Fire in the Hole
Fire in the Hole Stats
RTP & Maths
- RTP Versions
- 96.06% here · Other versions 94.11%, 90.02%
- Hit Frequency
- 25.98
- Max Win Probability
- 1 in 23,000,000 rounds (screen); 1 in 2,350,000 (official)
- Max Win Rule
- 60,000x the base bet ends the game round (Beer Time)
Free Spins & Bonus
- Free Spins
- 3/4/5 Bonus symbols = Lucky Wagon Spins with 2/3/4 rows open initially, 3 spins, reset to 3 spins every time a coin lands · Retrigger: spin counter resets to 3 on each coin landing; the feature ends when the reel is full or no spins remain
- Bonus Buy
- Lucky Wagon Spins, 3 Bonus symbols 60x · Lucky Wagon Spins, 4 Bonus symbols 157x · Lucky Wagon Spins, 5 Bonus symbols 500x
- Multipliers
- xBomb win multiplier +1 per exploding Wild for the next collapse; Lucky Wagon Spins multiplier enhancers x2, x3, x4, x5, x10, x25 · An exploding xBomb Wild increases the win multiplier by one for the next collapse; in Lucky Wagon Spins a Multiplier enhancer multiplies the value of all coins on the reel below it
Symbols & Pays
- Money Symbols
- Coin enhancer values 1x, 10x, 15x, 25x, 50x, 100x the active bet
- Wild
- Substitutes for any symbol except Bonus; substitutes for the highest possible winning combination
- Ways Pays
- Top symbol 7.5x · Lowest 0.2x
Nolimit City’s Fire in the Hole Demo
Three rows of mine sit above a bar of dirt, and under that a dark shaft waits to open. Fire in the Hole starts every spin there, and the dirt is where Nolimit City put the value in this 2021 slot. Land three, four, or five matching symbols along a row with no winning way on the board, and Wild Mining fires. Those symbols clear, one, two, or three Wilds drop into the middle of the line, every loose position above the bar explodes, and the mine collapses again. A row that paid nothing has just restarted the round.
Free Play Features
The Collapsing Mine
Every spin opens with three active rows, and each collapse opens one more until six are live. Wins pay and clear, the survivors fall into the gaps, and new symbols drop from above. A winning combination starts a collapse, an xBomb explosion starts one, and Wild Mining starts one. Win ways climb with the floor, from 64 at the narrowest reel setup to 46,656 with the mine fully open.
xBomb Wilds
The xBomb Wild substitutes for every symbol except the gold Bonus nugget, and the pay table gives it no row. Its work is the explosion. It removes the symbols around it (Bonus symbols excepted) and increases the win multiplier on the next collapse by 1. Any winning spin sets it off, helped make the win or not, and on a dead screen, it goes off anyway and starts the collapse itself.
Wild Mining
Wild Mining runs in standard play only, and it needs the three, four, or five identical symbols to sit horizontally with nothing winning anywhere on the board. Everything else above the bar explodes with them, Bonus and Wild symbols aside, so a failed row hands back a full collapse. It is also the one screen where xBomb Wilds hold their place instead of detonating.
Lucky Wagon Spins
Three Bonus symbols open the wagon round with two rows active, four open it with three, and five with four. Nolimit City also sells those three entries at 60x, 157x, and 500x the bet. You start with 3 spins, and every coin that lands resets the count to 3.
The top row drives the round. Each spin, it reveals an enhancer above every reel, and an enhancer only fires when a coin lands on the reel beneath it:
- Coin values set the coin’s worth, from 10x up to 100x the bet.
- Multipliers multiply every coin on the reel below, from x2 up to x25.
- Dynamite adds its count to the coin as times the bet, blows open blocked positions, activates the Collect Chest on the bottom row, or adds its count to the occupied positions underneath, working through those in order.
- Bag collects every coin on its reel into the coin that triggered it.
- Chest collects every value on the board into the triggering coin and clears the other occupied positions, apart from any Dwarf.
- Dwarf collects every value on the board into the triggering coin, then does it again on every spin that follows.
The First of Three Mines
xBomb is the only x-feature here, making it the plainest of the three mines Nolimit City has dug. Fire in the Hole 2 followed in February 2024 at 96.07%, burying more in the dirt, and Fire in the Hole 3 arrived in 2025 at 96.05%. Three returns within a hundredth of each other, so what separates them is what each one hides.
How to Play
Above and Below the Bar
Only the top three rows are in play when the reels stop. Below them is a timber bar and a shaft of dirt, and nothing down there counts until a collapse opens it. Wins pay, the winning symbols are taken out, the grid falls, and the next row unlocks. Do that three times, and all six rows are live.
