Set in a Chinese garden, Golden Lotus is a digital slots game from Realtime Gaming (RTG) played on five three-line reels and offering 25 bet lines, available for both Android- and iOS-enabled online and mobile devices. It features some detailed animations, like the blossoming lotus flower, and borrows most of its symbols from Chinese culture, although it also features a geisha from Japan.
As with most slots games, three or more matching symbols in sequence from the leftmost reel are required on any bet line to trigger a win for the player. Golden Lotus has several bonus features and two progressive jackpots that offer the chance to make some impressive wins.
Regular Symbols and Pay-outs
Golden Lotus low-win symbols are the standard Poker icons 9, 10, J, Q, K and A, rendered in the “oriental” font familiar from Chinese restaurants and kung-fu movies.
The higher-value icons are a Chinese lantern, a jade lion, a Chinese vase, the geisha and a Chinese pictogram of the Golden Lotus Logo. The lowest wins, three of a kind featuring 9s, 10s, Js or Qs, pay 5X the line bet, while the highest win in normal play is fixed at 8,888X the line bet, for five Logo icons in a row.
Bonus Features
The bonus features in Golden Lotus are important in creating better winning totals, and they offer several options. The Golden Lotus flower is the Wild icon, so it substitutes for any symbol except the Scatter to create more winning bet lines. It also has value in its own right; only two Golden Lotus icons are required on a bet line to trigger a win of 8X the bet. Three on one bet line win 88X the bet, four Golden Lotus symbols win 888X, and five in a row win the same as five Logos: 8,888X the line bet. Three or more Golden Lotus symbols appearing anywhere on the reels trigger the Chinese Garden bonus feature.
Free Spins
An idyllic pond in a Chinese garden, featuring eight Golden Lotus blossoms, replaces the reels. The player must pick four of these, and each one will reward the player with up to 20 free spins, or a win multiplier that can be as high as 100X. If the Chinese Garden feature trigger free spins, all White Lotus icons that appear during those free spins change automatically to Golden Lotus or Logo symbols, and all prizes during the free spins are tripled.
Rewarding Scatters
The White Lotus is the Golden Lotus game’s Scatter icon. Like the Wilds, two or more Scatters on a bet line win their own prizes; from 1X the bet for two Scatters, to 500X for five in a row. But three or more scatters in any position also trigger another bonus round; the White Lotus feature. This consists of eight free spins, in which any White Lotus icons change to Logo or Golden Lotus symbols. A multiplier appears at the top of the screen during White Lotus free spin rounds, increasing the player’s winnings by a factor of 3X, 4X or 5X.
Three or more Scatters can trigger further White Lotus rounds during the free spins. The game also offers a major and a minor progressive jackpot, either of which can be triggered on any spin. Combined with the various Golden Lotus slots bonus rounds, these jackpots mean that players can win substantial rewards.