🦉 Hoot Shot the Sheriff – Slot Overview
Giddy up, partner—Backseat Gaming and Hacksaw Gaming are heading back to the Wild West with their quirky new scatter-pays slot, Hoot Shot the Sheriff. And no, that’s not a typo—it’s Hoot, not Shoot. The sheriff in question is an owl. A gun-slinging, hat-wearing, no-nonsense lawbird named Hoot, bringing a feathery twist to frontier justice. It’s a bizarre but fun character concept that gives the game its own unique identity—definitely not something you see every day in a slot.
Gameplay-wise, Hoot Shot the Sheriff may not reinvent the scatter-pays formula, but it delivers a punchy, high-impact experience that feels right at home in a Western setting. The mechanics are sharp, the features fast, and the visuals complement the action with grit and flair.
Backseat Gaming has clearly developed a fondness for this dusty genre, having already visited similar territory in Old Gun and Clumsy Cowboys. Of the trio, Hoot Shot the Sheriff might be the most remote and rugged, set in a barren stretch of wilderness where dry grass and distant howls are your only companions. It’s not your typical Western town or saloon scene—instead, it captures the raw, untamed edge of the frontier.
Outside of its avian lead character, the slot keeps things stylistically familiar, with dusty visuals and a classic Western atmosphere. Still, with Hoot the owl sheriff front and center, it manages to bring just enough charm and absurdity to stand out in a crowded genre.
🎰 Hoot Shot the Sheriff – Gameplay & Payouts
Hoot Shot the Sheriff is a high volatility slot played on a 6×5 scatter-pay grid. Wins are created when 8 or more matching symbols land anywhere on the reels, triggering the cascade mechanic where winning symbols are removed and replaced by new ones, potentially leading to chain reactions.
Players can bet between €/$0.10 and €/$100 per spin, and the game operates with a 96.32% RTP under the default model, though lower RTP versions may also be offered depending on the casino.
💎 Pay Symbols
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Low-paying symbols: Triangles, diamonds, clubs, spades, and hearts
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High-paying symbols: Cacti, cowboy boots, money bags, and owls
Winning combinations start at:
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0.2x to 2x the bet for 8-symbol clusters
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Scaling up to 50x to 400x the bet for 19+ symbol clusters
Notably, Hoot Shot the Sheriff does not include wild symbols, putting the focus squarely on pure scatter-win mechanics and feature interactions.
🔫 Hoot Shot the Sheriff – Features & Bonus Rounds
Hoot Shot the Sheriff keeps things simple but effective, packing a punch with core features like cascading wins, a Global Multiplier, Sheriff’s badge multipliers, and two free spin bonus rounds: Midnight Gun Fight and Sheriff’s Hootout. Feature buys are also available for players who want to skip straight to the action.
🔁 Cascades, Global Multiplier & Total Win Bar
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Cascading wins: Winning symbols disappear, allowing new ones to fall in and potentially trigger more wins.
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Each cascade increases the Global Multiplier by +1, which resets between base game spins.
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Wins accumulate in the Total Win Bar.
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At the end of a spin, the Sheriff’s badge multipliers and Global Multiplier are applied together to the Total Win Bar—multiplying one another for amplified payouts.
🛡️ Sheriff’s Badge Symbol
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The Sheriff’s badge reveals a multiplier from x2 to x10.
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These multipliers are added to the Total Win Bar at the end of a spin.
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If multiple badge multipliers land, they multiply each other before being applied to the total win.
🌙 Midnight Gun Fight (Free Spins Bonus)
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Triggered by landing 3 scatter symbols, awarding 10 free spins.
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Same mechanics as the base game, but the Global Multiplier does not reset during the bonus.
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Landing 3 more scatters during this or the next bonus round awards +5 extra spins.
🎯 Sheriff’s Hootout (Free Spins Bonus)
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Triggered by 4 scatters, awarding 10 free spins.
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Global Multiplier is persistent throughout the round.
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In addition, Sheriff’s badge multipliers now increase the Global Multiplier, creating a compounding effect over time.
🛒 Bonus Buy Options
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BonusHunt FeatureSpins – 2x the bet:
Each spin is 3x more likely to trigger a bonus. -
QuickDraw FeatureSpins – 50x per spin:
Guarantees at least one Sheriff’s badge lands. -
Midnight Gun Fight Bonus – 100x the bet
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Sheriff’s Hootout Bonus – 200x the bet
🦉 Hoot Shot the Sheriff – Slot Verdict
Scatter-pays slots are everywhere these days—so much so that reviewing two of them back-to-back isn’t all that rare. In fact, that’s exactly what happened here. Fresh off reviewing Bounty County by Relax Gaming—a Western-themed scatter-pays slot—we landed squarely in another dusty showdown with Hoot Shot the Sheriff. Pure coincidence? Maybe. But a curious one nonetheless.
Thankfully, despite the genre and theme overlap, these two games take very different paths. While Bounty County leans into quirky experimentation, Hoot Shot the Sheriff sticks with a foundation of proven, no-nonsense mechanics. It doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel—but it does a solid job of making it spin fast.
You won’t find revolutionary gameplay here, but you will find straightforward and satisfying features. Think of it as the more accessible cousin of Gates of Olympus. Win, increase the multiplier, repeat, and rack it all up in the Total Win Bar. Throw in the Sheriff’s badge multipliers, and things can escalate nicely. During testing, those multipliers climbed surprisingly high, adding a real sense of momentum to the gameplay.
Is it enough to realistically imagine hitting the 25,000x max win cap? Well… maybe. The potential is certainly there. So, while Hoot Shot the Sheriff might not be breaking new ground in the scatter-pays scene, it delivers a well-oiled, easy-to-follow system that works—and works well.
In the end, players searching for the next major evolution in slot design may want to look elsewhere. But for those after a slick, enjoyable Gates-style experience, with a side of feathery frontier flair, Hoot Shot the Sheriff might just hit the bullseye.