Winning Wishes

Winning Wishes Slot Review

Tall gold-capped towers rise on either side of the reels, genie lamps smoke gently at the corners, and a violet dusk settles behind the whole palace. Winning Wishes is a slot that hides almost all of its worth behind one door: the regular paytable is so shallow that five of its best symbol returns barely twice the stake, and everything the game might pay you lives in the Hold and Respin round instead.

Boomerang Studios built it on a 5×4 grid with 576 ways to win, running at 95.9% RTP. It shares its coin-and-collect bones with other Boomerang titles we’ve covered, among them Leprechaun’s Gold Garden and Reel the Rum. The lamps of the title sit at the centre of everything, and it’s the bonus round they open that decides whether a session here amounts to anything.

576 Ways Across a 5×4 Grid

A single stake of 0.25 covers all 576 ways, and wins pay left to right across consecutive reels starting from the leftmost one. It’s a standard ways setup: no paylines to trace, just matching symbols on adjacent reels anywhere in their rows. A panther on reels one, two and three pays, wherever each one sits in its row. Five reels, four rows, and every position on each reel counts.

Two small rules finish the picture. Each symbol in a win can only be used once per winning combination, so one panther can’t contribute to two different wins. Coinciding wins are added together, which matters on a ways grid: a spin can line up panthers on the left and suits across the middle and collect both.

The Wild substitutes for everything except the Bonus Lamp, and it’s confined to the bottom reels two through five and the top reel row. That’s its whole job, and it does it without ceremony.

The reel set is split across two levels. The main four-high grid carries the bulk of the action, and a top reel sits above it, feeding extra symbols – wilds included – into the same left-to-right wins. Everything the game pays in its regular mode flows through that arrangement.

Symbols pay as multiples of the total bet, and the ladder is a shallow one. Five of the top symbol returns just twice the stake:

• Black Panther – 2x for five, 0.8x for four, 0.4x for three
• Monkey – 1.6x for five, 0.72x for four, 0.32x for three
• Horse – 1.2x for five, 0.72x for four, 0.32x for three
• Scroll – 1x for five, 0.6x for four, 0.2x for three
• Spade, Heart, Diamond, Clover – 0.4x for five, 0.2x for four, 0.12x for three

Even a full line of panthers returns double the bet, and the four card suits sit at the bottom of the ladder paying fractions of it. The gaps between tiers are narrow too: a three-symbol panther win and a five-symbol suit win both land within a whisker of each other.

Regular symbol wins here exist to keep the balance ticking between bonus rounds, not to carry it. The animal symbols carry the theme’s character work – a black panther, a monkey and a horse above a scroll and the four suits – while the palace artwork does the rest. It’s a light touch, and the reels stay readable against the ornate frame.

Hold and Respin Feature

Six or more Bonus Lamp symbols anywhere in view award the Hold and Respin feature, and the lamps do nothing else – they don’t substitute, they don’t pay, they just open the door. Everything the game has been saving up happens on the other side of it.

Once inside, the round runs on three special symbols:

• Coin – lands with a value attached and holds in place for the rest of the round
• Upgrade – adds a small fixed amount to every coin already held, then turns into a coin itself
• Collect – gathers up all held coins and pays their combined value

The order of arrival is what shapes a round. Coins that land early keep their values and wait. A collect converts the whole stack the moment it appears, so the timing of that one symbol is the timing of the payout.

An upgrade landing later lifts everything on the board at once. Because it also becomes a coin, it never wastes its spin: it pays twice, once in the bump it gives the others and once as a held coin itself.

The best rounds are the patient ones – plenty of coins landing first, an upgrade or two arriving once the board is full, and a collect only after the stack has grown. Individual coin values are small, and even the largest of them is a modest multiple of the stake.

The round assembles its totals from many small parts rather than one transformative hit, so the boards that pay well are the busy ones. A feature that ends without a collect symbol in view leaves nothing gathered.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 6.3/10

Playing Winning Wishes is mostly sitting in a very handsome palace waiting for lamps. Somebody would choose it precisely for that single-mindedness: there’s one feature, it’s the whole game, and when it finally arrives it rewards the wait with a round that genuinely builds.

The interaction between coins, upgrades and the collect is the best thing here – a late upgrade turning a board of small change into something worth gathering is the moment the game exists for. The cost is everything around it: the base game pays so little that reaching that moment is a long, quiet walk, and even a good board assembles its total from coins that are individually tiny.

This is a game for players who like one well-made collect round and are content to spin patiently towards it, and it isn’t for anyone who wants the regular reels to pay their way. The palace glows either way, and when the lamps finally rub together, the wish is at least an honest one.

Winning Wishes FAQs

• What is the RTP of Winning Wishes?

  Winning Wishes runs at an RTP of 95.9%.
• How do you trigger the Hold and Respin feature in Winning Wishes?

  Land six or more Bonus Lamp symbols anywhere in view. The lamps don’t substitute for anything or pay on their own – six of them is the sole trigger for the feature.
• How does the Upgrade symbol work in Winning Wishes?

  The Upgrade symbol adds a small fixed amount to every coin already held on the reels, then turns into a coin itself and holds with the rest. Because it converts, it contributes twice – once through the bump to the other coins and once as a held coin.
• What does the Collect symbol do in Winning Wishes?

  A Collect symbol gathers up all held coin symbols and pays their combined value at once. It’s the payout moment of the Hold and Respin feature.
• Does the Wild substitute for the Bonus Lamp in Winning Wishes?

  No. The Wild stands in for every paying symbol but never for the Bonus Lamp, so the feature trigger can’t be wild-assisted. The Wild is also limited to the bottom reels two through five and the top reel row.
• How do wins pay in Winning Wishes?

  All wins begin on the leftmost reel and pay left to right across consecutive reels, with each symbol used only once per combination. Coinciding wins are added together, and a single stake of 0.25 covers all 576 ways.
• How many paylines does Winning Wishes have?

  Winning Wishes offers 576 ways to win on a 5×4 grid. Matching symbols on adjacent reels from the left form a win, wherever they sit in their rows.
• Who makes Winning Wishes?

  Winning Wishes is made by Boomerang Studios. Its release date is 1 February 2024.