Santas Wonderland

Santas Wonderland Review

Santas Wonderland Reviewed November 29 2021 by Casinogamesonnet.com

Pragmatic Play is presenting a Christmas gift in the form of Santa’s Wonderland. An 8x8 grid slot, Santa’s Wonderland offers several modifiers along with a progressive multiplier.

The hope is that you can turn these features into some extra holiday cheer for yourself. Below, you can find out if these features make Santa’s Wonderland worth checking out.

Gameplay and Atmosphere

This slot features 8 reels and 8 rows, thus making an 8x8 grid. It pays when 5+ matching symbols form a cluster going horizontally, vertically, or both.

Winning symbols vanish from the grid thanks to tumbling reels. New icons then fall into their places and can offer more wins.

As for the atmosphere, Santa’s Wonderland takes place in a dark room with wrapped presents. This isn’t exactly the setting we envisioned when seeing “Wonderland” in the title. The background looks okay, but we would like to see more than just glowing presents.

You’ll see a clock with different-colored circles on it. This clock plays into a feature that we’ll discuss later in the review.

Santas Wonderland Max Win, Payouts and Symbols

Green, orange, and red decorative bulbs make up the low pays. A teddy bear, train engine, and toy plane comprise the higher payouts.

The highest-paying normal symbol delivers up to 100x your stake for a cluster with 20+ symbols. You can win as much as 7,500x your stake when accounting for features.

Santa acts as the wild symbol and substitutes for all regular pays to help complete winning combinations. The catch, though, is that Santa only appears during certain modifiers (discussed later).

RTP, Volatility and Betting Options

You can wager between €0.20 and €100 per spin. This betting range allows for jackpots going from €1,500 (0.2 x 7,500) to €750,000 (100 x 7,500).

The default Santa’s Wonderland RTP is 96.23%. However, casino operators can choose RTP as low as 95.46% or 94.49%. You can figure out the payout percentage by looking at the info screen.

Pragmatic Play rates the volatility at 5 out of 5. The many modifiers/features play a role in this wild romp through the North Pole.

Santas Wonderland Features

This game offers five Snowflake modifiers along with a Midnight Riches bonus. It also lets you buy Midnight Riches for a multiple of your stake.

Tumbling Reels

Symbols from wins disappear and leave empty positions. New symbols fall into their vacant positions. Tumbling reels continue so long as more winning combinations can be formed.

Snowflake Modifiers

5 out of the 64 positions are marked by snowflakes during each spin. You’ll trigger one of the following modifiers whenever a snowflake-marked position is part of a win:

• Blue Snowflake - All symbols except wilds disappear from the grid. A new symbol drop then occurs with the wilds in place.
• Green Snowflake - Adds 5-15 wild Santas to the reels.
• Purple Snowflake - Changes all instances of one symbol type into a wild Santa.
• Red Snowflake - Delivers a 3x3, 4x4 or 5x5 oversized symbol.
• Yellow Snowflake - Adds 2x2 oversized symbols to the grid.

More than one snowflake position can be involved in a win. In this case, you’ll benefit from multiple modifiers.

Midnight Riches

All winning symbols collect in the Midnight Riches meter. The Midnight Riches bonus triggers whenever 140 symbols are collected.

This feature has five different levels. On Level 1, all wins are multiplied by 3x and each Snowflake modifier is active. The modifiers play out one by one on separate spins.

Once Midnight Riches is activated, you achieve a higher progressive win multiplier by leveling up. The level-ups work as follows:

• 116 collected symbols – Level 2 and 6x multiplier
• 120 collected symbols – Level 3 and 9x multiplier
• 124 collected symbols – Level 4 and 12x multiplier
• 132 collected symbols – Level 5 and 15x multiplier

At the very least, you’ll have 5 free spins to level up—one spin for each modifier. This bonus continues until you either fail to level up or all modifiers have been played at Level 5.

Feature Buy

You can buy Midnight Riches for 100x the stake. As described above, you’ll start at Level 1 and try working your way up the ladder.

Does Santa’s Wonderland Compare to Any Other Pragmatic Play Slots?

Santa’s Wonderland is close to Pragmatic’s Gems Bonanza regarding gampeplay. The latter also features an 8x8 grid with cluster pays.

It has the same features too, including 5 modifiers along with a progressive-multiplier bonus. During the bonus, you collect symbols and level up the multiplier just like in Santa’s Wonderland.

Gems Bonanza only differs in terms of theme and maximum payout. As indicated by the name, this slot is all about precious gems. Its max win is worth 10,000x the stake, which is just above Santa’s 7,500 top prize.

Final Thoughts on Santas Wonderland Slot

This game is ultimately a reskin of Gems Bonanza. It only differs regarding its theme and a slightly lower max win.

That’s not to say that being a Gems Bonanza reskin is necessarily a bad thing. Santa’s Wonderland brings a unique grid-slot approach to Christmas. It also has plenty of features that keep the action entertaining.

We would’ve liked to see Pragmatic Play improve upon, or at least maintain, the top win offered in Gems Bonanza. For some reason, though, Pragmatic decided to reduce the win potential.

Even still, 7,500x the stake isn’t a terrible maximum prize. Most importantly, Santa’s Wonderland is a solid Christmas-themed game that’s worth trying around the holidays.

Release Date

Santas Wonderland was released on November 29 2021.