Santa’s Slay

Santa's Slay: Slot Overview

Pragmatic Play partner Reel Kingdom invites gamblers to celebrate the festive season with its Christmas-themed online slot Santa's Slay. As far as cultural or religious celebrations go, Christmas has to be the most popular amongst casino game makers who glut the market with tinselled offerings. Every year, the floodgates open and Xmas slots pour forth. Whilst many are clones, it would appear that Santa's Slay is an original, which was surprising (and put us on the naughty list if that is incorrect). But, being original doesn't automatically equate to excellence, so will Santa's Slay end up being a Christmas turkey, or, just a turkey?

If you like Christmas, then Santa's Slay should bring a smile to your face as it's a very merry-looking slot. It's even got a reindeer wearing a hat, not Rudolph on account of the non-red nose, who not only looks neat, but also acts neat when it is kicking wilds onto the gaming area during free spins. The rest of the view is just as jolly, consisting of decorated trees, snow, and twinkling lights. The action takes place outdoors in the base and bonus games, and it's unclear if it's the North Pole, so Christmas lovers are free to imagine their preferred location while having a punt.

Off to the right is Santa's Slay's 5x5 gaming area. It uses 10 paylines to evaluate winning combinations, which begin from the leftmost reel. On the opposite end of the spectrum to the game's winning potential is a highly volatile math model, while RTP, when betting $/€0.05 to $/€240 per spin, comes out at 96.53%. Using the ante bet doubles the stake, increasing the chance of getting free spins.

A group of festive pay symbols are used throughout the game. On the lower side are decorated J-A card ranks, paying 2x to 4x the bet for 5 OAK. Then, on the higher side are gingerbread men, puddings, stockings, candy canes, and bells, worth 10x to 200x for a 5-of-a-kind hit. Wilds appear on all reels, but only during free spins. As well as substituting regular paying symbols, wild-only wins have the same value as the bells.

Santa's Slay: Slot Features

Santa's Slay is a slot that does little in the base game. This adds impetus to landing 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols in order to trigger 10, 15, or 30 free spins, respectively. During the round, up to 8 wild symbols can be randomly added to the grid. When this occurs, the wild symbols are sticky until a winning combination is formed. If a wild symbol is placed on top of another wild symbol, an x1 multiplier is added. The multiplier applies to all wins that pass through it, and if multiple wilds with multipliers are in the same win, their multipliers are multiplied by each other. Players win an extra 10, 15, or 30 free spins should 3, 4, or 5 scatters, respectively, land.

Feature Buy

It may be tempting to skip the base game, and this players can do by spending 100x their stake to land 3 to 6 scatters in order to trigger free spins.

Santa's Slay: Slot Verdict

Gamblers with a soft spot for this particular time of the year are spoiled for choice as there are a ton of Christmas-themed slots out there to choose from. These sorts of games vary wildly from boring old clones to something unique. Santa's Slay sits between those two extremes, but it does lean closer to the less impressive side of the spectrum. While managing to achieve festive cheer across the reels, it doesn't deliver the technical or statistical magic one might hope for from a Christmas-themed slot. Or, just a slot in general. The presentation is warm and unmistakably festive, yet when it comes to depth and excitement, Santa's Slay struggles to keep pace with stronger titles in the genre.

One of the low points is a 2,000x the bet win cap. It's a pretty sad number that's at odds with the smile-inducement much of the rest of the game can provoke. More so when you consider features that include wilds that not only stick (till a win occurs) but which can also become wild multipliers when the reindeer stacks them on top of each other. Maybe if wilds were fully sticky till free spins ended, the game would have had more kick, but the maths might have been completely different in that case. And, as it stands, Santa's Slay feels aimed at casual gamblers rather than those wanting greater all-or-nothing thrills.

However, while the 'low' max win stuck out, Santa's Slay's cap is about the same as the one found in Big Bass Bonanza, and we all know how that turned out. Still, the base game is a bit of a non-event, free spins lack a killer blow, so it's a slot that feels better suited to a bit of festive fun than to chasing monster wins. With the huge number of Christmas slots out there, even if Santa's Slay shines with a bit of originality, it's at severe risk of getting lost in the crowd.