Sticky Wilds vs Expanding Wilds - A 5-Round Head-to-Head on How They Differ and When They Shine
A wild that stays put and a wild that covers a reel are both wilds, but they build wins in different ways. We compare them over five rounds - timing, duration, coverage, multipliers and volatility - using real Pragmatic Play demo screens and official game descriptions.
Key Takeaways
- Sticky wilds add time, expanding wilds add space. One works across several spins, the other across many lines within a single spin.
- Sticky wilds mostly switch on in free spins, while expanding wilds often appear in the base game too. In games like Day of Dead, expanding wilds stay on the grid through respins.
- Multipliers widen the gap. The Dog House adds wild multipliers in the same win, so a 2x and a 3x wild together make 5x.
- The Wild Machine lets you pick expanded wilds (8 spins, 2 to 5 expanded wild reels) or sticky wilds (5 spins) in free spins, and the official description calls this choosing your volatility.
Among all wild types, the two most often compared are sticky wilds and expanding wilds. Both are regulars in free spins descriptions, and both are presented as the key to big wins. Yet they work in almost opposite ways. A sticky wild stays in one cell and works over several spins, while an expanding wild spreads over a whole reel within one spin and connects many lines at once.
The origins and history of each wild type are covered in Wilds Fully Explained. This article skips the history and goes straight to a practical comparison. We put both wilds through five rounds, ask the same question in each, and judge every round with real Pragmatic Play demo start screens and official descriptions. At the end you will find games that have both features and what to check in the demo.
Meet the Contenders - What Each Wild Changes
Before comparing, let us set the yardstick. The way a wild helps a win comes down to two axes: how many cells it occupies (space) and how long it stays (time).
- Sticky wild: locks in the position where it lands and stays for the next spins. It is usually one cell in size, but the number of wilds on the grid grows as the round goes on.
- Expanding wild: spreads over the whole reel or a set size the moment it lands. Within one spin it supplies a wild to every line passing through that reel.
In short, sticky wilds stretch the time axis and expanding wilds stretch the space axis. The five rounds below show how that difference plays out in real games.
Round 1: When Do They Appear?
The first question is when they switch on. Sticky wilds are mostly active only in bonus phases such as free spins. If wilds kept stacking up in the base game, the grid would quickly fill with them.
The Dog House (2019) is the textbook case. Its start screen says wilds on reels 2, 3 and 4 carry multipliers, and another page states plainly that wilds are sticky in free spins. Base game wilds count for that spin only, and locking happens only in the free spins (9 to 27) triggered by three paw scatters.
Expanding wilds often show up in the base game as well. Day of Dead (2021), a 5×4, 20-line game, puts expanding wilds front and centre on its start screen. The Wild Machine (2020) also lists a random expanded wild among its base game features. Because an expansion ends with the spin, it can sit in the base game without upsetting the balance of the grid as much.
Verdict: expanding wilds win on frequency, since you see them more often in the base game. Sticky wilds only show what they can do once you reach the bonus.
Round 2: How Long Do They Stay?
The second round is about duration and release rules. Locking is what defines a sticky wild, but when it is released differs from game to game. Three release patterns stand out.
- Until the round ends: as in The Dog House, the wild stays until free spins are over. This is the most common pattern.
- For a random number of spins: the official description of Forging Wilds (2024) says every wild in the bonus stays sticky for a random number of spins. Some wilds leave early, others hang on.
- Until another symbol removes it: in The Big Dog House every wild is sticky in free spins, but a ghost wild removes random sticky wilds from the grid before the next spin.
In principle an expanding wild lasts one spin: it opens up and is gone on the next spin. Pair it with respins, though, and the picture changes. Day of Dead’s start screen says respins continue until the expanding wilds leave the screen, and the next page adds that you collect expanding wilds and win respins in the feature. While the respins run, the expanding wild effectively stays on the grid, so a one-spin feature behaves like a short sticky wild.
Verdict: sticky wilds win on duration. Still, it matters a lot whether they last until the round ends, for a random number of spins, or can be removed. Expanding wilds only gain the time axis when respins are attached.
Round 3: How Much of the Grid Do They Cover?
