Lucky Pick: Bumble Bee / Cash Tree / Leprechaun

HOW THE ADVANTAGE WORKS:

• Lucky Pick features a board above the reels with 21 picks that are covered up. Landing a Lucky Pick symbol on the reels lets the player reveal one of the picks on the board. The picks are either credit prizes (which are awarded immediately) or upgrades that are activated during the free games bonus. The free games bonus is triggered by landing three bonus scatter symbols. After the free games bonus ends, the board is reset and three non-credit picks are revealed.

WHEN TO PLAY
           Important: Always keep playing until you trigger the free games bonus. It will take six minutes on average but can take up to 30 minutes in a worst-case scenario.           
Basic plays
If you are inexperienced with this game, then I recommend just sticking with these basic plays.

• Three wilds revealed.
• Two wilds revealed with any of the following:

                   One multiplier plus any other upgrade.
                   Total revealed free games is four or more.
                   Five credit picks revealed.

• One wild revealed with ten or fewer picks remaining.
• Seven or fewer picks remaining, regardless of what picks are revealed.

         
Aggressive plays
I only recommend playing this aggressively if you are in a competitive market or if you are building points. Over the long run, these plays will be slightly -EV to breakeven on lower RTP settings, breakeven to slightly +EV on medium RTP settings and +EV on higher RTP settings.

• Two wilds revealed.
• One wild revealed with 11 or fewer picks remaining.
• Eight or fewer picks remaining, regardless of what picks are revealed.

Strategy based on the specific board
It will take many hours of study and memorization to properly learn this advanced strategy. But if you put in the time and effort, you will have a huge leg up on the competition. Most APs don’t know about the different boards, so if you put this strategy into practice, you will be able to find profitable plays that others are passing over.

There are only four possible boards—two of them have two wilds and two of them have three wilds. The location of the picks are randomly shuffled on each board at reset. See the photos section below for a labeled diagram of the four boards.

• Board A: 8 C / 5 FG1 / 1 FG2 / 1 FG3 / 2 W / 4 M (total FG = 10)
• Board B: 9 C / 2 FG1 / 3 FG2 / 3 FG3 / 2 W / 2 M (total FG = 17)
• Board C: 9 C / 5 FG1 / 1 FG2 / 1 FG3 / 3 W / 2 M (total FG = 10)
• Board D: 11 C / 4 FG1 / 0 FG2 / 0 FG3 / 3 W / 3 M (total FG = 4)
• C = credit prizes
• FG1 = +1 free games
• FG2 = +2 free games
• FG3 = +3 free games
• W = wilds
• M = multipliers

The above “When to play” numbers are heuristics that are meant to cover a wide range of playable setups. But Lucky Pick is an extremely complex game with too many possible variations to cover every single playable situation. This is further complicated by the fact that there are four different boards and each board has a different set of upgrades that affect when the game is +EV.

Your aim is to trigger the free games bonus with two wilds revealed (three wilds revealed is even better, but that is only possible on boards C and D), plus a handful of other upgrades, the availability of which varies from board to board.

Generally, the multipliers are the second-best upgrades behind the wilds. A +3 free games is worth more than a multiplier, at least initially, because it will double your bonus from three free games to six free games, while the additional multiplier will only increase line hits from 2x to 3x. But as you accrue more free games, the multipliers become much more valuable because they apply to every single spin of the free games.

You will reveal six picks on average before triggering the bonus—half will be credit picks and half will be upgrades. Boards that have a bunch of credit picks already revealed give you a better chance of landing the upgrades on your subsequent picks (this basically tells you the “dud” picks are out of the way and only the valuable picks are left).

If you study the boards, you will eventually be able to determine which board you are on after a certain number of picks have been revealed. For example, if you see any FG2 or FG3, then you know you aren’t on board D. If you see more than one FG2 or FG3, then you know you are on board B. If you see 10 or more credits revealed, then you know you are on board D.

So to put this advanced strategy into action, say you know you are on a board that contains three wilds (C or D), but there are no wilds revealed yet. There are eleven picks remaining. You know that you will reveal six picks on average before triggering the bonus. So you have a good chance (57.5% based on a Monte Carlo simulation) of revealing at least two wilds in that situation. But those odds will vary based on the number of credit picks revealed (if the credit picks are already revealed, then you have a greater chance of getting the upgrades).

The boards with three wilds (C and D) pay much better than the boards with two wilds (A and B). Board C is the best board by far, so you can play that board the most aggressively. Board B is the worst because even though it has the most free games, it only has two wilds and two multipliers, which greatly lowers the bonus payout. These are the boards ranked from best to worst:

1. Board C
2. Board D
3. Board A
4. Board B
   

Using this knowledge, combined with some experience recognizing the different boards, will help you determine your chances of getting the necessary wilds and, hence, the amount of risk you are taking on. Every setup is different—just remember that your aim is to go into the bonus with two or three wilds revealed. And take into consideration that your wins going into the bonus with three wilds revealed will be so large that those wins will more than cover your losses for the times you don’t land the wilds.

Note: If you are more of a visual learner, then scroll down to the photos section—I give a bunch of example boards with my reasoning behind why I would or would not play them.

Additional notes​

• Lucky Pick is the most lucrative AP game to come out in years—the game seems almost too good to be true. What makes this game so powerful is that most of the game’s payout comes from the free games bonus. Players who give up before triggering the bonus will have built up a large amount of equity that will be awarded to the player who finishes the play. The line hits in the base game are weak and there are no progressive jackpots or any other kind of features. Therefore, the free games bonus is where most of the equity is awarded. Even on a $0.60 bet, you can regularly get $300+ bonuses.
  
• The free games bonus is triggered by landing three or more bonus scatter symbols. It is not triggered automatically after all 21 picks have been revealed. If all picks have been revealed, landing a Lucky Pick symbol on the reels will award a credit prize equal to the bet size.
  
• When you trigger the free games bonus, all of the picks on the board above will be revealed, but only the ones you picked will be activated during the feature.
  
• The free games bonus always starts with three free games, one random wild added to reels 2–5 on each spin, and a 2x multiplier applied to all wins. The upgrades you pick are added to these default values.
  
• The board can reveal the following picks:
          Credit prizes: These are awarded immediately and range from 2x to 5x the bet size.
          +1 wild: This adds one extra wild that is placed randomly on reels 2–5 during each spin of the free games bonus.
          +1x multiplier: This increases the multiplier on all wins by 1x. For example, if you go into the free games bonus with two +1x multipliers revealed on the board, every line hit will get a 4x multiplier applied to it (the free games bonus always defaults to a 2x multiplier on all wins, so two additional 1x multipliers brings the total to 4x).
          +1 free game: Awards one additional game during the free games bonus.
          +2 free games: Awards two additional games during the free games bonus.
          +3 free games: Awards three additional games during the free games bonus.
  
• The free games scatter symbols and Lucky Pick symbols cannot land during the bonus, so no retriggers are possible.
  
• The picks on the board are shuffled randomly at reset, so it doesn’t make any difference which picks you select.
  
• You will lose approximately 100 units on average to trigger the bonus. This varies depending on RTP.
  
• I recommend having a bankroll of at least 600x the bet size. So on a $6 bet, you should not play unless you have at least $3,600 on you. The reason you need such a large bankroll is that you have to keep playing until you trigger the free games bonus, which is where all of the built-up equity is awarded. The good thing about this game is that when you get down deep, that means you will have revealed all 21 picks on the board. With all picks revealed, you are pretty much guaranteed a massive bonus. So this is never a game that you want to bail on without finishing the play.
  
• The Lucky Pick feature occurs in 1 out of every 23 spins on average.
  
• The free games feature occurs in 1 out of every 141 spins on average.
  
• This is the only game I can think of where triggering the free games bonus too quickly can be a bad thing. The best case scenario is to reveal all the upgrade picks and then trigger the free games immediately after that. The upgrades add so much value to the free games that it is worth the extra cost to accrue them.
  
• Most players overvalue the free games picks and undervalue the wild picks. It’s absolutely crucial to have two wilds revealed before you trigger the free games bonus. You need the wilds to get good line hits. It doesn’t matter how many multipliers you have or how many total free games you get—if you can’t get any good line hits, then the bonus will not pay well.
  
• If you check this machine enough, you will eventually find plays where the board is completely revealed. Plays like these are worth several hundred units. It’s about as close as you can get to finding free money inside the casino.
  
• I generally don’t recommend camping on plays, but if you see someone on a board that is revealed (or mostly revealed), then you should definitely consider camping. There is a good chance they will run out of money and have to abandon the play. A $3/spin play might require a bankroll of up to $1,800 and most casual players have nowhere near that amount of cash on them.
  
• Some versions of this game include the Rocket Rollup MHB progressives located above the main screen. Each bet level has an additional amount equal to 1/6 of the bet that goes towards the progressives. So you are essentially playing two separate games at once, which greatly complicates the strategy. Overall, you should theoretically play these versions a little tighter, especially when the progressives are low. If the progressives are high, then you could play the game a little more aggressively. But I think the simplest strategy is to just play the same and ignore the progressives. You will lose a small percent more with the progressives, but I don’t think it is enough to make a meaningful difference in your strategy. Over enough sessions, things should even out (I’ve had the $50 progressive hits six times during one longer session).
  
• Like other Gaming Arts machines, it’s possible to check for plays without putting in a ticket. If you tap the menu icon in the lower left of the screen, you can use the up-and-down arrows to cycle through the bet levels.
  
• Lucky Pick has an RTP that ranges from 85% to 96%.

Landing the Lucky Pick symbol (shown in the middle reel) will let you choose one of the picks on the board above (there are only two picks remaining).

After the free games bonus ends, the board is reset and three random non-credit picks are revealed. This is the best possible reset scenario, with three wilds revealed.

During the free games bonus, you can get massive line hits thanks to the wilds and multipliers.

Some nice wins charted here. It’s common to get 200x, 300x, 400x and even 500x bonuses when you trigger the free games with two or three wilds revealed, combined with multipliers and extra free games.

There are only four possible board setups—each have a different amount of wilds, multipliers, free games and credit prizes. The location of the picks are randomly shuffled on each board at reset. C,D,A,B are the order of boards with best valiue. (IMO)

This is the worst possible setup you can find with two wilds revealed. I would skip this play unless I knew I was on a higher RTP or if I was trying to build points.

Most APs pass up plays like these, but this is actually an excellent setup, even though no additional upgrades have been revealed. Based on the fact that there are 10 credit picks revealed, we know we are on board D, which is one of the boards that has three wilds. That means 7 of the 8 remaining picks will be upgrades, with two of them being wilds.

We know we are on board D here because there are 10 credit picks revealed. Therefore, there is another wild remaining and we have a good chance of revealing it because there are only five picks left.

Plays like this might look tempting because there are a lot of picks revealed, but I would skip this because there are no wilds.

This is a common type of play that you will find. It might look promising because of the three multipliers, but with just one wild, it is too risky.

This board has the same upgrades as the previous setup above, but there are eight credit picks revealed instead of three. This gives you a much better chance of landing the upgrades on your subsequent picks, therefore I would play this.

With just one wild, this is a mediocre play. But with only 10 picks remaining, plays like these are +EV over the long run.

We know we are on board B here because of the two +3 free games. Board B is the lowest-paying board and there are 14 picks remaining, so I would pass on this play.

I would never play a setup like this. We know we are on the worst-paying board (B) and there are no wilds revealed.

This is another example of a board that I would never play. It’s too early to determine what board we are on, but without any wilds, it is way too risky.