Santa Surprise is a traditional Christmas themed pokie from Playtech. You can play it at online casinos like Omni Casino and Mansion Casino. It is an extremely simple online pokie but is very popular for two reasons among a section of Australian casino players. It has very high variance and can lead to big payouts. The maximum total bet per spin is AU$1,000, which brings in the highest of high rollers.
The online pokie loads with the image of Santa on his gift laden sleigh with Jingle Bells playing in the background. Santa is the wild symbol and substitutes for all symbols except the scatter and bonus symbols. It also awards line payouts when two or more appear as usual in an active payline. The line payout for five Santa symbols is a whopping 10,000 coins and the payout for four of them is 2,000 coins. The next line payout is only 500 coins, and this brings in the high variance. The other thematic symbols are bell, stocking and gift. There are some pleasing win animations associated with these symbols. The playing card icons have festive decorations like Santa’s cap, scarf, holly leaves, candy cane and candles.
Santa’s North Pole home is the scatter symbol. It awards payouts multiplied by the total bet when two or more appear anywhere on the reels. The top scatter payout for five symbols is 500 times the line bet. Three or more scatter symbols trigger 10 free spins. All payouts, except bonus game payouts, will be tripled during the free spins and the free spins can be re-triggered infinitely.
The Christmas Gift Bonus is a second screen game. It is triggered when three or more Christmas tree bonus symbols appear from left to right on an active payline. The second screen displays a Christmas tree beside which Santa has left six gifts. You get to pick as many gifts as there are bonus symbols in the trigger. Each gift will award a random bonus amount and this is Santa’s surprise.
Santa Surprise online pokie also has a gamble game that you have the option of activating after any winning spin. You have to guess the colour of the next card. If you are right then the payout is doubled. If you are wrong then you will lose the staked amount. Santa Surprise is a 5×3 online pokie with 20 selectable paylines. You can wager up to 10 coins per payline with a maximum coin size of AU$5.