A way is the same symbol on touching reels starting at reel 1, each way paying its best combination once, and wins on several combinations are all paid together. That is why an extra row matters more than it looks, since every new position adds routes for a symbol to run through. The counter above the reels reads 486 with three rows open and 46,656 once the mine is fully dug out. Few mining slots make the floor of the grid the thing that moves, and this one moves it at most three times a spin.
On a phone, the demo shell reduces to three tap targets: the spin ring on the right, the coin button for the bet grid, and the stacked menu for sound, and there is no turbo control to hurry a collapse along.
Slot RTP
€0.20 is the smallest chip in the bet grid, and Nolimit City sets the game’s upper limit at €50. The game’s RTP is 96.06%, split 63.51% across standard play and 32.55% through Lucky Wagon Spins, so about a third of what the game gives back waits behind the wagon. Operators can also run lower-return versions of this game.
Volatility sits at High here, a step below the Extreme label Nolimit City gives it, because so much of the return rides on a single round. A win of 60,000x will, in the game’s own words, “clean the mine out”, and the round ends there.
Symbol Payouts
The pay table is flat. The lantern leads at 7.5x for six, 4x for five, 2x for four, and 0.75x for three. Satchel and boot follow as a pair at 3.75x and 2.5x for six, and rope, pickaxe, and the five card ranks all land between 2x and 1x at full width. Neither the xBomb Wild nor the Bonus nugget has a row here; both are valued by what they open.
| Symbol | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lantern | 7.5x | 4x | 2x | 0.75x |
| Satchel | 3.75x | 2x | 0.75x | 0.5x |
| Boot | 2.5x | 1.5x | 0.6x | 0.45x |
| Rope | 2x | 1.25x | 0.55x | 0.4x |
| Pickaxe | 1.75x | 1x | 0.5x | 0.35x |
| K | 1.5x | 0.8x | 0.4x | 0.3x |
| Q | 1.25x | 0.7x | 0.35x | 0.25x |
| J | 1.1x | 0.6x | 0.3x | 0.2x |
| 10 | 1.05x | 0.6x | 0.3x | 0.2x |
| 9 | 1x | 0.6x | 0.3x | 0.2x |
Ultimate Slots Verdict
Wild Mining pays for the dead screens and Lucky Wagon Spins pays for everything else. The 2021 original still argues its case on rules alone, without the extras its sequels added, and it remains one of the cleanest things Nolimit City has designed.
✓ What We Like
- Wild Mining turns a no-win row of three, four, or five matching symbols into 1, 2, or 3 Wilds and another collapse
- Lucky Wagon Spins resets to 3 spins on every coin that lands, so a strong round keeps extending itself
- Coin values reach 100x and the enhancer multipliers reach x25 against the coins on the reel below them
✗ What Could Be Better
- One x-feature and no paid bet option make this the slowest way into the wagon round of the three mines
- The best symbol pays 7.5x for six, so standard play rarely covers the spins between rounds
- The wagon round ends as soon as the reel area fills, which can cut a run short before the Dwarf collects
Detailed Review
Demo Review
Three spins on the clock, and every coin that lands puts the clock back to three. That is Lucky Wagon Spins, and it is the round this review has to weigh, because the mine keeps most of its money there rather than in the pay table. Coins land, the enhancers above them decide what they’re worth, and the round ends when the reel area fills or the counter finally runs down.
That design loads a lot onto one event. Standard play tops out at 7.5x for six lanterns, which won’t cover many spins, so the collapses are there to buy time rather than to pay. What makes the time worth spending is how easily collapses arrive. A win starts one, an xBomb explosion starts one, and a dead horizontal line of three or more symbols starts one, which is a wider set of triggers than most cascade games carry.
The limits are real. With one x-mechanic and no paid bet option, this is the slowest route into the wagon of the three mines the studio has built, and the coin values are the ones its sequel inherited rather than improved. A run that never puts a Dwarf or a Chest on the board can fill the reel area with small coins and close on a figure that doesn’t justify the trip.
Five years on, this has aged better than several of the harder, louder titles in the Nolimit City catalogue. A lantern, a satchel, a boot, a rope, and a pickaxe sit above the card ranks, a timber frame holds the grid together, and the dwarf changes his look from one win screen to the next. The sound stays out of the way until the mine collapses.
Play it for the collapses and the wagon rather than the pay table, and expect long empty stretches between rounds. In free play, those stretches cost nothing, which is the fairest way to meet a mine weighted like this one.
