Santa’s Xmas Rush Slot (Pragmatic Play)

The Santa's Xmas Rush slot game is played on a 6x6 grid and it’s a Cluster Pays game. This means that a win takes place when 6 or more matching symbols appear which can be connected vertically, horizontally or both. You might have seen Cluster Pays games called grid slots on certain sites.

Bets for this game start at 20p and go up to £240. On desktop, you can adjust your bet amount using the plus and minus buttons icons, and on mobile, you can do so via the coin icon. Non-UK players can utilise the Autoplay function which goes up to 1,000 spins. There are also Turbo Spin and Quick Spin options to speed up the spins. 

The RTP rate is 96.51% which is above the online average of 96%. There are also rates of  95.58% and  94.48% available to operators.

You’ll find a volatility rating of 'high' and a base game hit frequency rate of 28.57% which means it hits on average every 1 in 3.60 spins. The free spins hit frequency rate is 1 in 395.84 for the free spins round.

The max win is 10,000x the bet and the max win hit frequency is 1 in 50,000,000.

Jenny Mason

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Jenny Mason has more than 17 years of experience in the online gambling industry and has worked for some of the UK’s top betting brands. She started at OLBG in 2014, and her role involved creating great content and looking after marketing activities. Jenny is knowledgeable in all areas with specialisation in Bingo and Online Slots

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🍀 Bingo is Jenny's first Love, and time with Gala Bingo sits on her CV. She has become an expert with online slots, completing hundreds of our various new slot reviews and creating and writing some of the slot articles found on the site.

While testing out the Santa’s Xmas Rush slot, I couldn't help but get Jingle Bells stuck in my head—despite writing this review in October! But as a true Christmas enthusiast, that's hardly a problem.

This slot takes you into a classic Christmas setting, with a snowy forest backdrop that could easily pass for Lapland. A jolly Santa, decked out in his usual red get-up, is surrounded by sacks of presents that bob along in time to the music.

When you trigger the Free Spins you‘re whisked away in a flurry of colourful presents, stockings and wreaths. The scene shifts to a cosy living room which is decked up to the nines with giant trees draped in bright ornaments, stockings hanging by a roaring fire, and wreaths everywhere.…you get the picture. 

The upbeat music includes loads of sleigh bells to give it a Christmas feel, which is probably why Jingle Bells is stuck on my repeat in my head. Santa even has a bell tucked into this belt.

Around the reel are green garlands made of branches forming a border around the grid, lots of gold presents and gold coins on top. Symbols are made up of Christmas decorations, including Christmas-themed imagery such as gingerbread men, stockings and reindeer. The highest value symbol is the stocking.

The reel itself is framed by festive green garlands and gold-wrapped presents, with shiny gold coins scattered on top. The symbols are full of Christmas tree decorations featuring gingerbread men, stockings and reindeer. The stocking symbol holds the highest value, offering the biggest potential rewards. 

Here’s a rundown of all of the symbols:

• Blue jewel decoration: 6-36 = 0.25 to 2.50 x the bet
• Purple jewel decoration: 6-36 = 0.30 to 4.00 x the bet
• Green jewel decoration:  6-36 = 0.50 to 7.50 x the bet
• Reindeer:  6-36 = 1.00 to 12.50 x the bet
• Gingerbread man: 6-36 = 1.50 to 20.00 x the bet
• Stocking:  6-36 = 2.00 to 25.00 x the bet
• Scatter: 4+ trigger the Free Spins feature
  
  

Santa’s Xmas Rush Mobile

The Santa’s Xmas Rush mobile slot is powered by the latest HTML5 technology, ensuring a top gaming experience whether you're on Android or iOS. It also works superbly on tablets and desktops.

There are 5 bonus features in the Santa’s Xmas Rush slot game: tumbles, feature buy, free spins, ante bet and a Xmas Rush feature.

Tumble

Whenever there is a winning combo, the winning symbols fall to the bottom of the grid, and new symbols replace them, giving you more opportunities to win.

