NOTE: Evolution has decommissioned this Game and has replaced it with Gonzo’s Treasure Map Live.
Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt Live is an Entertainment Game Show and the first of Evolution’s collaboration with their slot developer, NetEnt.
Head to BetVictor casino to play the game, as it has a special Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt promotion. Or play at LeoVegas, my top-rated casino overall. Unibet also has the game.
In this article, I will explain how to play, the strategies you can use and what I think about this very new gaming concept.
Evolution has used the popular Gonzo’s Quest story to create a hybrid Live Dealer/ RNG slots game to create a unique online gaming experience. It’s also the first live dealer game that can be played using a Virtual Reality headset.
The best way I can describe Treasure Hunt Live is like one big slot bonus round. If you’ve played Crazy Time, it’s similar to the Cash Hunt Bonus Round, where you must pick tiles to reveal a cash prize.
In Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt, you select several prize symbols you want to discover and the number of picks you want to have to find them. After selecting hidden tiles on the bonus wall, the game jumps into action, revealing Bonus Prizes, multipliers and re-drops before revealing whether the tiles you picked have won!
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Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt Live can be played at most online casinos with Evolution Live Dealer games. This live game show appears in the live casino lobby under Entertainment Games, as it has a live host and is classified as a live dealer game. I’m sure as time passes, we may find the game also listed under NetEnt slot games for no other reason than it’s related to the Gonzo’s Quest game.
If you want a recommendation of the best casino for Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt, that would be LeoVegas.
That’s because they have the best promotions and set-up for mobile users, for which this game is optimised.
Other casinos I rate and recommend are listed at the top of the review. Alternatively, you can review my list of Evolution Casinos for all game options.
Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt uses a mixture of Live Streaming, Animation, and Random Number generation to deliver an interactive, entertaining, gambling experience.
At the heart of the game is a Prize Wall where all the action takes place. Between them, the live presenter and the animated Gonzo character guide us through the game that can deliver a maximum Prize Drop of 20,000.
What’s more, in this game you take an active part, making choices that are specific to you. So while there may be 1000’s of people playing, everyone will have their own experience.
The game is divided into four segments:
The first phase of the game is to place a bet, by selecting the stones you want to find.
The betting falls into two parts:
The total bet amount is the cumulative sum of the total bet on the treasure symbols multiplied by the total number of searches you select.
Autoplay will let you replay the same bet for multiple betting rounds. Just select the number of rounds to play and click start.
For example, you bet £€$5 on each of 3 symbols and select 7 searches, the total bet will be (5+5+5) x 7=105
There are 6 symbols you can select – each appears on the wall a different number of times. The base payout for each is reflected by the number of treasures there are for each symbol. The more, the lower the payout, the ones with a few have a higher payout.
Stone | Number of Stones | Pays | Chance of Getting |
---|---|---|---|
Brown | 27 | 1:1 | 38.5% |
Orange | 20 | 2:1 | 28.5% |
Purple | 12 | 4:1 | 17% |
Green | 7 | 8:1 | 10% |
Blue | 3 | 20:1 | 4.28% |
Red | 1 | 65:1 | 1.42% |
Once the betting time has closed the stone tiles on the wall are flipped over and shuffled, so you don’t know where anything is.
Along the bottom of the screen, you have displayed the number of searches you have to make, which is represented by a hand palm print.
Using your mouse button or finger, touch the blank stones to select them until you have used up all your selections. The stones you have selected will have a palm print on them.
You can change your mind by moving the handprints to different stones, as long as that is done within the countdown clock.
You can of course let the game decide which stones are for you, by letting the count-down clock expire. Any outstanding picks are automatically assigned by the game.
Once you have completed the selection of stones, Gonzo steps forward and turns a key to start the Prize Drop.
Between 0 and 7 Bonus prizes can appear along the top of the wall in the form of multipliers (between 2 and 10 times) and Bonus Values (between 3 – 100).
If there is a gap in the row, the prize value drops down the wall and stops at a randomly selected tile, increasing the prize value of that tile.
