Holiday Season

Holiday Season Slot Review

A city street after dark, shopfronts glowing gold onto the pavement, red-bowed wreaths on the lampposts, confetti drifting through a navy sky. That’s where Play’n GO puts you in Holiday Season, and it’s a warmer street than most festive slots bother to draw. The studio has revisited this scene since, from Xmas Magic to Holiday Spirits and Christmas Gold Heist, but none of those guarantees what this one does: a free spins round in which every single spin pays.

It runs on a 5×3 grid with up to 10 paylines and five coins per line, at a 96.52% RTP with mid volatility. One bonus round does the heavy lifting, and every spin inside it is guaranteed to produce a win.

The Street and the Paytable

Wins pay left to right from the leftmost reel, multiplied by the bet staked per line, with only the highest combination counted on each line. Scatters are the exception: they pay in any position. When several lines win at once, everything is added together, and feature wins stack on top of line wins at the end of the round.

You activate up to 10 lines and bet up to five coins on each, and the lines have to be switched on in numerical order: one, then two, then three, and so on. There’s no cherry-picking a single line you like the look of. The bet can’t be changed while a round is running, so what you set before the spin is what plays out.

The reel cast is a New Year’s party in miniature. A man raising a champagne glass and a woman in Santa gear lead the high symbols, a clock close behind, with turkey and pudding standing in for the feast and A, K, Q, J and 10 filling out the lower rungs. Nothing here is elaborate; it’s a straightforward festive set drawn in the same warm, glossy style as the street behind it.

The stacked wild gift box is the symbol to watch. It substitutes for everything except the scatter, and because it arrives in stacks it can fill whole reels at a time, which is what turns a modest spin into several line wins at once. Substitution isn’t its only job either: the gift box is also the richest symbol on the reels, out-paying even the champagne man, so a stack landing across the middle reels is doing two jobs at once.

Stacks matter more here than in most 5×3 games precisely because there are only 10 lines. With every symbol available on every reel, a full stack doesn’t just complete one line, it sweeps several adjacent lines at the same time, and those combinations all add together at the end of the round.

Values below are multiples of the total bet for three, four and five of a kind:

• Wild (gift box): 1x, 4x, 20x
• Man with champagne: 0.4x, 3x, 15x
• Santa woman: 0.4x, 2x, 10x
• Clock: 0.2x, 1.5x, 8x
• Turkey: 0.2x, 1.5x, 5x
• Pudding: 0.1x, 1x, 5x
• A: 0.1x, 1x, 3x
• K: 0.06x, 0.5x, 2.5x
• Q: 0.06x, 0.5x, 2x
• J: 0.06x, 0.4x, 1.5x
• 10: 0.06x, 0.4x, 1x

Win Spins

Three or more champagne scatters anywhere on the reels award five Win Spins. The twist is in the name: every spin in the feature is guaranteed to produce at least one winning combination. There’s no sitting through dead spins once you’re inside, which changes the rhythm of a bonus round more than it sounds like it would.

The scatters don’t carry a coin value of their own; their whole job is the trigger. They pay in any position, so they don’t need to line up on an active payline to count, and they can land on any of the five reels. Landing one during the feature adds two further spins per scatter, and the round can be retriggered up to a cap of 20 Win Spins in total.

Bets and lines stay exactly as they were on the spin that triggered it, and every symbol can appear on every reel throughout, both in the main game and inside the feature. That last detail is what makes the guarantee credible: with stacked wilds available on all five reels, there’s always a route to a combination, and a stack landing mid-feature can single-handedly cover the requirement for several spins in a row.

The game’s ceiling is 500,000 coins, and for a mid-volatility game with a guaranteed-win round that’s a long way above what the paytable’s day-to-day work suggests. It’s the kind of top figure that only comes into view when retriggering scatters and stacked wilds arrive in the same stretch of spins.

The Gamble Round

After any win in the main game, the Gamble and Collect buttons appear. Gamble is optional: guess the colour of a face-down card, a 50% call, to double the win, or guess the suit, a 25% call, to quadruple it. Collect banks the money and closes the round.

It can be played up to five times in succession, up to a limit of 2,500 coins, so a string of correct calls compounds quickly before the ceiling stops it. A modest win doubled five times over would blow past that limit on its own, which is why the cap is there. After every correct guess you’re returned to the same choice, so the pressure builds one card at a time rather than all at once.

The round doesn’t touch the overall RTP, so it’s a straight coin flip on your money rather than a hidden cost. It’s switched off during Auto Play, which some jurisdictions disable anyway, so players who prefer to let the reels run won’t meet the card at all.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7.1/10

This is a slot you spin for the mood as much as the money. The base game ambles along on stacked wilds and modest line wins, and everything is paced around one goal: getting three champagne bottles on the screen. When they land, the Win Spins round takes over, and it’s the reason anybody would pick this over the studio’s later festive titles.

That guarantee is the biggest strength. With retriggering scatters adding two spins each, a good round stacks win on win with no blank to break the run. The weakness is just as plain: there’s only this one feature. Beyond the gamble round there’s nothing else to find, and the whole build is simpler than what Play’n GO ships now.

It suits casual players who want cheerful, steady festive spinning rather than elaborate mechanics or a monster multiplier, and those chasers will find it thin. Everyone else gets a street of warm lights and a bonus round that never leaves you empty-handed, and on a cold night that’s rather the point.

Holiday Season FAQs

• What is the RTP of Holiday Season?

  Holiday Season runs at an RTP of 96.52%.
• Is Holiday Season high volatility?

  No, it’s a mid-volatility game, so wins tend to arrive at a fairly even pace rather than in long droughts punctuated by big hits.
• How many paylines does Holiday Season have?

  Up to 10 paylines, activated in numerical order from line one upwards, with a bet of up to five coins per line.
• How do you trigger the Win Spins feature?

  Land three or more champagne scatter symbols anywhere on the reels. They pay in any position, and the trigger awards five Win Spins.
• Can Win Spins be retriggered?

  Yes. Each scatter landing during the feature adds two extra Win Spins, and the round can be retriggered up to a total of 20 spins. Every spin inside the feature is guaranteed to produce at least one win.
• How does the Gamble round work?

  After any main-game win you can guess the colour of a face-down card to double your win, or the suit to quadruple it. It can be played up to five times in a row, up to a limit of 2,500 coins, and it doesn’t affect the overall RTP.
• What does the wild symbol do in Holiday Season?

  The wild is a stacked gift box that substitutes for every symbol except the scatter. It’s also the game’s top payer at 20x the total bet for five of a kind.
• Can I use the Gamble round during Auto Play?

  No. The Gamble option is disabled while Auto Play is running, and Auto Play itself may be switched off in some jurisdictions or by the casino’s choice.
• Who makes Holiday Season?

  Holiday Season is made by Play’n GO.
• When is Holiday Season released?

  Holiday Season’s release date is 14 November 2016.