Deal With Death

Deal With Death is Hacksaw Gaming doing what it does best: taking a simple idea and twisting it into a format with attitude. You start in Classic Mode on a 5x4 grid with 14 fixed paylines, then a Joker flips everything into Poker Mode where rows become hands. The dealer is a mechanical skeleton, more casino act than nightmare fuel.

The hook is obvious, and it works. I like the bold switch from paylines to poker logic because it gives the spins a genuine second act. Still, this is high volatility, and it plays like it: long stretches of routine, punctuated by sudden bursts of proper excitement. With RTP versions topping out at 96.25% and stakes from 0.10 to 50, it invites both dabblers and thrill-seekers.

In Classic Mode, the symbol set is clean but not exactly inspiring: eight card-suit icons split into low and high versions. The low tier pays roughly 0.1x to 3x, while the premium coloured cards run up to 20x for five of a kind, with the top spade variant sitting at the peak. Wins land on 14 fixed lines, left to right, 3 to 5 symbols.

Here is my problem: Classic Mode is competent but unremarkable, and those payouts can feel stingy for a game that sells itself on drama. The Joker helps by acting as a Wild, but only one can land at a time, so you are often waiting for the real show to begin. If you enjoy a steady base game, this falls short.

The beating heart of Deal With Death is Poker Mode, triggered when a Joker lands. All pay symbols turn into cards and each row auto-builds the best hand, paying from 5x up to 2,000x for a Royal Flush. After the flip, the Joker becomes one of four types, including hand multipliers and global multipliers up to 10x.

This is where the slot shines: the modifiers actually change outcomes rather than just adding noise. The Triple Trouble Joker is the headline act, collecting all cards, shuffling, then paying out the three best possible hands from the pool. The catch is the feel of variance. Poker Mode can spit out nothing or small change repeatedly, then suddenly drop a bruiser. You need patience.

Free spins come in three tiers, each paying 10 spins: 3 scatters trigger Deal With It with better Joker odds, 4 scatters trigger Dealbreaker where each winning hand boosts that hand's future value, and 5 scatters unlock Fool's Gold with a guaranteed Joker every spin. Retriggers are +2 for two scatters and +4 for three. Feature buys exist too, from 3x spins to 200x entry, but they are not for the timid.

Deal With Death is a stylish, high-volatility hybrid that lives or dies on how often you see Jokers. The 20,000x max win is real, and the maths teases it via a 10x multiplier landing on a 2,000x Royal Flush, but you will earn every ounce of it. I enjoy the poker twist, yet the plain base game and potentially annoying chip-spinning audio stop it being an easy recommendation for everyone.