Lucky New Year Slot Review
A temple facade at festival time, red pillars lacquered to a shine, marquee bulbs strung along the pagoda eave, a title plaque in gold scrollwork. Lucky New Year is at its best when it stops being a 25-payline slot: both of its bonus rounds take the reels over completely, and that’s where nearly all of the real money lives. The base game mostly exists to keep you seated until then.
It’s a modest ceiling for Pragmatic Play festival fare. Floating Dragon New Year Festival Ultra Megaways Hold & Spin made the same lantern-lit chase a volatile, high-stakes affair in 2026; this one caps the celebrations at 2,500x on a 5×3 grid, with low volatility and stakes from 0.25 to 250 per spin. Depending on the version a casino opts for, the RTP sits anywhere between 93.99% and 96%. The giant-symbol free spins and the lantern jackpot hunt give it a shape of its own.
Base Game & Features
The grid is a 5×3 layout with 25 fixed paylines, and all symbols pay left to right on adjacent reels starting from the leftmost. Only the highest win counts on each line. Free spins wins are added to payline wins.
The wild is a golden horse that substitutes for everything except the scatter and the Money Symbols, and it’s also the richest symbol on the reels. Wins are multiplied by the bet per line. Here’s what each symbol returns for three, four and five of a kind, as multiples of the total bet:
- Wild (golden horse): 1x / 10x / 20x
- Firecrackers: 0.8x / 6x / 16x
- Drum: 0.6x / 4x / 12x
- Oranges: 0.4x / 2x / 8x
- A: 0.4x / 0.8x / 2x
- K: 0.2x / 0.8x / 2x
- Q: 0.2x / 0.8x / 2x
- J: 0.2x / 0.8x / 2x
The royals drop away sharply at the bottom of the table, and they’re what most spins are actually made of.
The scatter is the golden coins icon. Both scatter and wild only show up on reels 1, 3 and 5. That’s a tight distribution for the game’s two most important symbols.
Control-wise it’s standard Pragmatic fare. The bet menu opens from the plus and minus buttons, and spin speed cycles through normal, quick and turbo. Autoplay sits on the button beside it, and the space bar starts and stops a spin.
Lucky New Year Free Spins & Money Respin
Free Spins
Landing three scatters starts the round with five free spins. That’s a short round by any standard. The catch that makes it interesting is the giant symbol: during free spins, reels 2, 3 and 4 spin together as one oversized block, so whatever lands there lands across all three middle reels at once.
A giant symbol spanning the middle of the grid has an obvious consequence. Any paying symbol that fills that block pays on several of the 25 lines simultaneously. The middle of the screen does most of the earning.
Retriggers are unlimited. Every time three scatters hit during the round, three more spins are added. Special reels are in play throughout, which changes the symbol mix compared with the base game.
Money Respin Feature
The Money Symbol is a lantern present on all reels. Each spin it takes a random value from a predefined set, or one of the Minor or Major jackpot values. When six or more land at once, the Money Respin feature begins after all line wins have been paid.
Everything except the triggering lanterns fades away, and the reels are replaced with special reels containing only Money Symbols and empty spaces. You start with three respins. Every time at least one new lantern lands it sticks in place and the count resets to three.
The round ends when the respins run out or all 15 positions fill with lanterns. When it’s over, every lantern value on screen is added together and paid as a total. Fill all 15 positions and the Grand jackpot comes on top.
The Jackpot Ladder
A four-tier ladder sits above the reels throughout play: Minor, Major and Grand, with the Grand shown on both sides of the cabinet. The credit values on display move with your stake, so they’re a reflection of your bet rather than fixed prizes. Lanterns can carry values of their own on top of the jackpot tiers, so a well-filled board pays both.
The Grand is the only tier tied to a specific event, the full 15-position board. Minor and Major arrive as lantern values during the respin feature. With a 2,500x overall cap, the Grand and a strong lantern collection together account for most of what the game can realistically pay.
The Money Respin feature doesn’t confine itself to the base game. It runs during the free spins round too, so a single bonus session can carry both the giant reels and the lantern chase at once. That overlap is where the biggest realistic results live.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7/10
Playing Lucky New Year is like being at a street party where the good food comes from one stall: you’ll stay for the lanterns, and everything in between is pleasant, well-decorated padding. The wins arrive steadily enough that a session never quite goes cold.
The free spins round is the strongest thing here, because the giant middle symbol means every spin inside it hits somewhere, and the unlimited retrigger lets a good round run on. The weakness is the flat top end: with a 2,500x cap and a paytable where even the wild pays just 20x, nothing on the screen ever grows teeth, and the respins land small more often than they land memorable.
It suits players who like a long, gentle session with a jackpot to aim at between spins, and anyone after big swings will find the festival too polite. For steady hands and patient bankrolls, though, the lanterns are worth lighting.
Lucky New Year FAQs
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How do you trigger free spins in Lucky New Year?
Landing three scatter symbols starts the round with five free spins. Scatters only appear on reels 1, 3 and 5. During the round, reels 2, 3 and 4 spin together as one giant symbol, and every further three scatters add three more spins with no limit on retriggers. -
How does the Money Respin feature work?
Six or more Money Symbol lanterns trigger the feature after line wins are paid. The triggering lanterns lock in place and you receive three respins on special reels containing only lanterns and empty spaces. Every new lantern that lands resets the respins to three, and when the round ends all lantern values are added together and paid. -
How do you win the Grand jackpot in Lucky New Year?
Fill all 15 positions on the screen with Money Symbols during the Money Respin feature and you win the Grand jackpot on top of the combined value of every lantern on the board. The jackpot values shown above the reels scale with your stake. -
Can the Money Respin feature trigger during free spins?
Yes. The lantern respins run inside the free spins round as well as the base game, so a single bonus session can carry both the giant middle reels and the jackpot chase together. -
What does the wild substitute for in Lucky New Year?
The wild is a golden horse that appears on reels 1, 3 and 5 and substitutes for all symbols except the scatter and the Money Symbols. It’s also the game’s richest symbol, paying up to 20x the total bet for five of a kind. -
What is the RTP of Lucky New Year?
According to Pragmatic Play’s own numbers, Lucky New Year pays out at 96%, though casinos can also run a 93.99% build, so it’s worth opening the game’s info screen to confirm which one is in front of you. -
Is Lucky New Year high volatility?
No, Lucky New Year is a low volatility slot, so wins tend to arrive steadily in smaller amounts rather than in rare large payouts. -
What is the maximum win on Lucky New Year?
The maximum win is 2,500x your bet.
