Lucky New Year Tiger Treasures Slot Review
Red pillars with gold capitals frame the reels, warm bulbs glow along the top edge, and a dark maroon curtain hangs behind everything like a stage waiting for the act to start. Lucky New Year Tiger Treasures puts almost nothing in the base game and dares you to stay for the features anyway – every real prize in this game lives behind a scatter trigger or a lantern, and the ordinary spins are just the ticket price.
It’s the tiger-flavoured follow-up to 2018’s Lucky New Year from Pragmatic Play, sitting on the same shelf as 5 Lions and Caishen’s Gold. The tiger edition runs on a 5×3 grid with 25 paylines, stakes from 0.25 to 250 per spin, a 96% RTP and mid to high volatility. What’s changed from the polite original is the jackpot chase, and that’s the interesting part.
The Base Game and What Symbols Pay
Wins pay left to right across the 25 fixed paylines, starting from the leftmost reel, and only the highest combination counts on each line. All wins are multiplied by the bet per line, and free spins winnings are added to any payline wins. It’s a conventional setup, and the tiger doesn’t tamper with it.
The paytable is where this game shows its manners. Values below are multiples of the total bet for landing three, four or five matching symbols on a payline:
- Lion Mask – 1x, 10x, 20x
- Firecrackers / Pan Flute – 0.8x, 6x, 16x
- Drum – 0.6x, 4x, 12x
- Oranges – 0.4x, 2x, 8x
- A – 0.4x, 0.8x, 2x
- K, Q, J – 0.2x, 0.8x, 2x
Even the richest line here tops out at 20x the total bet, so the base game isn’t where the money lives. The royals sit at the bottom of the ladder and mostly exist to keep the reels moving between the moments that matter.
The wild is a tiger holding a gold ingot, and it substitutes for every symbol except the scatter and the Money Symbol. It can land stacked, and it pays at the top rate when it completes its own lines. That’s its whole job, and it’s a useful one.
The scatter is a money tree, and it only appears on reels 1, 3 and 5. Three of them pays 1x the total bet and starts the free spins. Two scatters earn nothing, which makes that middle reel matter more than it looks.
Two features can interrupt an ordinary spin:
- Three scatters – pays 1x the total bet and awards five free spins
- Six or more Money Symbols – triggers the Money Respin feature
Free Spins and the Giant Symbol
Three scatters award five free spins. That’s a small number, and the game knows it, because the round it buys is built to make each spin count. Reels 2, 3 and 4 lock together and spin as one giant symbol, with special reels in play for the duration.
The practical effect is that the middle three reels always land the same symbol, stacked across all three at once. Any five-of-a-kind line running through the centre of the screen only needs matching symbols on reels 1 and 5 to complete, so full lines arrive far more easily than they do in the base game.
Retriggers are unlimited. Every time three more scatters hit during the round, three extra spins are added, and there’s no cap on how many times that can happen. A lucky round can run a long way past its original five, and because the scatters only sit on reels 1, 3 and 5, the giant symbol never blocks the retrigger.
The Money Symbol and Money Respin
The Money Symbol is a lantern, and it’s present on all five reels on every spin. Each spin it takes a random value from a predefined set, or it takes the value of the Minor or Major jackpot. Six or more of them anywhere on screen triggers the Money Respin feature.
The respin round starts once all line wins are paid. The regular symbols fade away, the triggering Money Symbols stay locked where they landed, and the reels are replaced with special reels containing only Money Symbols and empty spaces.
You start with three respins. Every new Money Symbol that lands sticks for the rest of the round and resets the respin count back to three. The round runs until the respins run out or all 15 positions fill with Money Symbols. At the end, every visible value is added together and paid as one total.
A completely full screen pays the Grand Jackpot on top of the collected values, which is the round’s ultimate target. It’s a long road, but the reset mechanic means a single sticky run can keep the round alive spin after spin.
Jackpot Ladder
The top bar carries a jackpot ladder with Minor, Major and Grand tiers, and the Money Symbol can land carrying either the Minor or the Major value. The tiers scale with the stake, so the multiples hold at any bet size:
- Grand Jackpot – 1,000x the bet, won by filling all 15 positions in the Money Respin
- Major Jackpot – 100x the bet, carried by individual Money Symbols
- Minor Jackpot – the smallest tier, also carried by individual Money Symbols
The Grand Jackpot is won by filling all 15 positions in the Money Respin feature. The Money Respin feature is also available during free spins, so a giant-symbol round can turn into a jackpot chase mid-flow. That’s the game’s best trick, and it’s the reason the two systems exist side by side.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7/10
Playing Lucky New Year Tiger Treasures is mostly waiting under very pretty lanterns. You spin, the festival glows, and every so often a money tree or a cluster of lanterns turns the lights up – that’s the reason you’d pick this over a dozen other 5×3 games.
The strength is the free spins round. Five spins sounds mean, but the giant centre symbol makes each one count, the retrigger has no ceiling, and the respin feature can break out mid-round and turn a modest bonus into a jackpot chase. It escalates in a way the base game never does.
The weakness is everything between the features: the paytable tops out at 20x the bet, so ordinary spins never amount to much and the ladder carries all the ambition. It suits patient players who like a decorative, mid-paced session with a 1,000x target on the horizon, and it rewards anyone who wanted more bite from the original Lucky New Year. Volatility chasers after huge swings will find the tiger too tame. For everyone else, the lanterns are worth lighting.
Lucky New Year Tiger Treasures FAQs
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What is the RTP of Lucky New Year Tiger Treasures?
The RTP is 96%. That’s the total expected return including the jackpot contribution. -
Is Lucky New Year Tiger Treasures high volatility?
It sits at mid to high volatility, so wins can be spaced out but the features carry genuine payout potential. -
How do you trigger free spins in Lucky New Year Tiger Treasures?
Land three scatter symbols, the money tree, on reels 1, 3 and 5. Three scatters award five free spins and pay 1x the total bet. -
Can free spins be retriggered?
Yes, with no limit. Every time three more scatters hit during the round, three extra free spins are added, and this can happen any number of times. -
How does the Money Respin feature work?
Land six or more Money Symbol lanterns to trigger it. The triggering symbols lock in place, and you get three respins; every new Money Symbol that lands sticks and resets the respins back to three. Fill all 15 positions and you also win the Grand Jackpot. -
What is the biggest prize in Lucky New Year Tiger Treasures?
The Grand Jackpot at 1,000x the bet, won by filling all 15 positions in the Money Respin feature. It’s the game’s ceiling, and no line win comes close to it. -
How many paylines does Lucky New Year Tiger Treasures have?
There are 25 fixed paylines, paying left to right from the leftmost reel, with only the highest win counted per line. -
What is the minimum and maximum bet on Lucky New Year Tiger Treasures?
Stakes run from 0.25 to 250.00 per spin, so it accommodates both careful budgets and bigger bankrolls. -
Who makes Lucky New Year Tiger Treasures?
Pragmatic Play. Lucky New Year Tiger Treasures’ release date is 11 January 2022.
