Floating Dragon Hold and Spin

The Fish Money Symbols are the game's version of Cash Symbols. Each Fish can carry an individual cash value, and those values become particularly important when the Lady Collector appears, with Fish Money values reaching as high as 500x the stake.

I like that these aren't confined entirely to a Hold and Spin bonus. They form part of the game's other feature system, giving the Lady something useful to collect.

The fish are basically swimming around carrying money. Probably best not to question the economics of it.

The Lady acts as a Wild Collector, combining Wild substitution with a Cash Collection mechanic. When she appears alongside Fish Money Symbols, she collects their displayed values, and if multiple Ladies appear the collection can become more valuable.

During Free Spins she becomes even more important because every Lady is also counted towards progression through the feature.

So unlike a conventional Wild, you're not simply pleased because she's completed a payline. You're actively waiting for her to come back.

Coin Money Symbols carry values between 1x and 20x the stake and appear on the middle reel during regular play. Completely filling that reel with three Coins activates Hold & Spin.

It's an unusual trigger compared with the more familiar requirement of landing six Cash Symbols anywhere across a grid. You know exactly where you're looking.

Three Coins. One reel. Then the dragon finally gets down to business.

Pragmatic Play calls the feature Hold & Spin, which belongs to the wider Hold and Win family of mechanics.

Land three Coin Money Symbols on the middle reel and they're held in position while the remaining positions enter a special Respin mode. You begin with three Respins, and every additional Money Symbol resets the counter to three. There's also a guaranteed minimum result of 20x the stake.

The unusual part is that new Money Symbols aren't simply accumulated once at the end. Visible Money Symbol values are awarded as additional Money Symbols land during the feature.

It's recognisably Hold and Win, but there's enough difference in its implementation to give the feature some personality.

During Hold & Spin, special Diamond Money Symbols can appear carrying values between 100x and 4,993x the stake. That's an enormous jump from the ordinary 1x to 20x Coins, and it completely changes what you're hoping to see during the feature.

You might be gradually collecting relatively modest Coin values and resetting the Respins, but one Diamond can suddenly become responsible for almost the entire result.

It's essentially a jackpot sized prize without actually being a jackpot.

The Dragon acts as the game's Scatter Symbol. Landing three, four or five Dragons awards 10, 15 or 20 Free Spins respectively.

I like the scaling here. Getting the more difficult four or five Scatter trigger actually gives you something meaningful rather than displaying a slightly more enthusiastic animation before awarding the same feature.

And with the progression available during Free Spins, those additional starting spins can be particularly useful.

Free Spins are where the Fish Money and Lady Collector mechanics really come together.

The Lady appears as a Wild and collects Fish Money values visible alongside her. More importantly, every Lady landing during the feature contributes towards a progression counter. Collect four and the feature develops.

That's what prevents these from being another ordinary batch of Free Spins. There's somewhere to go.

Every fourth Lady collected during Free Spins awards 10 Additional Free Spins and progresses the feature to its next level. This can happen three times.

That means a successful feature can become substantially longer than the original 10, 15 or 20 spin allocation.

More importantly, reaching another level doesn't merely give you additional spins. It makes subsequent collections stronger.

Each successful Lady Collection progression improves the Fish Money Multiplier. The first progression introduces a 2x multiplier, the second increases it to 3x, while reaching the final stage produces a substantial 10x multiplier. No further retriggers are possible after reaching that final level.

This is easily one of the game's strongest mechanics. You aren't merely collecting four Ladies to get another ten spins, you're making every subsequent successful Fish Money collection potentially more valuable.

Early in the feature you're hoping to collect Fish. Later you're hoping to collect Fish at 10x. Suddenly fishing becomes considerably more lucrative.

Pragmatic Play's original launch announcement also describes a Firecracker modifier during the bonus. If no Fish land on a spin, a Firecracker can be thrown onto the reels to guarantee a winning spin.

It's a relatively small detail compared with the Lady progression, but it's another nice bit of feature design that helps prevent completely dead bonus spins.

Despite the enormous 4,993x Diamond Money Symbol, Floating Dragon Hold and Spin does not contain a progressive jackpot. The game's maximum overall win is capped at 5,000x the stake.

So there's no Jackpot Modifier for this one.