Paytable breakdown
Hot Shots Symbols Explained
What each Hot Shots symbol actually pays and how the 243-ways board reads a win.
Go to partner casino- Number of reels
- 5x3
- Theoretical RTP
- 97.15%
- Variance
- medium-high
- Lines
- 243 ways to win
- Maximum win
- 2500x
How the Hot Shots paytable works
Hot Shots pays on 243 ways, so wins form when matching symbols land on consecutive reels from left to right, starting on reel one. Low-value symbols sit at the bottom of the paytable, the animal characters carry the mid-to-high payouts, and the highest-paying regular symbol is most consistently reported as the bear. The football Wild substitutes for these symbols and expands to cover extra positions when it lands on reels three to five.
- Card symbols pay least, animal characters pay most
- Wild only appears on reels 3-5 and expands on landing
- Full per-symbol pay values are not published in every source
Reading the symbol set
Hot Shots leans on a football-and-animals theme rather than a straight sports skin. The card ranks (9 through A) fill the lower rungs of the paytable, which is standard for a slot at this volatility level, and they exist mainly to keep the low end of the pay range populated between the bigger character hits.
Above the cards sit the animal symbols — bulldog, bull, leopard, rooster and similar mascots depending on which review's naming you check. These are the symbols doing the actual work on the reels: they show up more often in the described big-hit combinations than the cards do, and one review singles out the bear as the top regular-paying symbol, with five of a kind on that symbol tied to the game's headline 2,500x figure.
The Scatter is the Hot Shots logo. It doesn't sit in the regular pay ranks at all — its job is triggering free spins and paying its own scatter award when three or more appear anywhere on the reels, independent of the adjacency rule that governs the rest of the paytable.
The Wild is the football symbol, and it behaves differently from a typical single-position wild. It's restricted to reels three, four and five, and when it lands it expands to cover multiple positions on that reel, which can turn a near-miss into a paying combination across several ways at once. That expansion is the main mechanical reason the symbol carries more weight than a plain substitute would.
One thing worth being upfront about: no source in this research gives a complete, position-by-position pay table with exact multipliers for every symbol at every count. What's consistently documented is the ranking — cards below animals, animals below the bear, and the bear tied to the top payout figure — rather than a full published grid.
Hot Shots at a glance
| Provider | iSoftBet |
|---|---|
| Reels | 5 |
| Paylines | 243 ways to win |
| Volatility | medium-high |
| RTP | 97.15% |
| Max win | 2500x |
| Bet range | 0.25 – 125 |
| Released | 2018-04-20 |
Where Hot Shots fits in the series
- Hot Shots released by iSoftBet with its 243-ways, football-and-animals paytable (release date per third-party specs, not confirmed on the provider's own site).
- iSoftBet expanded the concept with Hot Shots 2 (a 243-ways sequel) and Hot Shots Megaways (a separate Megaways-engine title), both distinct paytables from the original.
Symbol and paytable questions
Which symbol pays the most in Hot Shots?
The bear is the symbol most consistently identified as the top regular payer, with five of a kind on it linked to the game's headline 2,500x figure in the reviewed sources.
Why does the Wild only appear on some reels?
The football Wild is restricted to reels three, four and five. That's a design choice tied to its expanding behaviour: it covers extra positions on those reels rather than acting as a simple one-position substitute.
Does the Scatter pay on its own?
Yes. The Hot Shots logo Scatter pays a scatter award when three or more land anywhere on the reels, separate from triggering the free spins feature.
How does a win actually form on 243 ways?
There are no fixed paylines. A win needs matching symbols on adjacent reels starting from reel one and running left to right, so position on the reel matters more than which line it sits on.
Do free spins pay differently than the base game?
Free spins wins are reported to carry a 3x multiplier across the board, on top of whichever symbols land, which is what separates the feature payouts from base-game hits.
Is there a full published pay chart for every symbol?
Not a complete one. Sources agree on the ranking — cards below animals, animals below the bear — but not every count-and-symbol combination has a confirmed exact multiplier.
Can the Wild expansion cover the whole reel?
Reports describe it expanding to cover up to five positions on the reel it lands on, which is enough to fill that reel's column across the ways-based grid.
Does the low end of the paytable matter much at this volatility?
The card symbols keep the paytable's floor populated, but the described big-hit combinations in reviews centre on the animal symbols and Wild expansions rather than the low-value cards.