Dolphin Treasure Pokie Review: RTP, Free Games and Where to Play

It is worth being exact about what happened, because the case is easy to describe wrongly in either direction. A former player brought proceedings under the Australian Consumer Law against Crown Melbourne and Aristocrat over the machine’s design. Justice Mortimer dismissed every cause of action. What the case also did was put the machine on the record: five design features had to be explained and measured before they could be ruled on, from the oversized fifth reel to what the industry calls “less than bet” wins.

The reels are not the same sizeAristocrat's own combination sheet, in evidence

The first four reels of a Dolphin Treasure machine carry 30 stopping positions each. The fifth carries 44.

The finding worth knowingWhat the percentage actually describes

The applicant's central pleading about the return figure was that it “reflects the return to the venue operator calculated by reference to a cycle of operation of the Dolphin Treasure EGM involving all possible permutations of play, a cycle that is irrelevant to the actual time spent by any one player playing the Dolphin Treasure EGM in any one session of play”.

The Court’s response to that pleading is one sentence long: “The evidence establishes this is an accurate description of the RTP.” And the claim still failed — the section dealing with it is headed, in Her Honour’s own words, “The Risk representation may be confusing but is not misleading”.

One exchange belongs on this page because it is Aristocrat’s own witness rather than the applicant’s expert. In cross-examination she was taken to A 20 Game Survey of Gaming Machine Volatility in NSW, written by Luke Freeman and Daniel Mitchell of the Gaming Technology Branch at the Office of Liquor Gaming and Racing, Communities NSW. Its chart plots a NSW game with a theoretical return of 87.95% against cumulative play, and the article’s own caption reads: “The player’s expected RTP for a three hour play session would be virtually at the zero point at the left-hand side of the horizontal axis.” The witness accepted the graph looked the way she would expect.

That is the most useful sentence in the record for a player, and it is not a criticism of anyone. The percentage is true; it is simply not about your session.

Maximum winFour published answers, and none of them agree

This is the field's weakest point and it is worth being direct about. pokiespros prints a maximum of 9,000× the bet. casino.com.au's own page title promises 9,000 coins — a different unit for the same number. betsquare puts the single-spin ceiling at roughly 2,000× the stake. chipy lists a maximum win per line of 500× and total maximum winnings as undisclosed.

On the recordThe only first-hand accounts of this machine that anyone can check

There is one more source of player experience on this game, and it is unusual: sworn evidence. Lay witnesses described playing Dolphin Treasure, and their accounts are in the published judgment. We do not name them.

Go to Aristocrat Gaming’s website today and search its games index for Dolphin Treasure, and what comes back is not a 1997 reel set. It is Ultimate Fast Cash Dolphin Treasure, and the studio describes it in its own words: “Enjoy features like the Super Fast Cash coin, where landing it can mean additional Hold & Spins and the opportunity to win the Super jackpot. Or marvel at the Big Symbol Free Games feature, where the middle reels turn into one 3x3 symbol and can award the Ultimate Fast Cash feature!” The classic has none of it — no Hold & Spin, no cash-on-reels, no jackpot, and a free-games mode that simply triples line wins.