Hacksaw Gaming

Our take in brief

Hacksaw Gaming is what happens when a scratch card studio starts making slots. Its games tend to be short to learn, stylised in look and built to swing hard. It also publishes more of its maths on its own game pages than most studios, including every RTP version it supplies. That openness is the best reason to take its catalogue seriously.

We don't list any Hacksaw games on SlotsRanker yet. The demo network we use carries 281 titles from this studio.

Scratch cards first, slots second

The group's investor site says Hacksaw was founded in 2018. The first job was building its remote gaming server, the system that hosts and delivers its games. Online scratch cards and instant win games came first, and slots followed. In 2023 Hacksaw opened that server to other studios, so third-party developers can now build and distribute games on it.

The business is run by Hacksaw AB. Its Maltese company, HGMT Ltd, is a wholly owned subsidiary. Hacksaw AB began trading on Nasdaq Stockholm on 25 June 2025 under the ticker HACK, after an oversubscribed share offering.

The licence list is long. It includes a Malta Gaming Authority critical supply licence (MGA/CRP/501/2018), a UK Gambling Commission licence (54059), a Swedish software permit, and approvals in Denmark, Greece, Romania, the Isle of Man, Ontario, Alberta and several US states.

What the scratch card background shows in the slots

Instant games have to make sense straight away, and Hacksaw's slots follow the same rule. The grids are usually small, the features are few, and each feature has its own name and job. The art is bold and cartoonish, with a consistent style across very different themes.

The maths goes the other way. Many of its slots are built for rare, large results rather than frequent small ones, and bonus rounds are often split into several named modes that you can buy directly.

DuelReels, explained through its best-known game

Wanted Dead or a Wild is the clearest example of the studio's approach. According to Hacksaw's own game page, it has:

• a 5x5 grid with 15 paylines;
• DuelReels, where VS symbols expand into wild reels when they are part of a winning combination, and multipliers from the duelling outlaws are applied to the win;
• three bonus games: Great Train Robbery with sticky wilds, Duel at Dawn with a better chance of VS symbols, and Dead Man's Hand, which collects wilds and multipliers before a final phase;
• a bonus buy option;
• a top award of 12,500x the bet, and a volatility rating of 4 out of 5.

Each of the three bonus games changes one thing. That's typical of Hacksaw. The feature names tell you what each round does, and the buy menu lets you pick one.

RTP: published in full

This is where Hacksaw stands out. The Wanted Dead or a Wild page lists four RTP versions: 96.38%, 94.55%, 92.33% and 88.42%. That's a gap of almost eight percentage points between the highest and lowest. The game plays the same in every version, but the long-run return is very different. Over a very large number of spins, the 88.42% build is designed to return about 8 fewer units per 100 staked than the 96.38% build.

Hacksaw publishes the versions openly. When we add its games, each game page on SlotsRanker will show the version we run.

How Hacksaw compares with other studios we cover

Hacksaw's approach is closest to Nolimit City's. Both studios make high-volatility games with named mechanics and multi-mode bonuses. The difference is in style. Nolimit City is known for dark, provocative themes, while Hacksaw's art is cleaner and more cartoonish. Compared with Pragmatic Play's tumbling grids, Hacksaw's slots are more compact and have fewer moving parts per spin.

Who Hacksaw suits

These games suit players who like to read a rules page and understand the full structure of a game. They also suit players who accept long quiet stretches in return for a high ceiling. If you want frequent small results, most of the slot catalogue isn't built for that, although the scratch cards and instant games are simpler.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Publishes every RTP version on its official game pages.
• Clear feature names that describe what each bonus does.
• Makes scratch cards and instant games as well as slots.

Cons

• The lowest published RTP versions are well below the top figure.
• Many slots are high volatility, with long quiet runs.

Hacksaw Gaming FAQs