Buffalo Power: Hold and Win vs Buffalo Hold and Win: Which to Play

Same bonus, different payoffs

Buffalo Power: Hold and Win from Playson and Buffalo Hold and Win from Booming Games both run on a 5x3 grid, and both trigger their respin bonus the same way: six or more bonus symbols start 3 respins, each new symbol resets the count, and the round ends when a respin passes empty.

The difference is what the full grid is worth.

In Booming’s game the full board is the Grand jackpot, 1,000x the stake. The ladder below it is short, with a Mini at 25x and a Major at 100x and no Minor in between. Nearly all of the game’s top-end value sits in that one outcome.

In Playson’s game a full grid doubles the round’s total, and the Grand is a separate prize of 500x. Its ladder has four steps: Mini 20x, Minor 50x, Major 150x and Grand 500x. More steps, a lower top.

Both end up in the same place on paper. Slotcatalog lists the maximum win at 1,187x for Buffalo Power and 1,200x for Booming’s game.

Free spins

Here Playson’s game has more to offer. Scatters on reels two, three and four award 8 free spins, and during them the stacked Buffalo Wild becomes a Stacked Wild x2, doubling every win it is part of. The round can retrigger.

Booming’s free spins also give 8 spins, from three scatters on the middle reels, but slotcatalog notes no extra modifiers. They are ordinary spins, valuable mostly as extra chances at the coin bonus. Its base game has stacked wilds in stacks of three on reels two to five, which cover a full reel on a three-row grid.

Volatility, RTP and stakes

Booming’s game is the harsher of the two. Slotcatalog and PlayUSA rate it high volatility, while Buffalo Power is rated medium by slotcatalog and slotstemple. That fits the jackpot design: Booming concentrates its value in a single full board, Playson spreads it across four tiers and a better free spins round.

RTP favours Booming slightly, 95.91% against 95.04%. Lines differ as well, 25 on Booming’s game and 20 on Playson’s. Stakes run from 0.20 to 100 on Buffalo Power and from 0.25 to 250 on Booming’s, so higher-stakes players have more room on the Booming game.

Who should pick which

Choose Buffalo Power for a steadier game with a stronger free spins round and four jackpot steps to aim at. Choose Buffalo Hold and Win for the higher RTP, the bigger top jackpot and a respin bonus where the whole session points at one result.

Both studios kept going. Playson followed with Buffalo Power Megaways (2021), Buffalo Power: Christmas (2021) and Buffalo Power 2: Hold and Win (2023), which raised the Grand to 5,000x. Booming followed with Buffalo Hold and Win Extreme in 2024, which spreads the bonus across four grids and adds a 100x feature buy, and has released several more variants since. The Hold and Win hub covers the format across every buffalo game that uses it, including Aristocrat’s floor cabinet Buffalo Link.

Availability

Neither game is confirmed at a regulated US online casino. Playson’s regulated North American presence is in Canada, in Ontario and Alberta, and Booming Games holds a B2B licence from Ontario’s AGCO. Neither has a confirmed approval in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan or West Virginia. The buffalo slots that are approved there are listed in the real-money guide, for players 21 and over.