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A normal wild helps you once. It appears, completes whatever lines it can, and is swept away with the rest of the spin. A sticky wild helps you again on the following spin without having to land again. If two more arrive, all three stay. By the end of a round the grid can hold five, six or more wilds that all landed on different spins and are all still working.
The rule has an end point, and it is always the end of the feature. The last free spin plays out, the last respin settles, and the grid clears. No game in the Sticky Wild lobby carries a locked wild from one bonus into the next, and none carries one into the base game. When a round retriggers, the wilds already on screen stay and the new spins are added to the count.
Everything else is variation on that rule: which reels the wild may land on, whether it brings a multiplier, whether a second wild in the same place makes the first one stronger, and whether wilds earn extra spins. Those are the questions a paytable answers, and they are the questions the sections at Sticky Wild are built around.
Some games lock the wild right in the base game and give you one or two extra spins with it held. Starburst is the classic: a wild on reels two, three or four grows to fill the reel and the other reels spin again, up to three times. Joker Pro locks a Joker on the middle reels and turns reels one and five wild for a single respin. These hits come often and pay modestly, which makes them the gentlest place to see the symbol at work.
Here the lock lasts for the whole round, usually eight to twelve spins, and it is where the symbol earns its reputation. Dead or Alive 2 from NetEnt gives twelve spins on nine lines with wilds allowed on every reel. The Dog House from Pragmatic Play gives nine to twenty-seven spins with a 2x or 3x badge on every locked wild. Wild West Gold widens the grid to five-by-four, forty lines and wilds worth up to 5x. Each of these is in the Sticky Wild lobby with its paytable open one tap from the reels.
Wanted Dead or a Wild from Hacksaw Gaming offers three bonus games, and only one, Dead Man's Hand, uses sticky wilds. The Dog House Megaways lets you pick sticky wilds or raining wilds before the round. Where feature buy is allowed in your market, both games let you pay a fixed price for the round instead of waiting for scatters.
The single most misunderstood line in a sticky wild paytable is what happens when a new wild lands on a spot that already holds one. In many games, nothing: the position is already wild, and the new symbol is wasted. In NetEnt's saloon rounds it is the best thing that can happen. In Old Saloon a second wild on an occupied spot turns that wild into a 2x wild. In High Noon Saloon the same event upgrades it to 2x and then 3x. In Train Heist every wild, occupied spot or not, raises a shared multiplier by one and adds a spin.
Pragmatic Play takes the other route. The Dog House and Wild West Gold attach the multiplier to the wild the moment it lands, and a second wild in the same place changes nothing. The trade-off is that early wilds are worth more in Pragmatic Play games, because every later line they touch is multiplied, whereas in NetEnt games a round can be slow for ten spins and then snowball in the last two.
Studios name the same behaviour four or five different ways, and a few names mean something slightly different. The table sorts them.
Term | Meaning | Same as sticky wild? | Example in the Sticky Wild lobby |
Sticky wild | Wild that keeps its position for further spins | Yes | Dead or Alive 2 (NetEnt) |
Locked wild | Same behaviour, different word | Yes | Sticky Wild: Farm 51 (NetGame) |
Frozen wild | Same behaviour, used in ice and winter themes | Yes | Winter-themed titles across the lobby |
Held wild | Wild held for a respin rather than a full round | Shorter lock | Starburst (NetEnt) |
Locked coin | Coin symbol that locks during a respin round | Same lock, different symbol | Coin Strike: Hold and Win (Playson) |
Walking wild | Wild that moves one reel per spin | No, it moves | Wild Toro (ELK Studios) |
Expanding wild | Wild that grows to fill a reel for one spin | No, unless also held | Starburst (NetEnt) |
The last two rows are the ones that cause confusion. A walking wild also survives more than one spin, but it changes position, so lines that paid last spin may not pay this one. An expanding wild is bigger, not longer-lived, unless the game also holds it for a respin.
It pays the same on average, as the RTP states. It pays differently: less often in the base game, more in the bonus. Dead or Alive 2 lists 96.8% at its default setting, and almost all of that return sits inside the free spins.
No. Each spin is independent, and a locked wild does not change the odds of the next one. It only means the next one, when it comes, has company.
Only in a few respin games, and only for the respins. In free spin rounds the wild stays until the last spin, win or lose, and the grid clears when the round ends.
