Zhao Cai Zhu

Gettin’ Piggy With It and Yo Ho Hog

Similar Games:

None come to mind, but it’s a common enough setup with three must-hits; perhaps Stack Up Pays and Ascending Fortunes if I had to pick one with the volatile must-hit feature and combo potential.

Risk Scale:

Red (500x the bet should do it, especially for blue or green; if you’re on a rare red chase, you may want closer to 800x the bet)

Minimum Play:

The following as solo-chase points: 28 blue, 45 green, 88 red. You can also play a blue-green combo at 60 or higher. Don’t try to play combos involving red for the most part, but if you see something rare like a 40 green with an 80 red, you can fire away.

Other:

I’m generally a fan of must-hits (think Regal Riches) instead of uncapped games (think Buffalo Diamond), but Zhao Cai Zhu can take you for a ride sometimes.

Here’s what this game looks like:

This game is actually a must-hit, even though it’s definitely on the volatile side. Check out the three lanterns: red, green, and blue, along with different numbers next to each. Red can’t top 100, green can’t exceed 60, and blue can’t go past 40. Therefore, the closer you are to those numbers before playing, the better.

Once you reach a bonus, you get 10 spins and collect a bunch of pigs that can increase in value if you’re lucky enough to trigger the same square multiple times. In that way, the game’s bonus reminds me of a common non-advantage game called Huff N’ Puff.

But here’s the million-dollar question: How close do you need to be with the three lanterns?

Here are some solo-chase points: 28 blue, 45 green, 88 red. You can also play a blue-green combo at 60 or higher. Don’t try to play combos involving red for the most part, but if you see something rare like a 40 green with an 80 red, fire away.

In this example above, I had a 32 blue, with the green and red nowhere close to their must-hit points. Also, you don’t need to flip through each bet to see the different numbers, as the bottom of the screen has everything included:

But how much money should you bring? I suggest 500x the bet for blue or green. So if you’re betting $4.40 per spin like I was, that’s $2,200. If you’re chasing blue or green especially, you’re unlikely to need that much, but it’s better to be safe with this type of game. If you’re on a rare red chase, you may want closer to 800x the bet.

In my nearly 11-minute video below (second clip), I didn’t finish the play before security told me to stop filming. Before even hitting blue, I got exceedingly lucky to hit the much more difficult red and green bonuses, along with a bunch of other unplanned coin-pick bonuses. Don’t count on that happening for you! About 30 seconds after getting cut off by security, I finally hit the blue bonus and made about $400 overall on the play.

On one hand, making $400 is always great. On the other, to hit so much lucky stuff on a fairly big bet and only make about $400 is a little scary. That just goes to show how volatile this game is, both in how much it can sometimes take to trigger what you’re chasing and how much you actually make once doing so. Know this going in!

I have two videos for this one: