Texas Tea Slot Game Review

“Texas Tea” is an old slang phrase that has taken on many meanings. No one is quite sure where it was first used, although many people wrong assume it was coined by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggsin their famous theme song for the “Beverly Hillbillies” television show. However, though most people may have learned the association between “Texas Tea” and oil from the show, the phrase was inuse well before the 1960s.

For example a company started in the 1870s was named the Texas Tea Company, and among other crops like coffee and raisin grapes it cultivated tea. Texas Tea was a popular vintage and uppersociety often held Texas Tea parties in their tea gardens. Given that the Texas oil boom began in 1901, it should be no wonder that the phrase “Texas Tea” evolved into a euphemism for oil. Theinflux of Texas oil to the petroleum market was so profound that according to one source the price of petroleum per gallon dropped from 99 cents to 13 cents within a matter of years.

Texas Tea has been used in the name of an oil company, a motor oil, and in a 1940 patent application in reference to drilling gear head design. The long association of “texas tea” with oil cannotbe doubted and should be accepted as predating the 1960s television show that popularized the winsome metaphor. The historical associations aside, Texas and oil are also well-matched in drama andfiction. The 1956 movie “Giant” starred Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean as Texas as a rancher family competing with a wildcat oil man. The television show “Dallas” followed theadventures of the Ewing family who were rich because of oil and cattle.

In the year 2000 International Game Technology (IGT) released a slot game called Texas Tea that has remained popular through the years. It featured a cartoon character, Texas Ted, and hisarmadillo companion. The game uses all the most well-known tropes of about Texas oil magnates: he is a rascally old guy with a cowboy hat, a cigar, a deep Texas drawl, and a huge cigar. He alsodrives a blue convertible with a longhorn ornament on the front end, owns his own jet airplane, and he speaks in eccentricities.

The game was an immediate hit with slots players and IGT finally created an online version of the game in 2015. There are a few differences between the online game and the land-based casino game.This article reviews the online game.

Texas Tea is a 5 reel, 3 row video slot game with 9 pay lines and 2 bonus games. All prizes are paid from left to right and paid per winning combination on a pay line except for Scatter prizes,which are based on total bet. Only the highest possible combination per pay line awards a prize.

• The Armadillo

  pays 500 times Line Bet for five of a kind, 150 times Line Bet for four of a kind, 25 times Line Bet for three of a kind, and 10 times Line Bet for two of a kind. The Armadillo stands up inhis tiles and sticks his tongue out to help you see which tiles paid a prize.

• Ted’s Airplane

  pays 250 times Line bet for five of a kind, 100 times Line Bet for four of a kind, 20 times Line Bet for three of a kind, and 5 times Line Bet for two of a kind. The Airplane briefly zoomsaway and comes back or soars through the clouds, depending on how large a prize you win, when it contributes to a winning combination.

• Ted’s Prize Bull

  pays 250 times Line Bet for five of a kind, 100 times Line Bet for four of a kind, 20 times Line Bet for three of a kin, and 5 times Line Bet for two of a kind. The Bull moos for you andsnorts when it pays a prize.

• Ted’s Convertible

  pays 250 times Line Bet for five of a kind, 100 times Line Bet for four of a kind, 20 times Line Bet for three of a kin, and 5 times Line Bet for two of a kind. Ted honks his horn for youwhen the Convertible forms a winning combination.

• The Texas Yellow Rose

  pays 100 times Line Bet for five of a kind, 25 times Line Bet for four of a kind, and 10 times Line Bet for three of a kind.

• The Texas Yellow Rose

  pays 100 times Line Bet for five of a kind, 25 times Line Bet for four of a kind, and 10 times Line Bet for three of a kind.

• The Texas Bluebonnet

  pays 100 times Line Bet for five of a kind, 25 times Line Bet for four of a kind, and 10 times Line Bet for three of a kind.