If one of the prizes is a multiplier and there is a gap below for it to drop, the multiplier will be applied to all visible bonus values on the wall.
A re-drop (up to a maximum of 10) can also occur during the game round, which will repeat the Prize Drop round each time.
The maximum amount an individual stone can reach during the Prize Drop is 20,000.
When the Prize Drop has completed the location of all the stones is revealed by the wall. Stones that you have bet on and have correctly identified on the wall are highlighted, revealing the prize value that will be applied to your bet.
If you’ve not got any stones correct you’ve lost.
If you’ve got a match, the stone value is multiplied by the bet amount giving you the total return.
All successful bets are added together including the stake amount and your total prize amount is displayed in the middle of the screen.
That is the end of the game round, and on to the next betting time.
The maximum win on a game round for any one player is £€1,000.000.
Now, let’s have a look at playing strategies for Evolution’s Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt Live.
Strategies for playing gonzo’s treasure hunt are going to boil down to how much risk you want to take and how desperate you are to get one of the very rare big wins.
I should say at the start that any win over 10 times your bet should be considered good. When you’re betting bear this in mind, as the most frequent returns are likely to be in that area.
Creating a bet is a combination of two elements – The stones and the number of guesses you want – the more of both you have the greater the chances for a win, but also the higher your total bet amount will need to be.
Gonzo Betting Strategies include:
This is the most basic strategy and somewhat the most obvious. The more picks you have the more likely you are to get a winning stone. There are 70 stones on the wall and the maximum number of picks you can have is 20. With 20 picks you’ll be able to uncover 28% of the treasure wall, which is just over a quarter of the tiles.
Pick your stone. You might select by the payout potential of the stone (e.g. 1x, 2x, 8x, 65x) or the number of stones that will be on the wall. My advice is to pick one of the lower valued stones.
Then select the number of picks – I’d do between 10 and 20 picks.
As an example, I place 0.25 cents/pence on the Green Stone at 8x and 20 picks. That equals a total bet of €$£5. You’ve got 20 chances to find eight green stones.
Example Bet: 1 Tile at 0.25, multiplied by 20 picks. The total bet is £$€5. A 20 times bet payout is needed to break even.
For this to work, you need to place a bet on the Brown and Orange Stones. This will cover the wall with 45 winning tiles, with each having an initial return of 1x or 2x.
Bet 0.25 cents/pence on each tile and select 20 searches. The total bet will be £$10. You have over a 1 in 2 chance of finding a winning tile.
This works best for multiple winning tiles – giving more opportunities to win.
Pros
Cons
Example Bet: 2 Tiles at 0.25 a tile, multiplied by 20 picks. The total bet is £$€10. A 40 times bet payout is needed to break even.
Betting on everything will guarantee you winning tiles. Everything you pick will be a tile you have bet on.
This is the most costly strategy of them all and actually doesn’t guarantee the bigs wins – but does increase your chances of having that big win tile.
I’ve included this for completeness sake, but my advice is not to play this strategy. If you’re tempted, reduce the stones you bet on or the number of picks.
Pros
Cons
Example Bet: 6 Tiles at 0.25 a tile, multiplied by 20 picks. The total bet is £$€30. A 120 times bet payout is needed to break even.
The theoretical RTP for Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt is 96.56%.
The RTP’s for the individual stones are all roughly the same, which means the game has been balanced to give the same type of playing experience and return, regardless of the stone you have bet on.
This doesn’t mean the frequencies of the wins are the same, as they depend on your ability to find the stones you have bet on.
What the RTP tells me, is the game is likely to be highly volatile, with regular small wins the occasional 100x plus win, and very rare 1000x wins.
Stone | Payout | RTP |
---|---|---|
Brown | 1:1 | 96.42% |
Orange | 2:1 | 96.51% |
Purple | 4:1 | 96.35% |
Green | 8:1 | 96.56% |
Blue | 20:1 | 96.55% |
Red | 65:1 | 96.52% |
Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt Live is the first game by Evolution to use Virtual Reality technology. If you have a VR headset you’ll be able to play in VR Mode, giving you a 360-degree view of the game.