Ten minutes in demo mode teaches more than any description. The steps below use Dead or Alive 2 because it shows the symbol in its purest form.
Once the rule is clear, the differences between studios become easy to see. The Sticky Wild lobby is arranged so that each studio's version sits next to the others.
Dead or Alive and Dead or Alive 2 use a wild with no multiplier of its own. Its strength comes from numbers and from the upgrade rule: a second wild on an occupied spot turns the first into a 2x or 3x wild in the saloon rounds. The wild may land on any of the five reels, and a wild on every reel adds five spins. Rounds are twelve spins long, which gives the accumulation time to happen.
The Dog House stamps 2x or 3x on every locked wild and confines wilds to reels two, three and four. Wild West Gold widens the grid to five-by-four and forty lines, allows wilds on all reels and raises the badge to 5x. Rounds are shorter, eight or nine spins, and a round's result is set by how early the first badged wild arrives.
Wanted Dead or a Wild puts the sticky wild in Dead Man's Hand and offers two other bonuses beside it. On a five-by-five grid with fifteen lines each wild touches more lines than on a five-by-three, and the round can be bought outright where feature buy is permitted.
Vikings Go Berzerk makes each Viking symbol fight a Siren during free spins. The winner locks as a wild. A Viking whose rage meter was filled before the round wins every fight, so the base game has a job to do before the bonus starts.
Sticky Bandits locks two-by-two Massive Wilds for seven free spins. Four positions per wild means two of them cover a third of a five-row grid, and a full-screen win is a realistic outcome rather than a rare one.
Every game page at Sticky Wild reproduces the wild rules from the paytable, in the same order, so the five checks below can be done before the game loads.
A paytable that answers all five is a game you can size a bankroll for. A paytable that answers two is a game to try in demo first.
A respin lock, as in Starburst, pays small and often, and a session of a hundred spins will show dozens of them. A free spin lock, as in Dead or Alive 2, pays rarely and large, and the same hundred spins may not reach the round at all. Neither is better; they cost different amounts of patience. A balance of a hundred stakes is comfortable for a respin game. For a free spin sticky wild game the same balance may never see the feature, and three to five hundred stakes is the sensible floor. Sticky Wild marks each game with the shelf it belongs to so the choice is made before the deposit, not after.
Sticky Wild accounts run in EUR. Deposits through Visa, Mastercard, Skrill, Neteller, Trustly and paysafecard are credited when the provider confirms them; withdrawals go to cards, e-wallets or bank transfer, with e-wallets released first once verification is done. Identity and address are checked before the first withdrawal, so a clear document uploaded at sign-up saves time later.
Promotions show their wagering, game weighting and stake cap on the offer page. Sticky wild games are volatile enough to breach a stake cap by accident, so check the cap before playing them with bonus funds. The site works in any phone browser without an app, and the same login carries balance and limits across devices.
Sticky Wild is for adults of legal gambling age. Deposit limits, loss limits, time-outs and self-exclusion are in account settings, and a lower limit takes effect immediately. If play stops being fun, Gamblers Anonymous (https://www.gamblersanonymous.org) offers free, independent help.
The help centre at Sticky Wild is written around the questions new players ask: why a wild vanished at the end of a round, whether demo results are representative, how verification works and how to lower a limit. What the help centre does not cover goes to the support team by chat or contact form from the account menu. Account-specific answers are given only to the verified holder, and a self-exclusion request is applied on the spot without further questions.
It substitutes for other symbols like a normal wild and then keeps its position on the reels for the following spins until the feature ends.
Yes. Locked, frozen and sticky describe the same behaviour. Held usually means a shorter lock, for a respin only.
No. Every game in the lobby clears its locked wilds when the feature ends.
Dead or Alive 2, because the wild has no multiplier of its own and the round is long enough to watch wilds accumulate.
Yes. Demo mode is open on every game in the Sticky Wild lobby.
In NetEnt's saloon rounds it upgrades the existing wild to 2x or 3x. In Pragmatic Play games nothing changes.
EUR, for every account, deposit and withdrawal.
Learn the symbol in demo, read the upgrade rule in the paytable, set a limit, and then play the round for real. Sticky Wild adds a game to the lobby whenever a studio gives the symbol a new twist.