• The Texas Purple Cactus

  pays 100 times Line Bet for five of a kind, 25 times Line Bet for four of a kind, and 10 times Line Bet for three of a kind.

All of the Texas Tea game controls are positioned below the playing reels. The majority of them are displayed on a dashboard running from left to right.

The Lines widget controls how many of the 9 pay lines are active. Use the Minus and Plus arrow buttons to cycle up or down through the pay lines. The higher the number you set this on the morepay lines are active.

The Line Bet widget cycles through the various betting values. The lowest is 1.00 and the highest is 100.00 so be careful: this game is targeted at high rollers. Use the Minus and Plus arrowbuttons to change the values.

The Total Bet window shows you how much you’ll pay per spin based on current active Lines and Line Bet. 9 active pay lines times 100 means you’ll pay $900 for one spin at the highest possiblesettings.

The Spin button is the large round yellow button in the center of the dashboard. It has no other function. Click on this to play 1 paid game.

The Win window shows the total of all the line prizes and scatter prizes you won on the previous spin.

The Balance window shows how much money you have remaining in your game account.

The blue Auto Spin button activates a small menu from which you can choose 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 spins. The game activates these spins for you until you exit the game, interrupt the spins, win abonus, or your Balance drops below the amount of the Total Bet.

The Wrench icon activates a small menu that allows you to set the game’s graphics quality level and also to disable or enable the introduction when you load the game.

When three Texas Ted portraits (Scatter symbols) appear anywhere on the screen, the Oil Dividend Bonus begins and you are taken to another screen showing Ted sitting in his office. He grudgingconcedes that you are now his partner and so you are entitled to a dividend. He writes out a check to as the Armadillo looks over his shoulder.

The amount of the check is a multiple of your Total Bet. The multiplier is determined randomly according to the following table:

When three Oil Derricks form a winning combination on any active pay line the Big Oil Bonus is triggered. In this game you are taken to a screen where Texas Ted stands beside a huge map of Texas.The Armadillo is standing nearby and you’ll see three to five golden oil derricks above the map. The number of derricks you are awarded equals the number of bonus symbols that triggered the game.

The map is divided into nine regions, each of which has its own digital counter. Ted tells you to claim some land by planting an oil derrick on it.

When you have chosen three places to drill for oil Ted starts them up and they begin paying you bonus money. The amount each derrick pays is determined randomly but the number of bonus symbolsthat trigger the game affects the value of the derricks.

• If three bonus symbols trigger the game your derricks will each pay from 5 to 100 credits.
• If four bonus symbols trigger the game your derricks each pay from 5 to 200 credits apiece.
• If five bonus symbols trigger the game your derricks pay from 5 to 495 credits apiece.

One of the cool things about this game is the soundtrack, which appears to feature riffs (samples) from various Western movie themes.   You can almost see the rolling plains and gentlevalleys of untamed countryside rolling along. The music is synthesized but includes horns and strings so it is a fully orchestrated soundtrack.

The incidental sounds are also synthesized and you have heard some of them on many games, such as the bells that chime when your prize is tallied up. The custom sounds designed for the game areused to help you see where the prizes are coming from (or to keep you from falling asleep).

One of the downsides to this game is the high volatility. The theoretical return to player is all over the map and you should be careful about making aggressive bets. The RTP can be as low as87.5% and as high as 96.2%, which means you’ll win inconsistently. Sure, the winning combinations are determined by random number but you don’t have an equal chance of winning on every game.Fortunately the bonus rounds guarantee you’ll win at least some type of prize but don’t expect to be winning bonus games right and left.

For a game as old as this one, Texas Tea still plays well in an age where we have interactive 3-D graphics, surround sound theater systems, and multiple bonus round sub-games. That says a lot fora slot game that was released in the year 2000.

The simplistic animations translate well from the original slot game to the online version. Sometimes when an older slot game is ported to an online service it looks a little less authentic. Butyou could swear you were playing the original game but for the coin values.