Xmas Rush

In the base game, 3 to 8 random positions on the screen can be marked with a snowflake mark (an example of the snowflake mark can be seen in the screenshot below). After all tumbles finish, if at least 1 Santa symbol is on the screen, all marked positions reveal direct money prizes or a respin prize. The direct money awards have values ranging from 0.5x to 2,500x the bet. 

If the respin prize is not revealed the direct money awards are awarded and collected. If a respin does land, then all the direct money awards are awarded and collected and then new prizes are revealed. If more Santa symbols appear during the reveal then the direct money awards are multiplied by the amount of Santa symbols on the screen.

Feature Buy

Non-UK players can buy their way into the Free Spins feature at a cost of 120 x the bet. This ensures that  4, 5, or 6 scatter symbols will land.

Free Spins

Landing 4 or more scatters triggers the Free Spins feature; if you trigger 4, 5, 6, or 7 scatters, it gives you 10, 14, 18, or 22 free spins, respectively. During the feature, snowflakes are not added randomly.

Instead, every winning combo that explodes during the feature has a chance to randomly add a snowflake mark on a random position out of those positions in which it exploded. These snowflake marks stay on the screen until the end of the round.

Ante Bet

If you spend a bit more to increase your chances of winning, there are 3 options available for this game:

• 20 x - normal play
• 30x - chance to enter the Free Spins feature is 3 x higher, more Scatter will land on the reels
• 60 x - the chance to enter the Free Spins feature is 8 x higher, more scatters will land on the reels

If you fall into the Scrooge category when it comes to Christmas, then the Santa’s Xmas Rush slot is going to a hard no. This game is saccharine sweet, so would only appeal to those who enjoy this kind of traditional slot game. There’s no sign of any coal here, just bright and spangly presents galore!

The slot’s highest RTP is 96.51%, which is solid and in line with Pragmatic Play’s typical offerings. With a maximum win of 10,000x your bet, the potential payout is definitely decent. While Cluster Pays slots slots can be hit or miss depending on your preference (or should I say, your cup of seasonal hot chocolate), it works well in this festive setting.

Now for the features, they're fairly standard, the Xmas Rush Feature has potential, although during testing while the snowflake marks appeared frequently, Santa himself was nowhere to be found.  If he had landed, he could have triggered direct money prizes or a respin, with prizes of up to 2,500x the bet. In theory, that sounds exciting, but in practice, it didn’t quite live up to expectations. The Free Spins feature did what it said on the tin, again the snowflake mark comes into play and here it can be added to a random position for the duration of the feature.

While there’s definitely a market for these traditional Christmas slots, it wouldn’t be my top choice. I’ve recently updated OLBG's guide to the best Christmas slots for 2024, and I personally lean towards titles like Push Gaming's Fat Santa or the tongue-in-cheek bad Santa character in Jingle Balls by NolimitCity. 

There is also a section for new Christmas slot games, which includes Big Bass Xmas Xtreme and Money Sleigh so you have a few options if you are looking for Christmas slot games.

Santa's Xmas Rush slot is bright and cheery but there’s not a lot of substance behind Santa and his sack of presents, so it gets a 3.5 out of 5 from me.

The Santa's Xmas Rush slot review was written by our slot game experts on the OLBG Expert team. Beginning with Jenny Mason our prime Slot reviewer who has 17+ years in iGaming, working for top UK brands. Jenny is an expert in slots and bingo. It was then verified by Chris Taylor from our OLBG Expert team who who written over 10,000 slot game reviews in an iGaming career spanning over 2 decades.   

Chris Taylor

The King of Slots

Chris Taylor is an industry veteran originally from Gibraltar. Having worked in the online gambling industry since 2004, Chris loves slots and has reviewed over 10,000 online slot games. Running a slots-focused website for 13 years, Chris is the go-to guy for everything slots-related. 

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Chris’ online gambling career has spanned more than 2 decades. This includes working for online casino sites, consulting for software/slot providers and running his own slots portal. 

With a passion for slots, Chris reviews games from an honest and blunt point of view to give readers an accurate portrayal of the slots they might play. The slot games are just the start as Chris deep dives into the slot sites to provide factual and insightful information as to where to play the games he so loves.