Fishin’ Christmas Pots of Gold Slot Review

The Christmas spirit meets leprechaun fishing delights in Gameburger’s Fishin’ Christmas Pots of Gold. This 2022 online slot includes wilds, scatters and a free spins bonus from which you can win jackpot prizes that cap at 5,000x your stake.

How We Rate Our Slots

I’ve been reviewing video slots at JohnSlots for several years and together with our team of experts have come up with a formula to effectively review games.

We start by looking at a video slot’s features, noting the included mechanics and how well they’re executed. We also point out any innovative features and upgrades. Next up we focus on the slot’s math model, looking at RTP, volatility, bet levels and maximum wins, before taking a look at the visuals, user-friendliness and mobile compatibility. Lastly, we make sure the game is safe and secure and that its provider is legitimate and trustworthy.

💡Pro Tips

As this is a medium volatility slot, I opted for a higher bet level than I’d usually set for high-volatility games. I suggest you pick a value that works for your budget, something that doesn’t run through your bankroll quickly. You’ll want to buy at least 150 free spins to make sure you get a good chance at triggering the free spins several times, as this is the only way to land significant wins in the game.

Fishin’ Christmas Pots of Gold Slot Bonus Features

Anyone familiar with the Pots of Gold series will feel right at home here. This Christmas version of the game comes with five reels and three rows that sport 10 pay lines in the base game spins. That formula is enhanced during the free spins bonus, where the grid is expanded to include five rows and a whopping 20 paylines. But more on the online slot’s bonus features later.

The video slot’s symbols take on a more festive look and you’re treated to a mix of low and high symbols, as well as the coveted money symbols. At the bottom of the pay table, you get royal card symbols from 10 to A and these tokens can get you wins of up to 10x your stake for five matching symbols. Further up the ladder, you get money symbols which cap at 20x your stake, as well as a variety of Christmas-themed high-paying tokens such as festive lures, boots and a bait box that can give you rewards worth up to 200x your bet.

That pretty much covers the game’s basics, but the real magic happens once the bonus features start landing on the grid.

Wilds

In following the fishing slot formula, wild symbols only pop up during the free spins bonus. These symbols are represented by the series’ leprechaun mascot and this time round he’s in a full Santa Claus costume complete with a sugar cane. They step in for missing pay symbols on a potential pay line, helping to put together even more wins. Wild symbols in the game don’t have a pay value, so the only way you get rewards from them is if they form part of another win.

But they also serve as collect symbols and will quite literally collect all the money symbol values on the grid and award them. Remember that these are only available in the free spins bonus, so there is effectively no way of collecting money symbol values from the base game.

Scatter symbol

The scatter symbols or free spin tokens in Fishin’ Christmas Pots of Gold take on the form of what can only be described as a festive shamrock. That’s a classic Irish shamrock with an attachment of holly on either side.

Scatter symbols once again have no pay value, but they can unlock the game’s free spins bonus, which makes them immensely valuable. A minimum of three are needed to gain access to the bonus rounds and landing three, four or five scatter symbols gives you 10, 15 or 20 initial free spins, respectively.

Scatter symbols do not land during free spins, so you’ll only see them landing during the base game rounds.

Free Spins

Free spins are where the online slot’s action truly gets going. That’s mostly thanks to the inclusion of wild symbols which can gather the values of cash symbols whenever they land together in a round. They can also gather the slot’s four jackpot prizes in the same way. You can land the Mini, Minor, Major and Mega prizes which are worth 15x, 50x, 500x and 5,000x your stake, respectively.

The grid also gets an upgrade, with the camera panning out to reveal two more rows on each reel. This gives you a new grid made up of five rows and five reels, with a total of 20 paylines. Although this already increases the likelihood of scoring more wins, your odds also get enhanced with the accumulation trail.

You’ll find the trail at the top of the reels, showing up to 12 milestones. Each wild symbol you land is collected at the end of a round and progresses you along the trial. With every three you collect, you’re awarded an additional five free spins and an increase in your win multiplier. This starts at 1x and then increases to 2x, 3x, 5x and then finally 10x. The multiplier doesn’t work on all wins though and only applies to the wins you collect from money symbols.

In some regions, you get a buy bonus feature which lets you purchase three, four or five scatter symbols for 50x, 100x or 150x your stake, respectively.

Fishin’ Christmas Pots of Gold Slot on Mobile

I fired up the online slot on my Android phone through a Chrome browser and was impressed by the game’s overall performance. All of the same graphics, features and win potential are present here, with a few minor adjustments to the interface that favour smaller screens and touchscreen controls. I was able to play comfortably on my device and the game is also available on iOS platforms.

Conclusion

Fishing video slots sure have a strong following but I do feel like they divide players down the middle. You either love them or hate them. I’ve been hoping for a video slot that manages to somehow change up the formula and try to narrow that gap, but Fishin Christmas Pots of Gold sticks firmly to the established recipe, without changing much.

So, if you’re into the general setup of these games, then you’ll have a blast spinning through this underwater winter wonderland. It has all the same features you get from other Fishin Pots of Gold games, and this works immensely well. Personally, I find the boring base game loop quite off-putting, since there’s nothing much going on unless you hit the free spins bonus.

Visually, the game is quite an oddball. It quite literally merges three different settings into one, combining the Irish theme with fishing and Christmas. It makes for a bizarre theme, but one which can still be incredibly amusing. The graphics look good enough and there are a few minor animations that help liven up the presentation. It’s topped off by a great soundtrack that plays a buzzing version of Jingle Bells.

The math model is also quite solid with a medium level of volatility and a variety of RTP settings. I’d stick with the highest version offering 96% RTP, which can affect how long it takes to get high wins. These cap at 15,472x your stake, and while that’s a respectable figure, it’s lower than the 22,826x we got from Fishin’ Bigger Pots of Gold.

Overall, Fishin’ Christmas Pots of Gold is a solid fishing-themed video slot with great visuals, features, and win potential. But while it might delight fishing slot fans, it doesn’t do much to attract a new crowd.