Slotcatalog lists them as Mini at 20x the stake, Minor at 50x, Major at 150x and Grand at 500x. They are set multiples of the bet, so a player knows before spinning what each tier is worth. None of them is a progressive pool.
Playson released the game on July 2, 2020. It was the first entry in what became the Buffalo Power series.
Free spins and the doubled stacks
The base game runs on 20 fixed paylines and has one wild, a stacked Buffalo Wild. It is a modest base game by design.
The free spins feature changes that wild. Scatters on reels two, three and four award 8 free spins, and during the round the Stacked Wilds become Stacked Wild x2: every win they take part in is doubled. A full stack on the centre reel in free spins can lift several of the 20 lines at once. The round can be retriggered.
This gives the game two separate routes to a good result. The respin bonus pays from the bonus symbols and the fixed jackpots, and the free spins pay from line wins with doubled wilds. A session where neither lands is a long run of small line wins.
What the numbers say
Every source read lists an RTP of 95.04%. That is the one figure for this game that nobody disputes, though Playson’s own game page could not be read to confirm it. Slotcatalog and slotstemple rate the game medium volatility.
Stakes run from 0.20 to 100 per spin in slotcatalog’s listing, which quotes them in pounds.
The maximum win is 1,187x the stake, a figure that comes from slotcatalog alone. A single source is still a single source, and the jackpot tiers rest on slotcatalog too.
No feature buy is documented in any source read.
How the fixed prizes compare
Fixed jackpot ladders are common in buffalo slots, and Buffalo Power’s sits in a familiar range. NetGame’s Wild Buffalo puts four fixed jackpots on a bonus wheel, from a 10x Mini to a 500x Super, so its top tier matches the Buffalo Power Grand exactly. Booming’s game tops out at a 1,000x Grand. Aristocrat’s land cabinet Buffalo Link uses a different model altogether, with progressive Grand and Major prizes that grow on the casino floor and fixed Minor and Mini awards below them.
What sets Buffalo Power apart is the doubling. Most respin games pay the sum of what lands. This one rewards a full grid by doubling the whole round, which makes the last empty cell the most valuable symbol in the game. On a 5x3 grid there are only 15 cells to fill. Buffalo Link’s Grand, by contrast, asks for 20 Buffalo symbols on a 5x4 grid.
The series that followed
Buffalo Power grew quickly after the 2020 original. Playson released Buffalo Power Megaways on June 3, 2021, Buffalo Power: Christmas on November 18, 2021 and Buffalo Power 2: Hold and Win on May 25, 2023.
The sequel is the most interesting of those for a player choosing between them. Buffalo Power 2 keeps 20 lines on a 5x3 grid but raises everything else. Its RTP is usually listed at 95.44%, with lower versions also in circulation. Slotcatalog rates it high volatility and lists a maximum win of 10,468x, nearly nine times the original’s. The Grand jackpot is 5,000x the bet, Mystery symbols can turn into Bonus or Power symbols, and the free spins carry a Total multiplier that grows as Buffalo Wilds land. iGaming Business reported that multiplier reaching 11x. Sources disagree on whether the sequel has five or six jackpots.
So the choice is fairly clear. The original is the medium-volatility version with a 500x Grand and a top win around 1,187x. The sequel is the high-volatility version with ten times the Grand.
Against Booming’s Buffalo Hold and Win
The obvious rival is Booming Games’ Buffalo Hold and Win, released in April 2021. It uses 25 lines instead of 20, lists a higher RTP at 95.91%, rates as high volatility and has three fixed jackpots with a 1,000x Grand that is won by filling the board. Buffalo Power’s full board doubles the round total; Booming’s full board is the Grand itself. The Buffalo Power vs Buffalo Hold and Win comparison works through the differences, and the Hold and Win hub covers the respin format across every buffalo game that uses it, including Aristocrat’s floor cabinet Buffalo Link.
Availability in the US
Buffalo Power: Hold and Win is not available at any regulated US online casino. Playson has no confirmed approval in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan or West Virginia; its regulated North American business is in Canada, where it works with DraftKings in Ontario and with operators in Alberta. The game turns up on some US-facing sites that sit outside the state-licensed market, and those are not regulated real-money casinos.
Each game and operator confirmed in the four online states appears in the real-money guide, where play is limited to adults 21 and over.