Introduction to Bad Santa
Bad Santa is a casino slot from Peter & Sons that mixes together two beloved holidays, those being Halloween and, of course, Christmas. While of course a seasonal release, Peter & Sons does a little twist on the usual holiday theme that we see. Featuring a winter wonderland, with presents filled with Multipliers, a jolly soundtrack, and a wide range of hideous monsters that seem to have stopped Santa dead in his tracks, Bad Santa presents its weird but fun setting as soon as you enter the game. Gameplay-wise, we can say without a doubt that we recognised where the studio got their inspiration, and well, it was from themselves, as Bad Santa is played around Cascades, Stacking Multipliers, and a Free Spins feature, and plays quite similarly to the original Barbarossa release, which is one of our favorite series from the studio. The gameplay loop follows the Cascades, where each win will double your Multipliers, with the chance of triggering the random Multiplier Jump, which moves it forward by one step. On top of this, we have a Free Spins bonus game that keeps the Multipliers between spins, where one good chain of Cascades can set you up for some pretty huge payouts, and maybe even reach the max win of 20,000X the bet.
If you’re looking for something spooky during the cold, dark nights of Christmas, then Peter & Sons has you covered, with the added bonuses of some very volatile features. Be sure to check out the Bad Santa demo if you’re interested in a few spins.
Theme, Gameplay & Payouts
Bad Santa is a video slot from Peter & Sons with 6 Reels, 5 Rows, and utilizes Scatter Pay mechanics, needing a minimum of 8+ symbols to form a win. You can choose between making a Min.bet of 0.2 and a Max.bet of 50. Bad Santa comes with an average RTP of 96.18%, but do take note that there are other versions with lower RTPs at 94% and 91%. The game is played with a hit frequency of 26.23% and a high volatility, which makes hits happen fairly often, with the chances of landing a big payout, such as the max win of 20,000X the bet.
Set in a snow-layered forest, where no one can hear you scream, we find Santa's sleigh burning, with a few curious footprints that lead away from the scene of the crime. But before we can do any investigating, the playing grid appears, filled with various monsters and hideous creatures. You can play the game on most mobiles, desktops, and notepads.
The lower-paying symbols are various candies, ranging from the X, diamond, heart, clover, and spade. Creating a win with 12 or more of the same symbols will pay out 0.4X to 1.5X the bet. The higher-paying symbols are the various monsters, ranging from the green-horned monster, red cat monster, blue skull monster, and the pink disfigured monster. Landing a win with 12 or more of the same symbols pays out 2.5X to 10X the bet. You’ll also find Scatter Symbols, which you can read more about in the next section.
Special Features & Mechanics
What is the max win in the slot Bad Santa?
You can win up to 20,000X the bet.
What features are available in the slot Bad Santa?
The features are Cascades, Multipliers, Multiplier Jump, Free Spins, Feature Buy, and Ante Bet.
Cascades
Whenever you land a win, the winning symbols are removed and the Cascades feature is triggered, allowing symbols to fall in from above to fill up the playing grid with chances of making new wins. Cascades will continue until no more wins are made, thus ending the current spin.
Multipliers
To the side of the playing grid are the Multipliers, which will increase for each Cascade in the current spin, and reset whenever a new spin starts.
Multiplier Jump
Randomly, there’s a chance that the Multipliers can jump one position, and this can happen up to 3 times in a row.
Free Spins
By landing 4 or more Scatter Symbols will award the Free Spins feature with 7 spins, +2 additional spins for each extra Scatter Symbol. During the bonus game, the Multipliers don’t reset between spins. The Free Spins feature cannot be retriggered.
Feature Buy
There are 2 Feature Buy options that allow you to instantly enter the bonus game at a price based on the current bet.
100X = Activates the Free Spins feature with 7 spins.
200X = Activates the Free Spins feature with 7-11 spins.
Ante Bet
By activating the Ante Bet, you increase your chances of triggering the Free Spins feature, but at the cost of increasing your current bet by 1.2X.
Final Thoughts on Bad Santa
Quite often, when we get seasonal releases, we don’t really have the highest of hopes, as many games are either lazily put together, extremely simple, or just a reskin of another game. Bad Santa kinda weirdly falls into the latter category, although it definitely isn’t a reskin. While we did say that this game reminds us of Barbarossa, and it does, it’s also not the same game, even though it sports similar features, and the same max win of 20,000X the bet. Peter & Sons were definitely not the first studio to release a Cascading Game with stacking Multipliers, but we can still see the similarities, and who are we to blame, as it makes for a great slot experience with a ton of fun. In addition to this, we have a unique and slightly unusual theme, featuring grotesque monsters for a touch of horror fun. But, with all of that said, let us move over to the gameplay section and talk about it in more detail.
Quickly, before that, let us go over the stats, with its average RTP of 96.18%, hit frequency of 26.23%, and a big max win of 20,000X the bet. The gameplay loop here is relatively straightforward, as many other cascading games are, and that is to chain wins back to back in the same spin, and we get rewarded with a stacking Multiplier that can get wild pretty fast, especially with some lucky Multiplier Jump hits. So, even in the base game, the game can get pretty out of hand, but the Free Spins make hitting big wins a bit easier, as it doesn’t reset the Multiplier between spins, giving you chances of hitting big Multiplier streak wins back to back. But the game is, of course, not perfect, and is quite simple at times, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting or fun to spin away on. If you want to check out the game for yourself, then you should check out the Bad Santa demo.
Bad Santa is a slot with a horror Christmas theme and some pretty familiar Cascade Multiplier features.
