Jingle Bells Bonanza

Jingle Bells Bonanza: Slot Overview

Hey players, how would you like to do a spot of online gambling with a jolly bearded man in a red jumpsuit going by the name of Santa Claus, or St Nick, or Father Christmas, or however you like to label him? If so, then developer NetEnt pumps up the Christmas spirit with its online slot Jingle Bells Bonanza. It'll help if you're the sort of person who gets excited over features that frame positions for wild/wild multiplier activation further down the line or are satiated by relatively mid-tier hold 'n win bonus rounds, or both. If you're curious about what Jingle Bells Bonanza has lying under the tree, then join us as we rip off the wrapper and are either delighted or disappointed with the result. Or ambivalent.

If nothing else, Jingle Bells Bonanza provides a unique vantage point with which to enjoy what it has to offer. Here's a little visualisation exercise to help paint the scene. Pretend you're Blixem or Dunder's butt while the reindeer are all hooked up to Santa's sleigh, what can you see? Close. We've got Santa on the actual sitting part of the sleigh and a bunch of elves hanging on for dear life as gifts tumble to the ground. Wouldn't it be funny if Santa was actually real, and that's how he delivered gifts? Just letting them randomly rain down on the planet, and parents had no idea what toys their children were going to get. Boxes just appeared all over the place on Christmas day, and kids ended up battling each other for the bits of plastic junk they really wanted, anarchy reigning supreme. Ho ho ho.

Climb aboard the sleigh by picking a stake of 10 c to $/€20 per spin, and buckle in for a medium-high volatile ride. Heading over to the how-to-play section of the menu and clicking on Game Number will reveal Jingle Bells Bonanza's RTP value, which defaults at 96.12%. Slapped against the sleigh is a 5-reel, 3-row, 20 payline gaming grid, while above it is a progress bar which indicates if any upgrades will be available in the next Cash Drop event.

Gingerbread 10 to A card ranks are Jingle Bells Bonanza's low pay symbols, paying out 3.7 to 5 times the bet when hitting a 5 OAK winning line. Next, we've got a spinning top, a snowman, a wooden horse, a bird beating a drum, and a teddy bear, as the high pays, adorable, worth 7.5 to 50 times the bet for a 5 symbol win. When wilds appear in the game, you'll see how in a moment, they are able to substitute for any regular pay symbol.

Jingle Bells Bonanza: Slot Features

Gifts are a fun, though not the most important, thing about Christmas, and in Jingle Bells Bonanza, they are pretty important as well. They're what get players into the Cash Drop feature, while the other important symbol to be on the lookout for is the Bell.

Bells and Frames

When a Bell lands on any of the middle three reels, it highlights the position it landed on with a frame. New Bells that land on framed positions increase the multiplier on the frame. Landing a gift box scatter activates all frames and makes them Wild Christmas Bells. Frames with multipliers turn into wilds with multipliers.

Cash Drop

Landing a scatter on both the first and last reel triggers the Cash Drop bonus. Here, 3 spins are awarded, and only blanks or Cash Drop symbols land. The triggering scatter turns into Cash Drop symbols with a cash prize of 3x the bet upon entering, and landing new ones locks them, too, then resets the spin count. Values on Cash Drop symbols can be 1x to 100x the bet.

Cash Drop Progress

Landing Bells also progresses the Progress Bar. At certain points on the bar, the next Cash Drop trigger will be upgraded with up to 4 Progresses Prizes. They are randomly triggered, but not the same one twice at the same time. Entering the bonus round resets the Progress Bar. Completely filling the Progress Bar instantly turns all frames into wilds and enters the Ultimate Cash Drop bonus. The Progress Prizes are:

• Multiplier – when awarded, the final amount from the bonus is doubled.
• Expand – when awarded, two extra rows are added to the grid.
• Spin – when awarded, the Cash Drop counter is increased to 4 for the bonus.
• Mystery – when awarded, the Golden Cash Drop can appear in the bonus.

When a Golden Cash Dop symbol lands, it reveals a prize of 3x to 20x and one of these bonus mechanics:

• Four Arrows – gathers all prizes horizontally and vertically from where the symbol landed.
• Plus Sign – increases all prizes that have landed.
• Single Arrow – gathers all prizes from the direction the arrow shows to where the symbol landed.

Jingle Bells Bonanza: Slot Verdict

After the gifts had been handed out, the reindeer safely back in their barn, and the elves let off for the night, Jingle Bells Bonanza turned out to be a jolly old game. It's got a great tee-up and a base game view that is humorously unique. It is able to reward patient players who collect a good number of Bells to increment the Progress Bar, all while marking frames and filling them with wilds or wild multipliers along the way. The atmosphere is light, fun-filled, and very, very Christmassy.

Where Jingle Bells Bonanza falters slightly is that its bonus round felt like a slight letdown after such a great tee-up by the base game. The Cash Drop round doesn't do anything awful; in fact, it's pretty much the definition of an average, maybe slightly above average, hold 'n win game. It just looks a little plain, and unless you're able to land some of the Golden Cash Drop symbols, it plays out quite plainly as well. Progress Prizes are a boon, though, multipliers, grid expansions and the extra spin, if you can get them. Naturally, Jingle Bells Bonanza isn't squaring off against the heavyweight hold 'n win slots, but it's quite fun for a mid-level Christmas-themed, err, bonanza, and good for wins of up to 4,186x the bet.

And that's about it. Jingle Bells Bonanza won't be winning slot of the year prizes in the general gaming category, but it might do quite well if there was a dedicated Christmas entry. As far as these seasonally focused games go, Jingle Bells Bonanza was actually quite memorable when compared to a lot of them. The singular viewpoint in the base game played a key role in standing out from the crowd, but its gaming wasn't bad either if you're not expecting to be razzle-dazzled.