3 Cursed Chests: Hold & Win Review: Hacksaw’s Scratchy Chest Slot Tested 5/10

3 Cursed Chests: Hold & Win is Hacksaw Gaming’s new pirate slot, with Anne Bonny and her ship, The Red Revenge, running through the theme. 5×3 layout, 17 paylines, 3/5 volatility, 2,500x max win. The hook is simple: three chests above the grid fill across spins and unlock three bonus features.

Here’s what we made of it after 1,000 spins.

Quick Specs

• RTP: 96.30% (variants 94.37% / 92.30% / 86.29%)
• Volatility: 3/5
• Max win: 2,500x
• Wintype: Paylines, 17 lines
• Bets: €0.05 to €400
• Hit frequency: 47.29%

How does 3 Cursed Chests: Hold & Win work?

Three chests sit above the grid: green, red, and blue. Each chest charges when a matching Pot symbol lands on the grid. Charged chest means you get a feature. Clear system, easy to read even if you’re new to casino games. We’ll take that.

Green chest: Cursed Wilds Respin. The grid respins with paying symbols, Wilds, and Wild Multipliers from 2x to 100x across 11 levels. If several Wild Multipliers take part in the same connection, their values add together. Hacksaw has used this kind of mechanic before. Nothing fresh here.

Red chest: Cursed Coins Bonus, the Hold & Win version. 3 lives means 3 free spins, with a refill every time a coin lands. We know the routine with this provider. Four coin colours are in play:

• Bronze: 0.2x, 0.4x, 1x
• Silver: 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x
• Gold: 10x, 15x, 20x, 25x
• Diamond: 50x, 100x, 150x, 200x, 250x, 500x, 1000x

A 1000x Diamond gets you close to the 2,500x cap with a bit of Gold around it. In our session, we mostly saw Bronze and Silver coins. Gold turned up a few times, Diamond only 3 times. That stung.

Blue chest: Cursed FS Respin. Only FS symbols and Dead symbols can land. 7 FS minimum gets you Treasure Cove. 6 FS + 1 FS Upgrade gets you Ghostly Gallows. The 7 FS threshold is high, so expect a few blank respins before you qualify.

The bonus games in 3 Cursed Chests: Treasure Cove and Ghostly Gallows

Both bonus games run on 7 to 15 free spins, based on the number of FS symbols landed during the Cursed FS Respin.

In Treasure Cove, every 3rd Pot of the same colour guarantees the matching chest activation. You charge to 3, the chest fires its feature, then it resets to 0.

Ghostly Gallows is the better idea. Any Pot that lands instantly activates the matching chest. Green Pot means Cursed Wilds, red Pot means Hold & Win, blue Pot means FS respin to chase another bonus. Getting direct access to the features feels good. The trade-off is obvious: if the Pots don’t show, the bonus can still go quiet fast.

Bonus Buy 3 Cursed Chests: Hold & Win: the 4 options

We use the x3 option a lot because it feels like you reach the feature much faster. The RTP says the opposite though, so there’s that. Hard one to judge cleanly.

For the other features, we tried everything, and we much prefer the 200x bonus to the 90x one. Getting DIRECT access to the feature every time a potion lands feels better than hoping for three matching potions during the bonus.

Our 3 Cursed Chests test: 1,000 spins, best hit 339.95x

Minimum stake, around 1,000 spins in 3 to 4 hours. Bonuses landed regularly, which lines up with the advertised 47.29% hit frequency. All three chests charged several times each.

We saw Cursed Wilds, Cursed Coins and Cursed FS. Cursed Coins was our favourite, mainly because we like Le Bandit, and it works almost the same way.

Best hit: 339.95x on a Cursed Coins Hold & Win. At minimum stake, that’s honest. Not changing your day, but it still helps the balance when you’ve decided to play.

3 Cursed Chests: Hold & Win on mobile and desktop

One hour of testing on mobile, the rest on desktop. In portrait mode, the grid stays readable and the three chests at the top don’t block the view. Bet buttons respond smoothly under the finger. Hacksaw Gaming on mobile is still very hard to beat.

On desktop, Anne Bonny sits to the left of the grid. No app download needed. With Wi-Fi, you can jump straight into a quick session.

Should you play 3 Cursed Chests: Hold & Win?

We tested it, we list it in the catalogue, but we probably won’t go back to it. The concept feels familiar for Hacksaw, the 2,500x max win is low for their catalogue, and the whole thing gives the sense of playing something we’ve already had better elsewhere.

If you’re new to casino games, 3 Cursed Chests: Hold & Win plays nicely enough: easy to understand, medium volatility, wins landing fairly often. If you’re chasing sharper volatility and bigger max win potential, Wanted Dead or a Wild or Dynasty of Death will give you a lot more.

To be honest, it barely clears average: 5/10.