50 Lions pokies: the Cash Express trains, sticky wilds and approved returns

50 Lions pokies today

50 Lions is an Aristocrat pokie set on the African plains that has been rebuilt several times. Aristocrat now presents it as part of its "Aristocrat Classic Cash Express Luxury Line", describing a game "known for its stately lions, ruby red roses and glittering diamonds". The lion is also one of the three animals in Aristocrat Legends, alongside wolves and buffalo, where you choose one game and play four reel sets at once.

Because the versions differ so much, the useful question is not "how does 50 Lions work?" but "which 50 Lions is this?"

The 50 Lions versions

The Flamin Fortune choice is the same kind of trade as the dragon pick in 5 Dragons pokies: fewer games, but more chance of the bigger Hold & Spin feature. The respin feature itself is explained in our hold and spin pokies guide.

How the Cash Express trains pay

In the Luxury Line version, Aristocrat lists four features:

A train is a total of its carriages. Take a made-up example: a 20 carriage train whose carriages average 4 credits is worth 80 credits. If the Gold Train repeats it at 10x, the same train is worth 800 credits; at 2x, 160. The repeater is where the big results come from, and it is also the part you cannot count on. Aristocrat uses the same Luxury Line format for Buffalo and Timberwolf, so the Buffalo pokies Cash Express edition plays the same trick.

Sticky wilds, by the numbers

Super Jackpot Deluxe 50 Lions awards free games with sticky wilds, meaning a wild that lands stays put for the rest of the feature. That is why long features snowball. Aristocrat does not publish how often a wild lands, so here is an illustration of one reel position, assuming a fixed chance of a wild each free game:

In our calculation, at 5% a position is more likely than not to be wild by game 15. Multiply that across every position on the screen and you see why the late free games in a sticky wild feature pay far more than the early ones, and why a feature that ends early can feel like a let-down.

What the approval records show

The ACT's published gaming machine approvals show 50 Lions across three eras:

Roaring Riches gives a range, not a single figure, for each setting. Victoria's rules require the same thing on the machine itself: if a game has more than one return or a range, the information screen must show the whole range. In our calculation, $500 of play on Roaring Riches costs on average:

On the 2006 Multilink setting, 4.99 percentage points of the required 87% had to come from the linked jackpot, so on average the reels themselves paid back 82.01% and the rest arrived only as jackpots. For the same sums on any machine, use our pokies calculator, and to see how venue machines compare with published online returns, see highest RTP pokies.

Pundit tip: when an information screen shows a range, assume the low end until the screen tells you which bet or setting earns the high end.

Free and online 50 Lions

Heart of Vegas, Aristocrat's social casino app from Product Madness, lists 50 Lions among its games on the Australian App Store. The listing says the app is for adults 18+, uses virtual coins, and "does not offer gambling or an opportunity to win real money or prizes", while selling coin packages up to $49.99.

For real money there is no lawful online option in Australia. The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 prohibits offering online pokies to people here, and ACMA blocks offshore sites that do. It is not an offence for you to play, but any winnings on such a site sit outside Australian protection, and we found no Aristocrat Interactive announcement of an online 50 Lions at all. Free, confidential support is on our gambling help page.

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