The third round is about space, and here expanding wilds have the edge. Covering one reel on a 5×3 grid creates three wild cells at once, or four on a 5×4 grid like Day of Dead. Every line that passes through that reel now passes through a wild.
Expansion does not come in one size either. The official description of The Big Dog House says wilds land as a normal symbol, an expanded 1×3 wild or a colossal 3×3 wild. Covering one reel vertically and covering the three middle reels at once are both expansions, but their impact on the grid is completely different. There are also features like The Wild Machine’s Gold Foundry free spins, which bring 2 to 5 expanded wild reels.
A sticky wild is usually one cell, but it builds up. One or two locked wilds early in free spins can spread across several reels later on, ending up with as much area as an expanding wild. The difference is whether the area arrives all at once or piles up bit by bit.
Verdict: on area per spin, expanding wilds win outright. Sticky wilds can only catch up with accumulated area late in the round, and only if they land early enough.
Round 4: When Multipliers Join In
Once multipliers are attached to wilds, the gap between the two types is at its widest. First, check the maths. When several multiplier wilds land in the same win, some games add them and others multiply them, and only the game rules tell you which. Here we only calculate for games whose rule is confirmed. Multipliers in general are covered in Slot Multipliers Fully Explained.
- The Dog House - added: each wild carries 2x or 3x, and when several are in one win the multipliers are added. A 2x and a 3x wild on the same line make 5x, and two 3x wilds make 6x.
- Forging Wilds - accumulated: wild multipliers range from 2x to 10x, and the official description says they accumulate when more than one is part of the same win. Random-length locking in free spins is layered on top.
- The Big Dog House - combined: every wild carries 2x or 3x, and the official description only says the multipliers combine. Check the exact formula in the demo’s game rules.
When sticky meets multiplier, the effect grows over time. In The Dog House free spins, locked wilds keep their multipliers. If a 2x wild is locked and a 3x wild later locks on the same line, wins on that line through both wilds are calculated at 5x on the following spins. The more locked wilds there are, the bigger the multiplier total each line carries.
When expansion meets multiplier, the effect grows over space. If a multiplier wild spreads over a whole reel, every winning line through that reel goes through it. The Big Dog House’s Biggie modifier expands every wild to fill the reel in the bonus, and in that same bonus all wild multipliers are sticky. Going by the official description, expansion, locking and multipliers all overlap in one round.
Verdict: close to a draw. Sticky multipliers get stronger later in the round, while expanding multipliers hit hardest on the spin they land. When both effects overlap in one game, the ceiling on wins opens up widely.
Round 5: Volatility
The last round is volatility. The wild type does not change the RTP. Within the same RTP, it changes when wins arrive and how heavily they cluster.
With sticky wilds, the result depends heavily on when they land. A wild locked on the first free spin works for every remaining spin, while one that lands on the last spin is used only once. That is why the same bonus can swing widely. In AI Slot data, Forging Wilds, which combines random-length locking with 2x to 10x multipliers, is listed as high volatility.
Expanding wilds finish their work within one spin, so each spin is judged afresh. The game that shows this contrast most directly is The Wild Machine. When free spins start, you choose between Gold Foundry (8 free spins with 2 to 5 expanded wild reels) and Diamond Forge (5 free spins with sticky wilds). The official description presents this as choosing your volatility with expanded wilds or sticky wilds. Notice that the sticky option has fewer spins: the side where locked wilds pile up gets fewer spins, which reads as a way of balancing the two.
Verdict: sticky wilds tend to push volatility up. But wild multipliers, the number of free spins and retrigger rules all work together, so check the volatility listed in each game’s information.
Head-to-Head at a Glance
| Item | Sticky wild | Expanding wild |
|---|---|---|
| Usually active in | Bonus phases such as free spins | Both base game and bonus |
| Duration | Until the round ends, a random number of spins, or until removed | Usually one spin, extended when respins are attached |
| Coverage | Usually one cell, growing as spins pile up | A whole reel or a set size such as 1×3 or 3×3 |
| With multipliers | The multiplier stays and applies on later spins | Feeds the multiplier to every line through the expanded reel |
| Build-up in free spins | The grid gets heavier spin by spin | Judged afresh each spin, no build-up |
| Volatility tendency | Tends to rise | More even from spin to spin |
| Example games | The Dog House, Forging Wilds | Day of Dead, The Wild Machine (Gold Foundry) |
Games With Both
There are three broad ways to put both features in one game: let the player choose, layer them, or swap between them.
