Gates of Olympus Xmas 1000

The Santa hat

Pragmatic Play dressed its Zeus for December and left the rest of him alone. He keeps the white hair, the beard and the lightning in one hand. The new parts are the Santa hat, a red cape and robes edged with white fur. You’ll spot the hat from across the room.

Snow falls across the whole scene. The marble columns wear snow and garlands with red berries, snowy peaks rise behind them, and a white temple stands at Zeus’s back. Even the gems, rings, hourglass and crown on the grid wear snow. The scatter is Zeus’s face under the hat.

Zeus does one job in the mechanics. His face on the scatter opens the free spins. Pragmatic Play’s texts for this edition never have him throw the multipliers. They land at random on the reels.

Take the snow away and you have Gates of Olympus 1000, where the same Zeus wears a gold laurel wreath. Both games pay 96.50% and cap a win at 15,000x, and both carry multipliers from 2x to 1,000x onto a grid of 6 by 5 that pays anywhere. It’s one game in a second costume.

The snowy grid

Now, the 6 by 5 grid has no paylines at all. A win needs at least 8 of one symbol, wherever they sit. The winning symbols then clear away, and fresh ones fall from above to fill the holes until a fall brings no new win.

Multipliers worth 2x to 1,000x can drop onto any reel in a spin or a tumble. When the last tumble settles, their values are summed, and the sum multiplies what the whole sequence paid. Your stake never changes those values.

The free spins

The free spins need 4 scatters or more and open with 15 games on special reels. Inside the round, a multiplier that lands with a win adds its value to a total multiplier. The total then applies to each later win that brings a new multiplier. 3 scatters or more on one spin add 5 games. The total doesn’t go down.

The bought round and the ante

The round can be bought for 100x the stake, $20 on a $0.20 spin. The demo’s rules put the bought round at 96.49%, a hundredth of a point under the game. A bought bonus changes how soon you reach the round, not what it pays on average.

The ante adds 25% to each spin, so a $1 stake costs $1.25. The rules then double the chance of the scatters bringing the free spins on their own, and the return stays at 96.50%. While the ante runs, the round can’t be bought.

The numbers

The only return Pragmatic Play publishes for Xmas 1000 is 96.50%, and the demo’s rules showed it for the plain game and the ante on 30 September 2026. The intro screen rates the volatility high, and your spin can cost anything from $0.20 to $240.

The cap is 15,000x the stake. On a $0.20 spin it’s worth $3,000, and on a $1 spin $15,000. When the ante runs, the demo’s figures give 12,000x of the raised stake, the same money. The game came out on 2 December 2024.

The December myth

Every December somebody at the cash desk swore the machines had gone “loose” for Christmas, a present from the casino to its regulars. By January the same voice said they’d been tightened to pay for the parties. Pragmatic Play prints one 96.50% for this game, and nothing in its rules mentions a season. The calendar never reaches the reels.

The score

Score: 8.5 out of 10. Half a point goes to Zeus, whose face on the scatter opens the free spins, and half to the 96.50%. The climbing total multiplier in the free spins adds a half, and the 15,000x cap passes the 10,000x mark for the last one.

Sources

Three Pragmatic Play records give the figures, and the art comes from the intro screen.

• Pragmatic Play’s page for Gates of Olympus Xmas 1000, read 30 September 2026
• Festive launch news for Gates of Olympus Xmas 1000, read 30 September 2026
• Rules of the Gates of Olympus Xmas 1000 demo, as read on 30 September 2026

How the Reviews Work sets out the points behind the 8.5.