When you think of places to set a Christmas slot game, the bottom of a mine shaft is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Well, you try telling the team at iSoftBet that, as that is exactly what they’ve opted to do with the Christmas Gold Digger slot game. Of course, this is not the first title from the developer that is a part of the Gold Digger series, with the company releasing the original Gold Digger slot, and then following it up with the Gold Digger Megaways slot. Is this game a worthy sequel then? Or has iSoftBet just slapped a Santa’s hat on the original and given it a re-release? Let’s take it for a spin and find out.

As far as designs go, Christmas Gold Digger is actually a lot of fun. The slot is set at the bottom of a mine shaft, with a rather excited, and potentially very drunk, miner sitting at the side of the reels on the left and a big Christmas tree on the right. There is also plenty of snow around the bottom of the reels. Just how that got down a mine, we’re not sure, but it’s best not to overthink these things. The slot’s reels are populated by various pieces of mining and Christmas paraphernalia, and on the whole, the mining theme works surprisingly well with the Christmas one.

iSoftBet has kept things quite simple with the base gameplay of the Christmas Gold Digger slot. Like most top slot games, it uses five reels and three rows, with 20 fixed paylines on each spin.

Before you start digging for gold, you will want to make sure you have the right stake selected. The minimum bet in the game is $0.20 and the maximum is $20, which does make the slot quite limited if you are the kind of player who likes to play with higher values.

You can experience all of the Christmassy goodness of the Gold Digger slot game on your mobile device. The game has been fully optimized to work on a number of different devices and screen sizes, and it still manages to maintain its wacky charm when it makes the jump to smartphones and tablets. With most top online slot sites now providing support for the best mobile slots, you shouldn’t have any issues finding somewhere to take this for a spin.

The Christmas Gold Digger slot bursts into life with some explosive bonus features. The first set you are likely to encounter is the Gold Digger Modifiers. For these, Gus, the drunken miner, jumps onto the reels and triggers one of three modifiers.

If he throws a stick of dynamite on the reels, 3-5 symbols become Wild. If a TNT explodes, it will turn low-paying symbols into higher-paying ones, and he can use his pickaxe to turn standard symbols into Golden Nuggets.

It is these Golden Nuggets that are used to trigger Hold & Win Respins. The nuggets can contain values worth up to 1,250x the player’s bet. When five of them land, they will stick to the reels. This will then trigger three respins. The triggering nuggets are held in place. Any time an additional nugget lands, it resets the spin count to three.

During the round, gems will also land on the reels, and landing three of the same gems will launch a booster. Blue Gems will add three additional rows to the grid, Green Gems increase the value of all nuggets up by one position, Red Gems give an extra respin, and Purple Gems increase the overall multiplier level up to 10x. It is possible to land each booster three times. Every time a booster lands, it also resets the count to three.

You can mine yourself some solid wins in the Christmas Gold Digger slot. The maximum win available in the game is 8,230x the overall stake. The slot is considered to be medium on the volatility scale and it has an RTP of 96%, putting it bang on the industry average. While these numbers aren’t astronomical, they are solid enough and will attract a few players.

Is Christmas Gold Digger basically just a reskin of the original Gold Digger slot game? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Far from it. At the end of the day, we loved the original Gold Digger slot game, and we love Christmas, so combining the two was always going to get our seal of approval. The slot offers some solid winning potential and the bonus features, especially the Hold & Win Respin bonus are a lot of fun. Christmas slots are something of a tradition in the casino calendar, and Christmas Gold Digger is definitely one of the best ones you can find at our recommended online slot sites.