Jolly Ol’ St. Nick is coming to Pragmatic Play‘s latest release, Santa’s Wonderland, which, in addition to “Father Christmas,” is full of festive surprises and an innovative Midnight Riches feature! In addition to ramping up the excitement for the holiday season with its new slot, the content provider has also grown its footprint in Brazil courtesy of a multi-vertical deal with online casino, PlayBonds.com.

Santa plays a leading role in this high volatility 8-reel, 8-row, 20 paylines slot, which is packed with piles of neatly wrapped Christmas presents ready to be loaded onto the bearded one’s reindeer-led sleigh and a max win of 7,500x!

To the right of the game grid you’ll find a grand feature clock and on the opposite side there is a Midnight Riches Meter and a Midnight Riches Bonus Buy button.

Tumble feature:

A cluster paying grid slot, players will need to land 5 matching symbols connected horizontally or vertically for a payout. Winning clusters activate the Tumble feature, which clears them from the board, allowing those symbols above to tumble down and fill the empty spaces. The process repeats until no more wins appear.

Here, the paytable consists of brightly colored toys and baubles, with blue, green, red, and orange Christmas ball decorations the low pays worth 5 – 12.5x the bet for a cluster of 20 to 24 symbols. Toy planes, trains and bow-tie wearing teddy bears are high pays and worth 25 to 100x the stake for a 20-24 cluster of symbols.

Wilds & special modifiers:

Last but not least, the big guy himself can appear anywhere on the grid acting as a Wild, substituting for all symbols. However, the jolly one does not hit in the usual way, but as part of the Wild Santa or the Lucky Santa features. Also, in order to help complete clusters, Wilds can connect to various symbols at the same time.

Another exciting feature is Snowflake modifiers. At the start of each new spin, 5 snowflakes appear underneath regular symbols in random cells on the grid. When winning symbols are removed to unveil a snowflake, it is loaded into the clock meteer to the right of the grid. Then, a corresponding modifier is triggered when the current tumble sequence ends. Up to 5 modifiers are possible:

  • Blue snowflake – Refresh – clears all symbols from the grid sans wilds, triggering the tumble feature.
  • Purple snowflake – Wild Santa – all instances of a random symbol type are transformed into Santa Wilds.
  • Yellow snowflake – Blocks – awards random 2×2 size blocks of matching symbols to random positions.
  • Red snowflake – Supersize – adds a randomly sized 3×3, 4×4 or 5×5 symbol to the grid.
  • Green snowflake – Lucky Santa – gives players 5 to 15 wild symbols randomly spread across the grid.

Cluster awards are added to the Midnight Riches Meter and when enough symbols have accumulate, the associated feature is triggered, with the multiplier value increasing each time it is triggered.

Players who wish to buy the Midnight Riches feature can do so in the base game for the cost of 100x their total stake.

In a company news release, Julian Jarvis, Chief Executive Officer for Pragmatic Play, commented on the new game, saying…

“Though we designed the new slot with Christmas festivities in mind, we wanted to include a bunch of exciting mechanics that will allow it to be enjoyed throughout the year.

“Santa’s Wonderland™ offers a truly bespoke experience that is set to amuse audiences across the globe, featuring a unique Midnight Riches Feature that can reward players with sizable wins.”

Playbonds tie-up:

The game launch that follows other recent releases including Star Pirates Code, the Mexican-themed Day of Dead and Cash Bonanza, coincides with Pragmatic Play’s deal with online operator Playbonds.

Further expanding its presence in Brazil, the new partnership sees the Playbrands Group owned and operated gaming platform gain access to multiple verticals from the supplier, including its slots collection, which has recently seen the addition of Big Bass Bonanza Megaways and Book of Fallen, as well as live dealer hits Sweet Bonanza CandyLand, Mega Roulette and ONE Blackjack. The bingo games focused online casino will also have access to Pragmatic’s virtual sports titles, which provide football, horse racing and greyhound options.

Commenting on the new content agreement, Victor Arias, Vice President of Latin American Operations for Pragmatic Play, said they have focused on bringing multiple verticals to operators in Brazil and are “delighted” to close the deal with Playbonds.

Arias explains that as they continue to expand in the region, “its vital to offer great games, and we’re able to do this through this important partnership.”

For its part, Playbonds’ Chariman Marcos Correa said…

“Taking multiple verticals from Pragmatic Play considerably expands our offering with high-quality content and we can’t wait for our players to enjoy their games.”