Choose - The Wild Machine
As seen above, The Wild Machine lets you pick the expanded side or the sticky side when free spins begin. It plays on a 5×5 grid with 40 lines, and according to the official description a win can involve up to 7 symbols, so several expanded wild reels at once make a big difference. Per the start screen, the maximum win is 7,000x and volatility is low.
Layer - The Big Dog House
In The Big Dog House, expanded (1×3) and colossal (3×3) wilds work in the base game, and sticky wilds take over in free spins. Nine mini reels spin first to set 9 to 27 free spins. With the Biggie modifier every wild expands to fill the reel, and with the Ghost Out modifier the ghost wilds that remove sticky wilds do not appear for the whole feature. The bonus can start with up to two modifiers, and the start screen gives a maximum win of 15,000x.
Swap - 3 Buzzing Wilds
3 Buzzing Wilds (2023) has wilds that change the grid when they land, for example by creating a wild reel or turning adjacent symbols into wilds. In the bonus you pick one of three features, and the wilds keep repeating that feature for the whole round; the official description uses wild reels as its example. AI Slot’s game information lists both expanding wilds and sticky wilds among its features.
Demo Checklist
Start screens often sum up a wild in a single line. Go through the points below in the free demo and the real character of each wild becomes clear.
- Locking phase: are wilds sticky only in free spins, or in respins too? Do base game wilds vanish after one spin?
- Release rule: until the round ends, a random number of spins, or can another symbol remove them? Also see whether the screen shows how many locked spins remain.
- Expansion size: a whole reel, or a set size like 1×3 or 3×3, and on which reels?
- Respin link: does an expanding wild trigger respins, and do new wilds during respins keep them going?
- Multiplier maths: are multipliers in the same win added or multiplied? Check the wild section of the game rules.
- Spins and retriggers: sticky wilds benefit from longer rounds, so look at the starting number of free spins and the retrigger rules together.
Open the bonus several times in the demo and compare how the results spread, and you can check the verdicts above for yourself. Every game in this article can be opened as a free demo on AI Slot without signing up.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better, sticky wilds or expanding wilds?
Neither changes the RTP. Within the same RTP, sticky wilds concentrate wins late in free spins, and expanding wilds concentrate them on the spin they land. The Wild Machine, which lets you choose between them, calls this choice picking your volatility in its official description.
When do sticky wilds disappear?
It depends on the game. In The Dog House they stay until free spins end, in Forging Wilds they are locked only for a random number of spins, and in The Big Dog House ghost wilds can remove them. Check the wild section of the game rules in the demo.
If a multiplier wild expands, does the multiplier reach several lines?
An expanded wild takes part as a wild in every winning line that crosses its reel, so by design it is involved in wins on several lines. Whether several multiplier wilds in one win are added or multiplied varies by game, so check the game rules. The Dog House adds them.
Do expanding wilds appear on every reel?
Often not. Per its start screen, The Big Dog House’s normal, expanded and colossal wilds appear on reels 2, 3 and 4. The size of the expansion also varies by game, from a whole reel to 1×3 or 3×3, so check both the start screen and the rules in the demo.
Is an expanding wild with respins the same as a sticky wild?
It works in a similar way but is not the same. In games like Day of Dead, where respins continue until the expanding wilds leave the screen, the wild stays on the grid for several spins. The difference from a free spins sticky wild is that how long it stays is tied to the respin rules.
Further Reading
For the origins of every wild type, see Wilds Fully Explained, and for how wild multipliers are calculated and how they developed, see Slot Multipliers Fully Explained. The terms are covered in the wiki entries on free spins, multipliers and slot symbols.
Sources: Pragmatic Play official game pages (The Dog House, Day of Dead, Forging Wilds, The Wild Machine, The Big Dog House, 3 Buzzing Wilds), Pragmatic Play official demo start screens (The Dog House, Day of Dead, Forging Wilds, The Wild Machine, The Big Dog House), AI Slot game data (release dates, volatility, free spin counts)