The Jimi Hendrix Online Slot by NetEnt brings the psychedelic spirit of the late sixties to a 5x3 grid with 20 fixed paylines. Released in April 2016 as the second entry in the NetEnt Rocks series, the game decorates its reels with colourful flowers, peace signs and vinyl records, while original Hendrix tracks play in the background.
The slot runs on medium volatility with a 96.90% RTP and a 30% hit frequency. Four bonus layers sit on top of the base reels: Red Guitar Re-Spins, a Purple Haze Wild transformation, a Pick and Click round and three separate Free Spins modes that each behave differently.
Theme, Visuals and Soundtrack
Visually the game is a tribute to late-1960s psychedelic poster art: soft pastel mountains in the background, blooming flowers framing the reels and a cartoon-style portrait of Hendrix himself in a white fringed shirt. Symbols include a peace sign, a red heart, a vinyl record, a flower, an eye and low-pay card royals (10, J, Q, K, A) styled with stars, stripes and stage-pass motifs.
The soundtrack is the biggest selling point beyond mechanics. NetEnt licensed three original Hendrix tracks — "Purple Haze", "Crosstown Traffic" and "Little Wing" — and each one plays during its matching Free Spins mode. Winning spins trigger animations of flower vines spreading across the reels, which keeps the interface feeling alive even between bonus rounds.
Symbols and Paytable
The slot uses a two-tier symbol structure. The top group is built around the Hendrix portrait (Wild), the Red Guitar and the White Guitar, which pay well from 3 on a line and deliver the biggest base-game hits. The mid-tier group — peace sign, heart, vinyl, flower, eye — gives medium payouts from 3 of a kind. The low tier is the card royals (10 through A), which only pay for 3+ on a line.
Wild symbols are represented by the Hendrix portrait and substitute for every symbol except the Scatter. The White Guitar acts as the Scatter and triggers the Pick and Click bonus when three land on reels 3, 4 and 5.
All coin values below are shown on bet level 1 (a R1 stake corresponds to coin value 0.05 at default level):
| Symbol | 5-of-a-kind | 4-of-a-kind | 3-of-a-kind | 2-of-a-kind |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jimi Hendrix (Wild) | 400 | 100 | 20 | 2 |
| Red Guitar | 400 | 100 | 20 | 2 |
| White Guitar | 200 | 85 | 15 | — |
| Peace sign | 150 | 70 | 10 | — |
| Heart | 125 | 60 | 10 | — |
| Vinyl record | 100 | 50 | 9 | — |
| Flower | 90 | 40 | 8 | — |
| Eye | 80 | 35 | 7 | — |
| A | 75 | 30 | 5 | — |
| K | 70 | 30 | 5 | — |
| Q | 60 | 25 | 5 | — |
| J | 50 | 25 | 5 | — |
| 10 | 50 | 20 | 5 | — |
Base Game, Paylines and Betting Range
Paylines run strictly from the leftmost reel to the rightmost, and only the highest win on each line is counted. The 20 fixed shapes include straight rows, classic zig-zags and V-patterns covering all three rows.
The bet-setting interface works on a two-variable system: bet level from 1 to 10 and coin value from 0.01 up to 1.00. With a R1 base stake, adjusting the coin value scales the total bet up or down, while the level multiplies the per-line coin amount. The total bet range spans from R0.20 to R200.00 per spin. An Auto Play button handles batched spins, and a Max Bet button jumps straight to the ceiling.
Red Guitar Re-Spins and Purple Haze Feature
Two in-reel features run directly on top of the base game without needing a bonus trigger.
Red Guitar Re-Spins activate when 4 or more Red Guitar symbols land on the reels. The triggering guitars lock in place, and the rest of the grid spins again. If any new Red Guitar symbol lands, it also locks and the reels spin once more. The chain continues until no new Red Guitars appear, at which point the total payout is calculated.
The Purple Haze Feature triggers when a dedicated Purple Haze symbol lands on reel 1. For that single spin, every low-pay card (10, J, Q, K and A) is converted into a Wild, and the Purple Haze symbol itself also counts as a Wild. That effectively removes the low-value tier of the paytable from a spin and replaces it with wild-driven line hits.
Pick and Click Bonus
Three White Guitar Scatter symbols landing on reels 3, 4 and 5 — either during the base game or during the Purple Haze Feature — open a separate Pick and Click mini-game.
