The Dual-Power Book Symbol
Book of Santa centres around a unique mechanic rarely seen in Christmas slots: the golden Book symbol serves simultaneously as both Wild and Scatter. This red-backed tome with its glowing ornament seal substitutes for all standard symbols while also triggering the main bonus feature. Land three or more anywhere on the reels and you unlock 10 free games with a special expanding symbol.
How the Expanding Symbols Feature Works
When you trigger free spins with three Book symbols, the game randomly selects one symbol to gain expanding powers. During your 10 free games, whenever enough of this chosen symbol appear to form a winning combination, they expand vertically to fill their entire reels. The critical advantage: these expanded symbols pay for combinations in both adjacent and non-adjacent positions across your active paylines.
If you land the high-paying Santa symbol as your expander, just two visible Santas could fill two complete reels, potentially creating massive line wins across all 10 paylines. The expanding symbols pay out after regular symbol wins, so you collect both in a single spin.
Base Game Symbol Values
Santa Claus himself is the premium symbol, paying 500x your line stake for five across a payline at minimum bet. The Golden Bell and Sleigh both return 200x for a full line, whilst the Star pays 75x. Card symbols make up the lower-value icons, with Ace and King paying 15x, whilst Queen, Jack, and 10 return 10x for five of a kind.
The Book Wild-Scatter pays as a regular symbol too: 200x for five, 20x for four, and 2x for three, on top of triggering free spins. This means three Books simultaneously award a scatter win and launch your bonus round.
The Risk Game Double-or-Nothing
After any base game win, Book of Santa offers a gamble feature where you face a dealer in a card battle. Pick one of four face-down cards; if it beats the dealer's revealed card, your win doubles and you can gamble again, up to 10 consecutive times. A draw lets you try again without losing your stake. The Joker beats everything but never appears for the dealer.
Optimal strategy matters here. The risk game RTP varies wildly based on the dealer's card: gamble against a 2 or 3 and you have 162% and 121% RTP respectively, making it mathematically profitable. Against high cards like Aces, Kings, or Queens, your RTP drops to 42-66%, so collecting your winnings is wiser. The average RTP across all dealer cards is 84%.
Bonus Pop Instant Feature Buy
For players who prefer guaranteed access to the main feature, the Bonus Pop button lets you purchase entry to the free spins round. The cost scales with your total stake, and uniquely, you choose which symbol becomes the expanding one rather than accepting a random selection. This control lets you target the highest-value symbols for maximum potential.
Note that winnings from Bonus Pop-triggered features cannot be gambled in the Risk Game, and activating this feature slightly reduces overall RTP to 94.73-95.98% compared to the base 96.05%.