Beginner's guide
How to Play The Dog House Slots
Never played a Dog House game? This guide walks you through one spin from start to finish: the screen, your bet, how a win is worked out, what the wild multipliers do and how the free spins start. It covers all nine games, and every rule here comes from the games' own help screens.
Step 1
The screen and the buttons
Every Dog House game uses the same Pragmatic Play controls, so once you know one, you know them all. On a computer they sit under the reels; on a phone the game turns to a portrait layout with a big round spin button in the middle.
- Spin: the round arrow button. Hold it on newer games for a turbo spin.
- Minus and plus: change your total bet, one step at a time.
- Autoplay: spins on its own, up to 1,000 times in a row.
- Quick spin and turbo: the same results, shown faster.
- i: the rules. This is where the RTP, the volatility, the paytable and the max win live.
- Credit and bet: your balance and the cost of one spin, at the bottom of the screen.
Games with a bonus buy show it as a sign or button next to the reels. The Big Dog House and Megaways 1000 add buttons for their ante bets and super spins.
Step 2
Setting your bet
The number on the bet button is your total bet: what one spin costs. Behind it, the game multiplies a coin value by 20, the number of lines in the classic games. You never need to work that out yourself, because every figure on this site, and every bonus buy price, is a multiple of the total bet.
In all nine games the normal range is $0.20 to $240 a spin. The Big Dog House and Megaways 1000 go higher only through their special bets, which multiply the cost of each spin.
A useful habit: pick the bet from your budget, not the other way round. If you bring $40 and want around 200 spins, that's $0.20 a spin. At $1 the same $40 lasts about 40 spins before wins, and a Dog House bonus usually takes longer than that to arrive.
| Total bet | 100 spins | 100x buy | Max win 6,750x |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0.20 | $20 | $20 | $1,350 |
| $0.50 | $50 | $50 | $3,375 |
| $1.00 | $100 | $100 | $6,750 |
| $2.00 | $200 | $200 | $13,500 |
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How a win is worked out
The series uses three ways to pay. Which one your game uses changes how you read the reels.
20 paylines
The Dog House and five others
Three or more matching symbols on a line, starting from the leftmost reel. Only the best win on each line counts, and wins on different lines are added up.
Example: three Pugs on a line pay 1.25x your bet. Five Rottweilers pay 37.5x.
Megaways
Megaways and Megaways 1000
Six reels change height every spin. Matching symbols on neighbouring reels from the left pay, and every combination counts as a separate way, up to 117,649 of them.
Example: two Rottweilers on reel 1 and one each on reels 2 and 3 make two ways, so the 0.75x three-of-a-kind pays twice.
Cluster pays
Muttley Crew
A 5×5 grid where five or more matching symbols touching up, down, left or right form a cluster. Bigger clusters pay more.
Example: a cluster of five or six Rottweilers pays 2.5x. Twenty or more pay 50x.
Each review has the full paytable in multiples of your bet, and our symbols guide puts the pays of all nine games side by side.
Step 4
Wild multipliers: added or multiplied
The wild is a dog house (a star, a jester die or a treasure chest in the themed games). It replaces every pay symbol, and it never lands alone: it always carries a multiplier.
In the classic games wilds land only on reels 2, 3 and 4, with 2x or 3x. When two wilds sit on the same winning line, their multipliers are added. Four Pugs on a line pay 3x your bet; with a 3x wild among them that becomes 9x; with a 2x and a 3x wild, 15x.
The Megaways games multiply instead: 2x and 3x make 6x, and in Megaways 1000, where a single wild can carry anything from 1x to 1,000x, two wilds can make numbers that no classic game can reach. Muttley Crew's chests go up to 10x and add together, like the classic games.
Our demo statistics show how often each multiplier really turns up.
Step 5
How the free spins start
The bonus symbol is a paw print in most games (a dice, a safe or a coloured paw in others). In the classic games it lands only on reels 1, 3 and 5, so you need all three at once. In the Megaways games and Muttley Crew it can land anywhere, and more of them give more spins.
Then, in five of the games, nine barrels spin in a 3×3 grid. Each one shows 1, 2 or 3, and the total is your number of free spins: anything from 9 to 27. In practice most rounds land at the low end: across our test rounds the barrels averaged 12.3 spins, as our barrel counts show.
During the free spins, every wild that lands sticks in place with its multiplier until the round ends. That's the whole idea of the series: a bonus starts slowly and gets better with every wild it collects. The sequels add twists:
- Dog or Alive doubles every wild multiplier at the 3rd, 6th and 9th wild and adds 3 spins each time.
- Multihold opens up to four grids and copies the sticky wilds to each new one.
- The Big Dog House adds a ghost wild on reel 5 that removes a sticky wild.
- The Megaways games let you choose between fewer spins with sticky wilds or more spins with wilds that drop in at random.
Done with the demo? Play the Dog House slots for real money, from the 2019 original to Megaways 1000. 18+. Play responsibly.
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Buying the bonus and special bets
Seven games let you skip the wait and buy the free spins, usually for 100x your bet. The newer ones sell stronger versions for more: Royal Hunt's Royal free spins with 10x–20x wilds cost 500x, and Megaways 1000's top buy costs 2,500x. The Big Dog House and Megaways 1000 also have ante bets, which raise the cost of each spin to make the bonus more likely, and super spins, which guarantee wilds on every spin but switch the free spins off.
The rules give buys almost the same RTP as normal play, so a buy is not a better deal, only a faster and swingier one. Before you try one with real money, see what a long run of them looks like in our demo statistics and the bonus buy guide.
Put it together
Your first session, step by step
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Choose a game
Start with The Dog House itself: simple rules, medium volatility. Our game picker helps if you want something else.
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Play the free demo
Every game has one, with virtual credits and every feature. Our demo guide lists where to find them.
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Open the rules
Tap i and find the RTP. At a real casino, check it again: the figure there is the one that counts.
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Set a budget and a bet
Decide what you can afford to lose, then pick a bet that gives you a few hundred spins with it.
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Set your limits
Decide before you start when you'll stop, win or lose, and stop when the budget is gone. Never top up to chase a loss.
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Enjoy the bonus, if it comes
Sticky wilds make the last spins of a round the exciting ones. If it doesn't come, that's normal too.
More on what does and doesn't help in our tips, and every term from this page explained in the glossary.
Ready to play for real? All nine Dog House slots, with the same rules you read about here. 18+. Play responsibly.
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