Light & Wonder Buffalo Slots: The WMS Buffalo Spirit Games

Thirty lines and a copying wild

Buffalo Spirit is the oddity of the buffalo catalog: a payline game in a genre that mostly pays on ways. It runs 30 lines, and its main feature happens in the base game. When the buffalo wild lands on the center reel, the Replicating Wild feature copies wilds onto reels one, two, four and five, which spreads wilds across the grid in a single spin.

The free spins are generous on paper. Three, four or five scatters award 10, 20 or 40 spins on an alternate reel set, every win in the round is doubled, and the round retriggers. Bets run from 0.30 to 90, and the RTP of 95.97% comes from reviewers (Slotcatalog, VegasSlotsOnline and slotslike), since Light & Wonder publishes no page for the game.

The data on this one is thin, and the review says so. Sources disagree on whether the grid is 5x3 or 5x4 and whether it came out in 2014 or 2015. A land-based WMS cabinet is widely assumed but no source confirms one, so the review treats Buffalo Spirit as an online game only. No max win is published and no US casino page lists it.

Double Buffalo Spirit moves to 1,024 ways

The follow-up drops the paylines. Double Buffalo Spirit runs 5x4 with 1,024 ways, which brings it close to the Aristocrat template in structure, and its free spins follow the familiar ladder: three, four or five scatters award 8, 15 or 20 spins, and scatters during the round add 5, 8, 15 or 20 more. In the free spins, wilds become 2x or 3x multiplier wilds, and several in one win combine. Claims of “up to 10x” circulate online but have no source.

This one has a documented land history. WMS showed Double Buffalo Spirit at G2E 2014 as a for-sale video game on its Blade cabinet, and trade press confirms a release for land-based and real-money online play, with the online version usually dated 2015. The online RTP is 95.96% at VegasSlotsOnline and casinolistings (aboutslots rounds it to 96%). On a casino floor the return is configured by the venue, as with any cabinet. Reviewers rate the volatility medium.

Like its predecessor, it is not confirmed at any US online casino. The Buffalo Spirit vs Double Buffalo Spirit comparison sets the 30-line original against the ways-based sequel.

How the WMS pair fits the genre

The two games show the two directions buffalo slots took before Megaways arrived. Buffalo Spirit bets on a base-game feature, the copying wild, and a high-count free spins round with a flat 2x. Double Buffalo Spirit borrows the 1,024-ways grid and the multiplying wilds that Aristocrat made standard, then adds scatter retriggers of up to 20 spins. Neither has a published max win, and neither carries the jackpots that Aristocrat’s floor cabinets do. For a closer look at the template they are measured against, the Aristocrat family page traces the original and its sequels.

The numbers side by side

On return to player the WMS pair is close to a tie: 95.97% for Buffalo Spirit and 95.96% for the online Double Buffalo Spirit, both from reviewers. What separates them is how each game spends that return. Buffalo Spirit hands part of it out in the base game through the copying wild, then pays a flat double on everything in free spins. Double Buffalo Spirit keeps its base game plain and saves its value for wilds that multiply, and two or three of them sharing a win on a ways grid can push one spin well past anything a flat 2x produces.

Stakes are less settled than returns. Buffalo Spirit is usually quoted at 0.30 to 90, though slotcatalog gives a floor of one cent. The online range for Double Buffalo Spirit is unclear, with one review site at 0.04 to 10 and another at 0.40 to 100.

Neither game has a published max win, and only Double Buffalo Spirit carries a volatility label, medium, from a single review site. That is thin ground for judging how hard either game swings, and a small opening stake says more about it than the spec sheet does.

Where Light & Wonder stands in the US

None of the group’s buffalo titles has a confirmed US online home. FanDuel has no page for either WMS game, and searches of BetMGM, DraftKings and Caesars found nothing. Trade press from January 2015 reported a real-money launch for Double Buffalo Spirit without naming a state.

The ELK side of the company is further along. ELK Studios has been live in New Jersey since April 2024 and in Michigan through Hard Rock Bet, but the launch titles named there were Wild Toro, Cygnus, the GOLD series, Nitropolis and Pirots, and no US operator page for Buffalo Toro turned up. A DraftKings listing from April 2025 that includes it is for Ontario, not a US state. The buffalo games that are confirmed in New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania or West Virginia are listed in the real-money section.

Names that cause mix-ups

The Spirit name travels further than the WMS games do. BGaming’s Savage Buffalo Spirit Megaways is an unrelated 2023 Megaways title, seen only at unlicensed offshore sites. Two more games called Buffalo Spirit, from FBM and ABXplay, appear in slot catalogs and have nothing to do with WMS either. The quickest test is the layout: a 30-line game whose center-reel wild copies itself across the grid is the WMS original, and anything else under that name is a different game.

The ELK title that is not a buffalo game

Light & Wonder also owns ELK Studios, the Swedish studio behind Buffalo Toro (2022). The name puts it in buffalo searches, but it belongs to ELK’s Toro series, alongside Wild Toro and Wild Toro II, and its theme is a matador in a Spanish desert with golden buffalos as symbols. ELK’s own page confirms a 6x4 grid, 4,096 ways and a 50,000x max win; Slotcatalog lists a fixed 94% RTP. It has no review here, and players looking for a prairie buffalo game will find more in the full list of buffalo slots.