Fat Santa slot

Fat Santa slot overview and key numbers

Fat Santa is a festive slot from Push Gaming, the London studio founded in 2010 that holds Gambling Commission account 054984. It came out in 2018 and pairs a 5x5 grid with 50 fixed lines. Instead of chasing scatters, you are waiting for Santa to meet a mince pie, which starts a round built around one wild that gets steadily bigger.

How the features work: Santa's Sleigh and the hungry Santa wild

Santa's Sleigh in the base game

Santa's Sleigh can fly across the reels at random during an ordinary spin. When it does, it drops mince pie wilds onto the grid. Those pies lock in place, and the reels then respin around them. Because the pies are wild and stay put, the respin starts with extra wild positions already fixed, which improves the chance of finishing lines. This is a form of sticky wild combined with a respin.

Triggering the free games

The free games begin when a Santa wild lands on the grid alongside a mince pie wild. There is no scatter requirement: the pairing is the trigger.

Feeding Santa

You start with 5 spins and one Santa wild that moves around the grid. Each mince pie he eats helps him grow, starting as a single 1x1 position and, at the maximum, reaching 5x5, which is the entire grid. Every time he goes up a size, extra spins are added. Larger sizes mean more wild positions on every spin that follows, so the round snowballs once he starts growing.

Pies needed per size, spins added per step and symbol values are in the paytable. We only describe what our checked data confirms.

Fat Santa vs Fat Rabbit: what is different

Fat Santa shares its engine with Fat Rabbit, released the same year by the same studio. Both use a 5x5 grid, 50 lines, a 5-spin start and a wild that grows from 1x1 to 5x5. The differences are smaller than the themes suggest, but they are real.

The volatility label is the one difference that affects your money: a medium-to-high rating suggests slightly smoother sessions than Fat Rabbit's high rating, with the same RTP options. If you want the growing-wild mechanic but less swing, Fat Santa is the slightly gentler choice.

Fat Santa RTP and a festive-season budget

Christmas slots get most of their play in December, a month when money is often tight. A sensible approach is to fix a total for the season and divide it, rather than topping up each time. The figures below use the stake × house edge rule for both RTP versions; they are long-run averages and real sessions will vary.

At 10p, 200 spins can come entirely out of a £20 budget even before any wins. At 50p or £1, getting to 200 spins needs wins to keep you going, and on a medium-to-high volatility game they might not arrive. Our gambling budget guide helps you plan, and the house edge page explains the maths.

What medium-to-high volatility means on Fat Santa

Fat Santa's return is weighted towards the free games, particularly rounds where Santa grows to cover large parts of the grid. The base game, with occasional help from Santa's Sleigh, pays smaller amounts more regularly. Medium-to-high volatility puts it above a game like Starburst but a notch below fully high-volatility titles. You should still expect runs of spins with little or nothing back. The guide to slot volatility explains how to read these labels.

How to play Fat Santa step by step

1. Open the game's information page and note which RTP version is installed.
2. Read the paytable for symbol values and how many pies Santa needs to grow.
3. Choose your stake; the 50 lines are fixed, so you can't reduce them.
4. Spin. If Santa's Sleigh appears, mince pie wilds lock and the reels respin around them.
5. A Santa wild landing with a mince pie wild starts 5 free games.
6. Follow Santa around the grid as he eats pies, grows and earns extra spins.
7. After the round, check the net spend and time display and decide whether to stop.

UK rules when you play Fat Santa online

• Maximum stake of £5 a spin for players aged 25 and over, from 9 April 2025.
• Maximum stake of £2 a spin for players aged 18 to 24, from 21 May 2025, as announced in the government's £2 maximum stake news release (opens in a new tab).
• No autoplay, turbo or slam-stop, and at least 2.5 seconds per spin, since 31 October 2021.
• No celebratory effects when a spin returns less than its stake.
• Net spend and time played shown in real time, and no playing several games at once, since 17 January 2025.

See our pages on game speed rules and age verification, which applies even to demo play.

Fat Santa review: strengths and weaknesses

Fat Santa fits players who enjoy Christmas themes and a single, visual feature, and who can match their stake to a medium-to-high volatility game. The OLBG Fat Santa page (opens in a new tab) gives another walk-through of its features.

Other Christmas slots to compare with Fat Santa

Our Christmas slots page has the full list, and the main slots hub covers every review.

Where to play Fat Santa in the UK

Our partners' published facts don't list Fat Santa, so search each casino's game lobby and check the RTP version before joining. The offers below are slot spin offers on specified or selected games, which may not include Fat Santa. 18+ and terms apply.

• PlayOJO: a first deposit of £10 or more gets new UK customers (excluding Northern Ireland) 80 free spins on Big Bass Bonanza at 10p each; no wagering and winnings paid in cash.
• Coral: bet £10+ on slots and receive 100 free spins on selected games at 10p each, accepted within 48 hours and valid for 7 days, with no wagering on winnings; e-wallets, prepaid cards and certain debit cards don't qualify.
• Ladbrokes: play £10 on slots for 50 free spins daily for 10 days, up to 500, at 10p on selected games; claim by 23:59 each day, use within 7 days, no wagering; some deposit methods excluded.

If you want a break from gambling over the holidays, GAMSTOP (opens in a new tab) self-exclusion covers every UK-licensed online casino at once.

18+. Every casino game has a built-in house edge, so over time you should expect to lose what you stake. Set a budget before you play and stop when it’s gone: safer gambling tools and support. Free, confidential help: National Gambling Helpline 0808 8020 133.