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18 June 2024 
Santa’s Wonderland Slot Review 2021
Pragmatic Play bring the christmas cheer with a release that’ll thrill those with a soft spot for Gems Bonanza.
It’s always special when the Christmas slots start to come out of the woodwork, and although their specific seasonal style means that their shelf life is rather short, some still manage to make a good enough impression to be kept in mind for many a Christmas to come.
Gems Bonanza certainly made a good impression for fans of the cluster pays genre, but will its festive cousin?
Let’s get festive as we find out.
Santa’s Wonderland Theme
Santa’s Wonderland really needs no explaining.
If you’re looking for some festive cheer to get you into the mood for the holiday season, then Santa’s Wonderland definitely has it. Although similar to Gems Bonanza in some aspects, it couldn’t be different when it comes to style.
In the background you’ll see an array of presents, and bordering the reel is tinsil, lights, baubles and ribbons. The wonderful music is the very embodiment of Christmas, and overall we think Pragmatic has done a stellar job with their contribution to this years festive slots.
Santa’s Wonderland Betting and Symbols
Santa’s Wonderland has a variety of betting options for players to choose from. For those of you who prefer a lower stake, the minimum bet available is £/€0.20 per spin. For those of you who pefer a higher stake, the maximum bet available is £/€100 per spin, with plenty of options in between the two.
The highest paying regular symbol in Santa’s Wonderland is the Teddy Bear, followed by the Train and the Airplane. Lower paying symbols fall to the Orange, Red, Green and Blue Baubles.
Wild symbols substitute for all higher and lower paying symbols. Wild symbols only appear as part of Wild Santa and Lucky Santa features.
Santa’s Wonderland Base Game and Features
Santa’s Wonderland is an 8×8 Video Slot with a Cluster Pays mechanic. In order to form a win, you will need to connect 5 or more of the same symbols either Horizontally or Vertically.
Santa’s Wonderland features Tumbling Reels. If a winning combination is formed, said symbols will disappear from the grid and new symbols will tumble down, filling the empty spaces. Tumbling will continue until no more winning combinations are formed.
The base game in Santa’s Wonderland works in a similar way to Gems Bonanza, 5 unique Snowflake symbols can be seen sitting idle behind regular symbols, waiting to be activated and we can’t wait to see what they do!
Snowflake Symbols
On any random spin in the base game, up to 5 unique Snowflake symbols can appear behind regular symbols in any position. Whenever a winning combination is formed on top of one or more Snowflake symbols, a special feature is triggered.
- Blue Snowflake – Activates Refresh – Once all Tumbles are finished, the screen is wiped of all symbols except for any Wilds that are present and new symbols will tumble down, filling the grid.
- Purple Snowflake – Activates Wild Santa – Once all Tumbles are finished, all instances of a random symbol will tranform into Wilds.
- Yellow Snowflake – Activates Blocks – Once all Tumbles are finished, random blocks of 2×2 of the same symbol are added in random positions on the grid.
- Red Snowflake – Activates Supersize – Once all Tumbles are finished, a random block of 2×2, 3×3, 4×4 or 5×5 of the same symbol is added in a random position on the grid.
- Green Snowflake – Activates Lucky Santa – Once all Tumbles are finished, between 5 and 15 Wilds are added to the grid, in random positions.
If more than one Snowflake symbol is activated during any one spin, they will be played in a fixed order, as seen above.
Santa’s Wonderland Midnight Riches Feature
During each spin in the base game, all winning symbols will be collected and added to the Midnight Riches meter. With the help of the Snowflake features, collecting 140 winning symbols from any base game spin, fills the Midnight Riches meter and triggers the feature.
If you don’t quite reach the amount needed to trigger the Midnight Riches feature, with the next spin the meter will be reset back to zero and the grind can start again.
The Midnight Riches feature will begin at Level 1. If enough winning symbols are collected during this level, you will advance to Level 2. In order to level up again, so many winning symbols will need to be collected.
All 5 Snowflake features are guaranteed to be played once per Level.
- Level 2 – 116 winning symbols required – Level 2 plays with a x6 Multiplier.
- Level 3 – 120 winning symbols required – Level 3 plays with a x9 Multiplier.
- Level 4 – 124 winning symbols required – Level 4 plays with a x12 Multiplier.
- Level 5 – 132 winning symbols required – Level 5 plays with a x15 Multiplier.
The Midnight Riches feature will come to an end when there are no more winning symbols to be collected or all Snowflake features have been played from Level 5.
Santa’s Wonderland Bonus Buy
For players who are like a kid on Christmas morning and are outside the UK, you may benefit from a Bonus Buy option.
The Midnight Riches feature can be purchased for 100x your total bet.
The RTP when purchasing the Midnight Riches feature, increase slightly from 96.23% to 96.38%.
Santa’s Wonderland Our Verdict
Santa’s Wonderland is very similar to Gems Bonanza indeed, so if you were a fan of this, then the chances are you’ll love Santa’s Wonderland too…unless you’re a bit of a scrooge that is.
Just like Gems bonanza, things can feel a little bit slow in the Base Game if you’re not triggering enough of the spin features to gain the momentum you need to get the bonus, but when you do things can well and truly kick off. Within the bonus, you’ll definitely want a few lucky spin features for a re-trigger to get that multiplier up, and if the conditions are right then you may well be in for a very merry Christmas.
We do feel like Pragmatic play ‘cheaped out’ a bit with the win potential here though. At 7,500x, the win potential is far above their normal go to figure, but it’s still less than Gems Bonanza, which had a maximum win potential of 10,000x.
Overall, Santa’s Wonderland has all of the right stuff to be a little bit special, but it’s not innovation personified given how they’ve basically just stuck a Christmas skin on Gems Bonanza.
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