Jingle Spin Slot Review

Jingle Spin is a video slot from NetEnt with 5 reels and 20 paylines. This Christmas slot was released in November 2018 and can be played at online casinos such as PlayOjo, Vera&John or Rizk.

Theme and basic information

The theme for Jingle Spin is not difficult to categorise: Christmas. Every year most slot developers release new Christmas themed slots and Jingle Spin was the offering from NetEnt for the 2018 Christmas.

The slot has a somewhat rustic look. We’re looking at a fire place, bearded elves sitting on a shelf above, a quirky Santa Claus with goggles on the right-hand side who is pulling a lever for a wooden reel and the symbols on the reels are mostly made up of tree ornaments, even the playing card symbols have been made to look like ornaments.

The red ornament is worth 1,000 coins for a 5-of-a-kind win. The orange/cinnamon ornament is worth 700 coins and the green one is still worth 500 coins for such a winning combination. The reindeer and the pine cone ornaments are worth 400 coins and 300 coins, respectively.

There’s no scatter symbol as such and the wild symbol is a present, which is more than fitting in this particular slot.

The Base Game

You won’t be surprised that the lever-pulling Santa Claus plays a main part in this slot. That’s true in the base game and in the bonus game. You should also pay attention to the elves on the shelf and the wilds on the reels.

On every spin, Santa will pull the lever and the wheel will spin. Whilst it is spinning, the spaces holding the Christmas baubles, a closed. They open as the wheel comes to a stop and you can get an idea of where it might stop. It could stop on an empty space and nothing further happens. Winning combinations on the reels will be paid out and the whole things begins anew on the next spin. But if the wheel lands on a bauble, it will jump into the hands of the closest elf.

The baubles will then be passed along to the next elf on every spin. Or they will be dropped into the wild symbol, if one happens to land on a reel with an elf holding a bauble. The wild Christmas present will then burst open and reveal one of the following:

• 7 to 50 free spins
• Spreading Wilds
• Coin wins between 50 and 25,000 (depending on your bet level)
• Mystery Bauble (revealing one of the three above choices)

Most of the time you will have to contend yourself with a small coin win. Baubles don’t land often in the hands of the elves and even when they do, a wild does not necessarily appear on the right reel. We’ve seen spreading wilds on occasion, but they’re rare as well. And the most free spins we received with one of those baubles was 15. But that’s pretty okay because it gets you started and that is all you need.

The Bonus Game

The free spins are triggered either with one of the free spin baubles or the mystery bauble, which can also hold free spins. Once activated, we’re taken to a slightly different screen where things look a little brighter and where each space on the wheel Santa spins contains a bauble. Even before the first spin, four of the five elves each receive a random bauble and after the first spin, the last elf also receive a bauble as usual. If any wilds appeared on the reels, the elves will drop their baubles into them and you get the coin wins, spreading wilds, additional free spins or the mystery bauble as usual. You can get up to 50 free spins here as well.

Whether you have a good run here or not entirely depends on the wilds that show up on the reels. Ideally, you will be able to collect additional free spins, which gives your more chances at also collecting extra coin prizes.

We managed to play 47 spins in one round, collecting two additional baubles after first triggering the free spins with a mystery bauble.

Conclusion: A Christmas slot that can rewarding when you budget carefully

The theoretical RTP (Return to Player) of Jingle Spin 96.48%. That’s a pretty good value, but you will have to keep in mind that this is surprisingly volatile slot and you will mostly get smaller wins here and there. Indeed, big wins were a rarity and we never caught one of those high-value coin baubles. Even when they happened to land in the hands of the elves, they were passed along until they were dropped into the Christmas tree on the left-hand side because no wild showed up to catch it.

The mechanics of this slow will very much remind you of Eggomatic and that’s okay. The theme is quirky, the elves are charming, Santa would be a little less creepy without the goggles and even the background music is suitable for Christmas. We definitely liked the baubles and the free spin feature can be very worthwhile. But to get anywhere with this slot, you will need to budget carefully. We managed bigger wins only when we didn’t risk everything. Whenever we became more daring, we only ended up losing more than we managed to win back. So, restrain yourself and you might get rewarded when playing Jingle Spin.