Sweet Bonanza Candyland & Slingo

Sweet Bonanza is one of Pragmatic Play’s best known and most popular slot games.  As well as the regular version, it comes in a minigame version that can be played while inside a Pragmatic Play bingo room and in a special Christmas version, Sweet Bonanza Xmas.  Reskinned as Heart Bonanza, it’s appeared at Heart Bingo and given its theming to one of their exclusive bingo rooms and also to their free daily game.

Now Pragmatic have brought out not one, but two new Sweet Bonanza games.  Neither of them is actually a slot game but both are additions to recognised genres.  In the red corner we have Sweet Bonanza Candyland which is a spin the wheel game with a live host.  And in the blue corner we have Slingo Sweet Bonanza.

Sweet Bonanza Candyland

Sweet Bonanza Candyland will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s previously played the Evolution game Crazy Time or Playtech’s Adventures Beyond Wonderland.  It takes the spin the wheel plus multiplier concept from Dream Catcher, the first “game show” on the market, and adds in a couple of bonus rounds in lieu of high scoring segments.  Like all such games, it’s considerably more engaging than any slot game; firstly because you have to decide which segments to bet on (and how much to bet on each) and secondly because you can interact with other players using the chat window – and of course, having a live host gives the experience a whole different quality.

If you’ve not played one of these games before you may like to watch a few rounds of Sweet Bonanza Candyland to get the hang of it rather than diving straight it.  The game is played on a giant 54 segment vertical wheel which is physically spun by the game host, and to participate, you place a chip on one or more of six possible outcomes (it’s possible to bet on all of them, not necessarily with the same stake level on all, and many people do).

• 22 segments bear the number 1.  Pays your stake back plus 1x stake.
• 15 segments bear the number 2. Pays your stake back plus 2x stake.
• 7 segments bear the number 5. Pays your stake back plus 5x stake.
• 4 segments bear the number 10. Pays your stake back plus 10x stake.
• 2 segments are marked Candy Drop. If the wheel lands here the Candy Drop bonus round is played.
• 1 segment is marked Sweet Spins. If the wheel lands here the Sweet Spins bonus round is played.

The final 3 segments are marked Sugar Bomb.  If the wheel lands here, a multiplier of 2x to 10x is applied to all outcomes and the wheel is spun again.  You can’t place a bet on Sugar Bomb, but you can enable the Sugar Bomb Booster, which doubles whatever multiplier you get if the wheel lands there. It costs an extra 25% on top of the rest of your stake.

The Candy Drop bonus round is like a giant bagatelle with moving belts; each player selects one of the three coloured balls and all three are then dropped through the mechanism in succession, collecting multipliers as they go.  You win the stake multiple from the ball you chose (if you’re really lucky and the ball falls through all 4 positions lit up in pink, you win the jackpot).

The Sweet Spins bonus round is a giant version of the slot game’s bonus round.  You get 10 spins to rack up as big a multiplier as possible, aided by Sugar Bomb symbols on the reels which multiply the score on any winning spin.

Sweet Bonanza Wonderland has RTP of 91.59% – 96.83% (depending on strategy used) and a minimum stake of 20p, but if you want to place chips on all 6 spaces and enable the Sugar Bomb Booster, that’s a minimum of £1.50 per game.

Slingo Sweet Bonanza

Slingo Sweet Bonanza looks like a fairly straightforward version of the very popular bingo-meets-slots game, but has one of the highest volatility ratings of any Slingo game.   This is because the bonus round prizes – the Sugar Bomb picks – are only awarded for 8 or more Slingos (or, if you’re very lucky, getting three Sugar Bombs on the reels) and the bonus rounds are themselves very volatile.  It’s very unlikely that you’ll reach 8 Slingos in the base game, so you’ll almost certainly need to buy extra spins to get the full Sweet Bonanza experience, and as the results of the Sugar Bomb picks can vary so dramatically it’s risky to do so.

If you’ve never played Slingo before, Slingo Sweet Bonanza is probably not a good place to start.  Slingo newbies and extra spins refusniks who want the opportunity to win slot machine bonus rounds may prefer Slingo Starburst where the bonus round prizes start at just 3 Slingos.

The RTP of Slingo Sweet Bonanza is 96% and the minimum stake (assuming you never buy any extra spins) is 20p.

Two very different games, then, but oddly similar in one way – you’ll spend a lot of play time waiting for a super exciting and very volatile bonus round, very much as you do in the original slot game (and indeed almost any other game by Pragmatic Play).

Where To Play

Here’s a selection of sites that offer both games.