The playing interface has been adapted slightly, so a VR controller can be used to place bets and pick stones on the wall.
The content is streamed in 4k Hig definition, so a good connection of at least 17Mbps is recommended. A lighter 2k version is in the pipeline for European players.
Of course, Gonzo’s Treasure hunt can be played on all device types, from your basic Desktop PC to your Tablet and Android/iPhone. Play is offered in both Landscape and Portrait modes, making this game ideal for mobile live casinos.
Unlike other live dealer games, there are no statistics of past gameplay or wins for Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt.
This game is an RNG game – there is no live activity that controls the prize drops – it’s all computer-generated. This means that past results, while interesting, have no bearing on what the next game will do.
There are some sites, notably Tracksino, that record wins of live games, so you should be able to see a history of past wins.
Evolution has its own Big Wins Channel on Youtube, where you can see the latest and biggest wins from all of Evo’s live games. I’m assuming the big wins for Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt will be included.
Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt Live went live at all Evolution Casinos on the 9th of June 2021, although it was available at selected casinos from the 19th of May 2021.
This game has been created to appeal to all player types. Like Evolution’s other entertainment games, it will be addictive, fun, annoying, have some massive payouts and also trash your bankroll before you know what’s happened. It will be everything a great gambling game should be.
The maximum payout on a Stone Treasure is 20,000x. payouts are capped at £€1,000,000.
The live element of the game is the Casino host and the player interaction with the game. All the rest is animation. An RNG engine is used to determine the results for players. This somewhat goes away from true Live Dealer games, where everything is real and live. this is a hybrid of RNG and Live with more being RNG than Live.
Player Interaction and the Casino Host are the two live elements of the game.
Yes, there are playing strategies for Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt Live. Click for the latest hints and tips on how to play.
You’ll be able to play at any online casinos that have Evolution or NetEnt games. My personal Recommendation is Leo Vegas for the best experience on Desktop and Mobile devices.
In its true sense no, but how it’s been constructed, yes. The game uses an RNG engine to determine the result, much like a slot game would. The action of picking stones is very similar to the bonus round functionality we see in slots where you have to make a choice. So it is a slot but not presented like one.
Every player has a different playing experience. This is because they pick their own stones or maybe the same, but also maybe pick different stone tiles on the wall. There are so many combinations that it’s possible two-player have bet and chose the same, but highly unlikely that will occur regularly.
The theoretical RTP is 96.56%. The RTP is consistent across all bet types.
There is no widely available demo mode for Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt Live, so you will not be able to play for Free. While this is a NetEnt collaboration the game is produced by Evolution, who as a rule don’t offer free play on their live casino games.
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This is another well-crafted game from Evolution. The presentation of the game is slick and the graphics and studio are amazing.
Sadly the same can’t be said of the game, which I found interesting, to begin with, but extremely boring to play after a while.
It just didn’t have the X-factor that will keep you coming back for more, like Crazy Time or Monopoly. The promise of a max payout of 20,000x simply isn’t going to be enough to keep enticing players back.
My fears of there being no community bond were quickly realized, with some players winning and others not. While Crazy Time can drive everyone mad, it does that to everyone – you only have to look at the chat to see the feedback. Win or lose a buzz is created that keeps you coming back for more. Sadly the same cannot be said of Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt.
Calling the game live is cheeky, as no element of the game is “live”. The presenter seems to be there to add the “Live” element but serves no real purpose other than to continually explain to new players how to play, which if you play for more than 30 mins you’ll quickly get bored of.
The most fun I had was watching some clueless Youtube streamer play the game, making ridiculous bets, and losing their money before finally winning with a fluke. I switched off shortly after because it was too boring to watch!
This isn’t the game-changer I was hoping it to be, but I’m hopeful that it will be a catalyst for other new games that will be better.
Live Entertainment Games like Gonzo’s Live Treasure Hunt are the most played live dealer games online.
If you like this game, you can try others from Evolution and Playtech.