Santa Replaces His Sack With Fat Stacks in the Christmas Themed Santa's Stack Slot!
If you are a fan of Christmas themed online slots or retro gaming. You are in for a visual treat in Relax Gaming's suitably themed Santa's Stack slot, where both have been fused to create a visually appealing and highly volatile grid-based slot.
This retro-themed slot takes the popular cluster pays mechanic and combines it with a winter wonderland theme with Sants, Elf's, Christmas trees and of course lots of Christmas presents, thanks to the Secret Santa Feature being a central feature to this slot.
Released on the 25th of November, this slot is already live and playable now at great casinos such as Casumo, with a selection of other great casinos listed later in this article where all of Relax Gaming's superb slots can be found.
Santa's Stack - Base Gameplay
The base gameplay on Santa's Stack uses a popular grid-based layout, with an 8x8 grid of suitably themed retro 8 bit Christmas symbols making up the reels.
No paylines are present on this machine. Instead, you are looking for matching clusters of symbols to create wins (Cluster Pays). A minimum of 5 matching symbols is required to make a win, with an entire maximum grid of matching symbols also being a possibility.
To assist with base game wins, you will also find a selection of Wild Symbols that help in forming wins. When doing so, the Secret Santa Feature activates.
Santa's Stack - Base Gameplay
The base gameplay on Santa's Stack uses a popular grid-based layout, with an 8x8 grid of suitably themed retro 8 bit Christmas symbols making up the reels.
No paylines are present on this machine. Instead, you are looking for matching clusters of symbols to create wins (Cluster Pays). A minimum of 5 matching symbols is required to make a win, with an entire maximum grid of matching symbols also being a possibility.
To assist with base game wins, you will also find a selection of Wild Symbols that help in forming wins. When doing so, the Secret Santa Feature activates.
Secret Santa Feature
The Secret Santa Feature is the critical mechanic on the slot to help create large stacks of winning symbols. When triggered by creating a cluster win that includes a Wild symbol, the Secret Santa Feature is activated and converts all of these winning symbols into presents. Think of these as mystery symbols that will be revealed later.
The Present symbols are held on the reels, and a re-spin occurs. If new wins are formed, then additional presents are created. When no further wins are achieved, the presents are unwrapped to reveal the same matching symbol.
The stacks can grow to enormous sizes with the paytable catering for full screen matching symbols, more so in the main bonus feature, but there is also the possibility in the base game.
Santa's Stack Slot - Gameplay and Features
Desktop Gameplay
| Santa's Stack Slot- Technical Summary | |
|---|---|
| Paylines | Cluster Pays |
| Variance/Volatility | Very High (5/5 Volatility) |
| Free Spins | Yes |
| Multipliers | Yes |
| Re-Trigger Bonus Round | Extra Spins |
| Special Features | Cluster Pays Secret Santa Tumble WIns Free Spins Multipliers Extra Spins Bonus Buy |
| Max Win | 20,000x Max Win Cap |
| RTP (Return To Player) | 96.27% Default 97.00% Bonus Buy |
| Bonus Buy Cost | 100x Stake |
| Min Bet | 0.10 EUR |
| Max Bet | 50 EUR |
| Hit Frequency | 23.97% |
| Game Provider | Relax Gaming |
| Release Date | 25/11/2021 |
Santa's Stack- Free Spins and Special Features
Free Spins
The Free Spins are triggered by landing three or more Bonus Christmas Tree Scatter symbols anywhere on the reels.
Landing 3 Scatter symbols trigger a starting five free spins, and every additional Scatter symbol will award an extra spin (+1). A six scatter trigger starts the bonus round with eight free spins.
The critical addition to this bonus round is that the Secret Santa feature is active and wild symbols are guaranteed to land at the start of every spin.
Also, the number of wild symbols increases by one every spin, starting with one wild symbol in the first spin. This cumulative effect of more wilds means that more spins are generally better, and additional spins earned during the bonus can have a pronounced impact on the ease of forming winning stacks.
Landing any Christmas Tree Scatter during the free spins can award any of the following additional rewards.
- +1 Additional Spin
- + 1x Multiplier
- +1 Additional Spin and +1x Multiplier
Bonus Buy
The Bonus Buy feature is available in specific countries where still allowed. Using this feature allows you to bypass the base gameplay completely, instantly triggering the bonus feature for a cost of 100x the current stake.
A minimum of 3 scatters are guaranteed but additional scatters are possible with this feature active.
The RTP of using this bonus buy feature exclusively is listed at a very high 97%.
Paytable
The paytable shown above shows the winning amount for various clusters based on the minimum bet of €0.10.
To give you an example the highest paying Santa symbol pays a huge 10,000x stake for 60+ (Essentially a full stack of this symbol given the 8x8 grid size).
Multipliers are not factored into these values, but be aware the MAx Win Cap is also limited to a very decent 20,000x as well.
Hit Frequencies
The game has a stated hit frequency of 23.97% or just under 1 in every four spins. This is relatively low for an online slot in general, but given the tumbling reels and cluster pays systems, the successive wins that can be achieved from the Secret Santa re-spin feature makes sense given how the overall slot mechanics work.
Santa's Stack has the following listed hit frequencies during regular play, with various retro win animations assigned for specific win levels!
- Big Win bet multiplier of 15x+ 1 in 74 chance
- Mega Win bet multiplier of 30x+ 1 in 196 chance
- Epic Win bet multiplier of 60x+ 1 in 457 chance
The stats seem slightly higher than many of the previous Relax gaming slots such as Cluster Tumble, Mega Mine, Helios Fury, Money Cart 2, Dead Man's Trail and Volatile Vikings will give you a great comparison if you have played any of these previously.
Santa's Stack Slot - FAQ's
Santa's Stack Slot Review
Santa's Stack Slot Overall Opinions
The Santa’s Stack slot is a very simplistic and easy to understand slot machine. The main Secret Santa feature is visually straightforward to keep track of and provides a good amount of suspense as the stacks grow in size!
The visual design is superb from our perspective, although we do always enjoy seeing the retro-themed 8-bit style graphics found on slots such as Flame Busters making an appearance.
Gameplay-wise, the base game is relatively redundant, whilst there are opportunities to create stacks and, of course, the Secret Santa feature, essentially you are looking for bonus triggers where the amount of wilds and subsequent Secret Santas appearing is vastly increased. The main bonus round, once triggered, provides enough suspense and potential to keep it interesting.
To be getting anywhere close to the maximum 20,000x payout, it looks like multipliers being awarded in the bonus round will be key. Of course, complete full-screen stacks are a possibility, but in general, it’s going to be the big stacks that get multiplied further that provides the good-paying bonus rounds, at least in our playtests!
It does just about enough to set the scene as a Christmas-themed slot, with the additions of Christmas Trees, Santas, and the unwrapping of presents making sense in line with the actual gameplay mechanics on offer.
Overall it’s a good slot, certainly not amazing as the distinct lack of special features and plodding base game can make it feel like a one-trick pony of a slot, but if you enjoy grid-based slots, with re-spins, then the “Stacks” on offer here should make for an enjoyable festive-themed slot.
User Review
( vote)Terms Apply - 18+, New Customers Only, Gamble Responsibly - www.begambleaware.org
Play the Santa's Stack slot at these Casinos
Looking for other great casinos where you can play Cluster Tumble Slot? Below is an excellent selection of some of our favourite casinos that we have already checked have a full range of Relax Gaming slots available for you to play.
Wagering 40x Free Spins Winnings
UK Accepted
Terms Apply - 18+, New Customers Only, Gamble Responsibly - www.begambleaware.org