The screen fills with a wall of amplifiers. Clicking them reveals one of four symbol types hidden behind each speaker. Finding three matching symbols awards exactly one of four possible prizes:
-
Coin Win — a cash prize with a random multiplier between x8 and x30 of the initial bet
Crosstown Traffic Free Spins
Purple Haze Free Spins
Little Wing Free Spins
Only one prize is given per Pick and Click round, so the bonus is essentially a gateway that splits into four different reward paths.
Three Free Spins Modes
Each Free Spins mode in Jimi Hendrix works differently, and players can only reach them through the Pick and Click round. The mode you land on defines the entire math of the free round.
Crosstown Traffic Free Spins
Awards 6 Free Spins with a shifting Wild reel that moves across the grid. The pattern is fixed:
- Spin 1 — Wild reel on reel 5
- Spin 2 — Wild reels on 4 and 5
- Spin 3 — Wild reels on 3 and 4
- Spin 4 — Wild reels on 2 and 3
- Spin 5 — Wild reels on 1 and 2
- Spin 6 — Wild reel on reel 1
The Wild coverage rises to two reels across the middle spins and shrinks back to one at the edges, which front-loads potential for longer line hits into spins 2–5.
Purple Haze Free Spins
Awards between 6 and 12 Free Spins. During the whole round, the 10, J, Q, K and A symbols all act as Wilds, echoing the base-game Purple Haze Feature but spread across every spin instead of a single one.
Little Wing Free Spins
Also awards 6 to 12 Free Spins, with 3 to 5 overlay Wilds placed randomly on the reels on every single spin. Unlike Crosstown Traffic, there is no fixed pattern — the Wilds can appear anywhere, which makes outcomes more variable spin-to-spin.
Spinning the Jimi Hendrix demo is the easiest way to see how the three Free Spins modes feel in practice, since each plays a different original track and uses different Wild logic.
Max Win, Volatility and What to Expect
The top advertised payout is 400 x total bet, which is modest compared to modern high-volatility releases. On a R1 spin, that ceiling translates to a R400 maximum. Combined with medium volatility and a 30% hit frequency, this produces a relatively steady session pace with frequent small wins rather than rare massive spikes.
There is no Bonus Buy option and no Ante Bet, which is consistent with NetEnt's 2016 design approach. All bonus access goes through natural triggers: Scatter symbols on reels 3–5 for the bonus gateway, four Red Guitars for re-spins, and reel-1 Purple Haze for the card-to-Wild swap. Trying Jimi Hendrix demo mode is a quick way to get a feel for how often the Scatter cluster actually lines up.
Payout Mechanics & Math Profile
Jimi Hendrix uses classic left-to-right paylines on a small 5x3 grid. With only 15 visible positions and 20 fixed lines, the per-spin outcome space is compact, and every one of the four bonus layers has been built around that compactness in a different way. The result is a slot where the driver of RTP is not the top end of the paytable but the layered Wild mechanics that fill in missing positions on already-started lines.
The core math driver is Wild density, spread across four different triggering conditions. Red Guitar Re-Spins concentrate Wild-equivalent symbols through a lock-and-respin chain; Purple Haze converts five different card faces into Wilds in one motion; Crosstown Traffic moves full Wild reels across the grid in a scripted sweep; Little Wing sprinkles 3–5 overlay Wilds on each free spin. Because paylines run strictly leftward, reel 1 is the most valuable real estate — which is exactly where the Purple Haze symbol needs to land to trigger, and exactly where the Crosstown Traffic sweep ends on spin 6.
The Pick and Click gate adds a second structural layer: Scatters only count on reels 3, 4 and 5, so the trigger is geographically locked to the right half of the grid. That spatial constraint is the reason Scatter wins feel less frequent than Red Guitar hits, despite both being bonus events.
| Metric | Structural Value | Mathematical Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Grid density | 5x3 = 15 positions | Small outcome space concentrates RTP in Wild-substitution mechanics |
| Payline direction | Left-to-right only | Reel 1 becomes the most weighted position for line completion |
| Scatter trigger zone | Reels 3, 4, 5 only | Bonus access is spatially restricted to a 3-reel cluster, raising dry spells between Pick and Click rounds |
| Wild Reel Migration Span (Custom) | 6 spins, Wild coverage moves reel 5 → reel 1 | Crosstown Traffic front-loads expected value on spins 2–5 when two Wild reels overlap the central payline zone |