Jinfu Xingyun Slot by Playtech

The jackpot pick here doesn't wait for a collector or a scatter line to fall into place. Any wild can fire it, at random, on any spin. That wild is a red-and-gold coin medallion, and it only lands on the three middle reels. Beyond standing in for everything except the temple scatter, each one carries a hidden chance to set off the Jinfu Feature, at most once per spin. When it triggers, twelve coins appear and you pick them one at a time, flipping over chubby bonus babies as you go. Keep picking until three matching babies show, and that match pays one of four fixed jackpots. The Grand is worth 4,000x the bet, with Mini, Minor and Major on the rungs below. None of them climb, so what glows on the four meters above the reels is exactly what you'd win. The catch is that it's pure luck of the draw. There's nothing to build toward, no coins to collect, no meter filling up. You either land the wild that fires or you don't.

Three or more temple scatters pay out and start 10 free games, and the reels change shape for the round. The A-K-Q-J-10-9 royals get stripped out completely, leaving only the higher-value pictures, so every drop lands the geisha, the treasure chest, the blue vase, the jade fan or the pink lotus. Fewer symbol types on the strips means richer boards. Three more scatters during the round add another 10 games, and the coin wild still turns up in there, which keeps the Jinfu pick live through the free games too.

Everything sits on a festive red-and-gold backdrop of lattice patterns and cloud scrolls, the kind of Chinese New Year setting Playtech's Rare Stone studio does well. The geisha is elegant and finely drawn, the chest spills jewels, and the snuff vase is painted in that deep cloisonne blue. It's a 243-ways board, so matching symbols on adjacent reels from the left is what pays, not fixed lines. No buy button and no ante, which puts the whole jackpot game in the hands of whenever a coin wild decides to go off.