Texas Tea

Texas Tea slot machine review

Take a trip down to the great state of Texas and try to strike it rich with the Texas Tea slot machine. This cartoon-style slot machine by IGT provides the thrill of cosplaying as a Southern oil man (Texas Ted).

Texas Tea’s flashy animations, scenes, and fast gameplay are sure to make players want to stick around for a spell. The chance for a big jackpot and two big variable bonuses doesn’t hurt either.

As a franchise, the Texas Tea slots are an interesting mixture of old cartoon-style graphics and newer animations. The free-to-play slot machine background is a simple blue sky with two oil derricks lining the reels, and the symbols are placed on a white background. Each symbol is a nicely drawn Texas-themed piece, though.

The reels feature a bull, an armadillo, Texas Ted’s car and airplane, the logo, a yellow rose, and a cactus.

The car flashes its lights and honks on wins, and the armadillo sticks out its tongue and shouts. Most impressive is that both bonuses feature fully animated transitions and payouts, with characters dancing, oil derricks pumping, and checks floating through the air.

The soundtrack is fairly catchy frontier-style music, though it’s a little more cattle-drive than prospector.

There’s a significant focus on the themed sound effects that trigger when wins occur or when specific spaces appear on the board. Players will hear a lot of honking, whip cracking, and bull snorting.

After a while, the sound can become overwhelming, but it does a good job of building excitement as the reels settle.

Texas Tea slots: core gameplay

Texas Tea real money slots feature three rows and five reels, but only nine paylines are possible. Players can choose to place real money bets on one, three, five, or all nine.

The paylines are fairly easy to keep track of, as there are just three horizontals and a few diagonal variations. Everything has to flow along the payline from left to right to win, except for the Texas Ted spaces. These are scatter-based and pay out as long as they’re anywhere on the board.

A straight jackpot is available, with five matching Texas Tea symbols in a payline paying out 10,000 times the line bet.

The core gameplay can be an interesting mix of volatile and steady. With only nine paylines, there aren’t as many ways to win as some modern machines, and the game doesn’t feature any wilds to help bridge gaps.

Players betting on all nine lines will definitely see some major swings, as a few misses can put a real strain on the buy-in. That said, the game somewhat alleviates this by offering some very generous payouts.

The lower-paying flower spaces still pay off a slightly profitable amount for just matching three, and the higher-paying spaces offer consolation payouts for just two matching spaces.

Even getting just one Texas Tea symbol in the left column pays 2x the line bet. This prevents the game from being too harsh on the player’s bank while they’re seeking a bigger win to recover.

Texas Tea slot bonus features

The Texas Tea slot has two bonus features that offer some of the bigger potential payouts. The first is a fairly simple variable scatter win—Texas Ted scatters.

Oil dividend bonus

Getting three Texas Ted spaces anywhere on the board triggers the “Oil Dividend” bonus round. This isn’t an interactive game; the game just moves to Ted’s office for a quick animated scene.

After he cuts the player a check, it will appear on the screen and start counting up before settling on a total payout, which is based on a multiplier of the total bet for that spin.

The multiplier depends on how many spaces appear and a little luck. Three Scatter symbols can pay 3x, 8x, 15x, or 25x. Four Scatter symbols can pay 8x, 10x, 25x, 40x or 50x, and getting five Texas Tea icons can pay 20x, 30x, 50x, 75x or 100x.

Big Oil bonus feature

The other game is triggered by getting at least three oil derrick symbols in a winning payline, starting from left to right. This takes the player to a special “Big Oil” bonus round, which starts with a map of Texas.

Players are awarded oil pumps based on how many were in their winning payline. There are eight regions that players can choose for drilling, and players can only put one pump in each region.

Once the pumps are placed, they’ll start working. Each pump adds to the multiplier, possibly through several rounds of successful pumping.

Once each well is dry, the multiplier is applied to the line bet, and the player goes back to the main game. Payouts for big oil depend on the number of drills available.

The minimum is a 5x multiplier. Three, four, and five pumps have maximum multipliers of 100x, 200x, and 495x.

Will the Texas Tea slot be your cup of tea?

Texas Tea online slot games are great for players looking for fun bonus games, big payouts, and fast gameplay. It’s also good for free slots players. The design is adorable, and the sounds create a great atmosphere for a shorter session.

The Big Oil bonus game is a fun, interactive twist on jackpots, and the other high-payout features keep the game exciting. Problems arise only for players looking for a very long, relaxing game.

While there are still loss breakers, the limited ways to win can quickly drain smaller buy-ins.

The charm of the animations and sound effects may also wear thin after the 100th armadillo cry. Still, it’s fun for a quick visit and a chance at that black gold.