Lion Mania Slot by Playtech

The format is tiny by modern standards: three reels, three rows, five fixed lines, and only three matching symbols on a line pay anything. No free spins, no scatter round, no jackpot. Everything worth chasing runs through a single respin feature. The white guardian lion is the Wild, standing in for every symbol and topping the table at 250x the line bet for three of a kind, with the green jade lion next at 100x. Below those sit gold ingots, oranges, red envelopes and the rest of the good-fortune set, all against a serene temple courtyard of red pagodas, hanging lanterns and gold coins drifting down past the reels.

The Lion Mania Respins can land on any base spin. When they do, the lion picks one paying symbol, hides everything else on the grid, and spins only that symbol. Each one that lands locks where it falls, and every fresh landing keeps the round alive. Stall out and you keep whatever you managed to lock. Fill all nine positions with the chosen symbol and the win multiplies by x10. You can also buy this round outright, and the bought version arrives with a random full-screen multiplier, so a completely filled grid pays x15, x20, x25, x30, x40 or x50 rather than the base x10.

There's a second route to that base x10. On any regular spin, if every symbol showing is part of a win, the whole payout gets multiplied by ten. On a nine-cell board that's a rare full house, but it's the one moment the base game hits as hard as the respins do.