Black Friday Cart Craze: Hold and Win Slot Review

Booming Games is getting into the holiday shopping spirit with Black Friday Cart Craze: Hold and Win, slated for a November 2026 release. If you know the studio's Black Friday Cart Craze, heads up: this isn't a bigger, badder version of it. Instead, they've scaled things down a bit. On paper it sits closest to the studio's Twin Buffalo: Hold and Win, with the same 5,100x max win and 95.6% return, and it swaps the other Cart Craze's 5x4 grid for a standard 5x3 setup.

The game splits its action into two main bonus features. First, there are the Free Spins, triggered by three or more scatter carts. When this hits, the middle three reels merge into one big 3x3 "Jumbo" symbol. Visually, it's really cool, but there's a snag: because that giant block takes up so much space, you only actually win anything if Reel 1 lands a matching symbol or a wild. Otherwise, it's just a giant tease.

Then there's the Hold and Win feature, triggered by landing five or more coins. It's your classic setup: you get three respins on a 15-spot grid, and the counter resets every time a new coin sticks. There are no fancy multipliers or modifiers here; the coins just carry flat cash values. However, if you manage to fill all 15 spots, you hit a very solid 5,000x Grand Jackpot.

If you're impatient, there are two ways to buy straight into the action.

• The Mystery Bonus (50x your bet): This lands you in either the Free Spins or the Respins, and the game doesn't say how it picks. I tried it, landed the respins, and won back a bit over a third of my cost, pretty typical for a volatile slot.
• The Super Bonus (75x your bet): This is the more interesting option. It guarantees the Free Spins and is sold as free spins with Hold and Win, though the rules never spell out that the Hold and Win is guaranteed. In mine, I had a bunch of dead free spins until the very last spin dropped a giant Jumbo Coin block. It shattered into nine individual coins, instantly triggering the respin round. I got agonizingly close to filling the screen, just one spot short, and ended up winning back just under the 75x cost. It was a fun ride, at least.

As you play the base game, you'll notice collection meters filling up with coins and carts above the reels. I have to be honest: the count itself is cosmetic. They look great, but a full pot doesn't mean a bonus is "due" to trigger.

Also, landing coins in the base game doesn't pay anything unless you specifically land a "Collect" cart on Reel 5 at the exact same time. If you get a screen full of coins but miss that Reel 5 cart, you win nothing, which can be a little frustrating.

There is a "Boost+" ante bet option that costs 25% more per spin to increase your chances of hitting a feature. The RTP (Return to Player) stays exactly the same at 95.6% whether you have it on or off, so it's really just down to your personal play style.

Next to the studio's other Black Friday Cart Craze, this feels like the "lite" one of the two. The max win is capped at 5,100x (against that game's 8,000x), and the mechanics are pretty standard for the genre.

It doesn't have the escalating multipliers you'll find in competing holiday slots like Scrooge's Bah Humbucks: Workshop Riches, but the 5,000x Grand Jackpot is a great target. (Just keep in mind that the game has a hard cap of 5,100x, so a full grid with the Grand is already about as far as a round can go).

It might not reinvent the wheel, but if you like straightforward Hold and Win mechanics without too much clutter, it's definitely worth a few spins this holiday season.