EN
23 July 2024 
Santa’s Great Gifts Slot Review 2024
The Christmas slots are coming thick and fast in the run up to the festive season, and to throw their hat in the ring comes Pragmatic Play with their offering, Santa’s Great Gifts.
Saint Nick has plenty in the way of cheer this year, and plenty in the way of presents, too.
But is Santa’s Great Gifts one of the great Christmas Slots of 2022? Let’s take a look.
Santa’s Great Gifts Base Game and Features
Santa’s Great Gifts is a 6 reel slot with a Pay Anywhere mechanic. Winning combinations are formed when 8 or more of the same symbols land anywhere across the reels.
The minimum bet available to players is £/€0.20 (£/€0.25 Ante Bet) per spin and the maximum bet available is £/€100 (£/€125 Ante Bet) per spin, with plenty of other options in between the two. Santa’s Great Gifts has a theoretical RTP of 96.25% and a max win capacity of 5,000x.
Santa’s Great Gifts features Cascading Reels. Each time a winning combination forms, all winning symbols will be removed from the reels and new symbols will drop down from above, filling all empty positions.
In terms of symbols, the highest paying regular symbol here is the Snow Globe, followed by the Gingerbread Man, Cookie, Candy Cane and Hot Drink. Low-paying symbols fall to a collection of Pink, Red, Green and Blue Baubles. There is no Wild symbol present in Santa’s Great Gifts.
Ante Bet
Before you can begin spinning, you will, have the option to activate the Ante Bet feature on the left side of the reel set.
Choosing to activate the Ante Bet will increase your current bet by 25%, but with that comes certain advantages. Activating the Ante Bet feature will Double your chances of landing the Free Spins round, with more Scatters being present on the reels. (RTP 96.23%)
When the Ante Bet feature is active, the Bonus Buy option will be disabled.
Multipliers
During gameplay, you will come across up to 4 coloured Gift Boxes that can appear on all reels. These gift boxes will always land with an active Multiplier.
Whenever a Multiplier symbol lands, it will reveal a random Multiplier value between x2 and x100. At the end of the Cascade sequence, all present Multiplier values will be added together and applied to the total win for that spin.
Santa’s Great Gifts Free Spins
Landing 4, 5 or 6 Scatters across the reels in any position triggers the Free Spins round, awarding 10, 15 and 20 Free Spins respectively.
During Free Spins, a progressive feature comes into play, starting at Level 1. Each time a Multiplier symbol lands, they are collected and stored in a Meter. The Free Spins round will level up when it reaches a certain threshold, upgrading the Multiplier values as follows.
- Level 1 – (Before you reach the next level) In level 1, Multiplier symbols can land with a value between x2 and x100.
- Level 2 – Activates when 6 Multiplier symbols have been collected. In level 2, Multiplier symbols can land with a value between x8 and x100.
- Level 3 – Activates when an additional 5 Multiplier symbols have been collected. In level 3, Multiplier symbols can land with a value between x15 and x100.
- Level 4 – Activates when an additional 4 Multiplier symbols have been collected. In level 4, Multiplier symbols can land with a value between x50 and x100. Once this level has been reached, it is not possible to level up any further.
Landing 3 or more Scatters during the Free Spins round awards an additional +5 Free Spins.
Santa’s Great Gifts Bonus Buy
For those of you who are outside the UK, you will benefit from a Bonus Buy option.
Pragmatic Play has granted players access to each of the 4 Levels in the Free Spins round, as follows.
- Option 1 – Starts at Level 1 with Multiplier values between x2 and x100 for a total cost of 100x your current bet. (RTP 96.31%)
- Option 2 – Starts at Level 2 with Multiplier values between x8 and x100 for a total cost of 200x your current bet. (RTP 96.33%)
- Option 3 – Starts at Level 3 with Multiplier values between x15 and x100 for a total cost of 400x your current bet. (RTP 96.32%)
- Option 4 – Starts at Level 4 with Multiplier values between x50 and x100 for a total cost of 500x your current bet. (RTP 96.32%)
Santa’s Great Gifts: Our Verdict
Santa’s Great Gifts takes inspiration from some of Pragmatic’s most popular titles, namely Sweet Bonanza and Olympus.
This time, they’ve decided to increase the excitement with a progressive feature whereby the top level offers multipliers of 50 – 100x only. That’s a big win on pretty much every winning spin, no matter the symbol you land, and it’s for this reason that we’re rather fond of Santa’s Great Gifts.
You’ll need to be rather lucky though. As expected, the levels can be rather hard to climb, but if you’re in bonus buy territory then Santa’s Great Gifts becomes a very viable option for Bonus Buy aficionados. The cost for the top level can feel rather steep at 500x though. Other providers often include a 500x bonus buy option, and often the potential is much higher.
Speaking of potential, the highest maximum win here is 5,000x, which is pretty standard for a Pragmatic Play title. Some argue that they need to up the ante a bit, ourselves included at times, but at least they’re realistic and possible.
Overall, Santa’s Great Gifts is one of the better Christmas Slots we’ve seen so far, but there’s still a couple of months to go and plenty more that could prove better options.
Welcome Bonus
