Here’s an easy one to explain: Look for 4x or higher and then fire away. The game resets at 2x and it can get up to 8x. That doesn’t mean it must hit as soon as it reaches 8x; it just means it caps at 8x.

Line hits are just about useless in this game, which is nice since that doesn’t pull any of the value out of the advantage element. You’re just spinning until you get drums or a wild symbol in the first two reels plus at least one green drum in reels three, four, or five.

Some drums in the first two reels will have +1 written on them, and those will add to your number until you’re capped at 8. However, you’ll often trigger the feature well before you reach the max of 8.

Here’s what the game looks like:

When you find a 4x or higher, like in my example above where I happen to have three plays on the 5-cent denom, make sure you’re clicking the bottom of the screen and not the blue section of bets. So in the example above, I played the 100 (x5), 400 (x7) and 600 (x5) plays, although on a 5-cent denom, that’s $5, $20, and $30 per spin!

If you do click on the blue bets (88, 176, 352, 528, 880), there can never be an advantage.

Dancing Drums Golden Drums is a second-generation version of a game called Dancing Drums, which never offered an advantage. That happens frequently enough in the slot game, where manufacturers take a concept and make a version of it that has an advantage at a certain point. Lobstermania 4 is one example of many.

There are four denoms and then five bets within each denom on Dancing Drums Golden Drums. A bad run on this game could cost you 50-75 spins (in rare cases slightly more), so if you’re betting $30 like I was at one point, that could be over $2,000. In fact, in one of my videos at the end, you can see I lost quite a bit of money on a $50 6x play.

The play ends when your green-colored drums are multiplied. It looks something like this:

The 6x in this example now looks kind of blurry, and if you were to spin again on that same bet, it would reset at 2x, so don’t do that!

You’ll frequently land drums in the first two reels and no green drums in any of the other reels, so you’d continue spinning, as the multiplier will remain what it was. Even landing yellow drums in reels three, four, or five won’t end the play.

One other thing to note: After landing drums in reels one and two, the board will grow in size by one, two, or three rows. Of course, you have no control over this, and even if it grows to the max of three, you can still completely miss triggering anything.

Often, to make real money in this game, it’s a dream to land something in column three after you get drums in columns one and two. That gives you free games, where having 4x or higher multipliers to start can really increase the advantage. Again, you have no control over that, and more often than not you won’t get free games before the play ends.

Also, there is no long-term advantage to whatever free games option you select should you get lucky and trigger this, so don’t overthink what choice you should make between fewer games with a larger board or more games with a smaller board.

I have several videos for this one, including winning and losing videos on big bets: