Lucky Dragon

Lucky Dragon (iSoftBet): Overview

As European regulations are becoming more stringent, increasingly complicated and expensive, casinos have started to venture out into other parts of the world. Aside from the US, which is slowly starting to warm up to online gambling, China is every casino managers wet dream. Not only has it become a financial powerhouse, but it's also home to 1.4 billion people. Officially, gambling is illegal in China. In practice, however, Chinese citizens frequently travel to legal casinos overseas or in the administrative-territorial entities of Hong Kong and Macau, to get their gambling fix. They are even known to access online casinos with the help of VPN services. The point we are trying to get across here is that the rise in Asian themed slots from the likes of NetEnt and Pragmatic Play is likely no coincidence.

Powered by iSoftBet, Lucky Dragon is a Chinese style fruit machine made up of 3 reels, 3 rows and 5 paylines that can be played from 0.25 to €/$25 per spin on all computers, mobile phones or tablets that support the html5 format. Simple as 3 reel slots tend to be, it benefits from only one actual feature - a stacked wild multiplier. Additionally, there is also the possibility of triggering a progressive jackpot.

When it comes to the game's production, it's the traditional music that sticks out the most - a tranquil and quite enchanting soundtrack that we instantly liked. Visually, it's less impressive. Dominated by red and gold, the backdrop consists of a simple wallpaper depicting two dragons standing on each side of the reels. On the reels, as well as the frame around it, the jagged edges are clearly visible, and compression has left a mark too in various places. Unfortunately, it looks a bit like a rushed job, far below the high standards we otherwise see in iSoftBet games. On the plain white reels you'll see single, double and treble cymbals alongside rings, ingots, lanterns and flaming dragons - the latter being the most rewarding, giving you 40 times your stake for a three of a kind combination.

Lucky Dragon (iSoftBet): Features

The flaming dragon is the Wild. It appears fully stacked on all three reels and only act as a wild when it fully covers the reel. If you land 1 or 2 fully stacked flaming dragons, your win will be subject to a 2x multiplier. Oddly, landing all three of them will not trigger the same multiplier, but only reward you with the standard value of the flaming dragon symbol which amounts to 200 times your stake (40 x 5 = 200).

If you arrived expecting to land bigger wins than that, there's always the progressive jackpot to hope for. Although not confirmed at the time of writing, "progressive" in this case likely means local progressive (only for the casino you're playing at) and not pooled progressive (not collected across a network of casinos). To trigger it, you have to land 3 lotus flowers on any of the 5 paylines.

Lucky Dragon (iSoftBet): Verdict

As you could probably tell, Lucky Dragon is quite basic. That's far from the biggest issue we have with it, though. Aside from the questionable graphics, which gives the impression of a game rapidly put together, there are also some other flaws, such as the high bet increments and the paytable above the reels set out to make you believe the symbols are more rewarding than they really are. It's a manipulative tactic with a long history that's deployed by many providers in the industry, but one we'd like to see removed altogether.

While we have been positively surprised by iSoftBet's two most recent titles, Dragon Stone and Egyptian King, this one will not make it onto our wishlist. Not today, nor tomorrow.