Year of the Dragon King Slot Review

Year of the Dragon King Slot Overview

Year of the Dragon King is a five-reel, three-row, 20-line Asian slot from Reel Kingdom working with Pragmatic Play. The action plays out on a pagoda-style grid perched above misty mountains, with red lanterns, coins and dragon motifs setting the tone. On the surface it looks like a very standard high volatility video slot, but the real hook sits in the mini slot bonus rather than the base game.

From my sessions, Year of the Dragon King felt relaxed visually but quite unforgiving underneath. Dragons hardly show up in the main spins, so you are mostly watching fairly modest line hits while waiting for those reels to light up together. The stated max win is 5,000x your stake, so the slot clearly has teeth, yet most of that potential sits squarely in the bonus feature.

How to Play Year of the Dragon King Online Slot

Year of the Dragon King is easy enough to set up if you have played Pragmatic titles before. You choose a total bet between 0.10 and 250 per spin, on 20 fixed paylines across the 5x3 grid. Wins land for three or more matching symbols from the leftmost reel. You can tweak spin speed, use autoplay where allowed, and toggle the Ante Bet button if your jurisdiction supports it.

Year of the Dragon King Symbols and Paytable

The paytable in Year of the Dragon King keeps things stripped back, with seven regular symbols and a wild. Tens through Aces act as the low pays, worth from 0.5x to 5x your bet for five of a kind on a line. Above those sit the lantern and the gold coins, paying 3x to 10x and 5x to 25x respectively when you line up three, four or five matching symbols.

The green and gold Wild symbol carries the same top value as the coins, paying up to 25x for a full line while substituting for all regular symbols to complete or improve wins. All symbols pay left to right on the 20 non-adjustable paylines, so reading the paytable before you start gives you a clear picture of what each stacked or single hit can return on different stake levels.

Symbols and Paytable

Symbol	Quantity	Payout
	5	x25
	4	x10
	3	x5
	5	x10
	4	x5
	3	x3
	5	x5
	4	x3
	3	x2
	5	x3
	4	x2
	3	x1
	5	x3
	4	x2
	3	x1
	5	x2
	4	x1
	3	x0.5
	5	x2
	4	x1
	3	x0.5
	Wild
	5	x25
	4	x10
	3	x5

Bonus Features in Year of the Dragon King

The whole game in Year of the Dragon King revolves around the Mini Slot Machine Bonus. On any base spin, individual reels can take on green, blue or red backgrounds. When all five reels light up in the same colour, you are whisked into the feature and between one and five mini slot machines appear on the grid. Each has three reels, a single payline and its own prize trail.

The mini slots spin through blanks plus blue, yellow and red 8 symbols. A line of mixed 8s pays 1x your bet, three blue 8s pay 2x, three yellow 8s pay 5x, while three red 8s are worth 20x. Every time a mini slot hits a win, it grants another spin on that small set of reels. A losing spin locks that particular mini slot, and the round ends once every mini slot has locked.

Multipliers are tied to the reel colours that triggered the feature in Year of the Dragon King. Green starts each mini slot at x1 and climbs by one per win, blue starts at x2 and climbs by two, while red kicks off at x5 and ramps up by five each time. You can, in eligible markets, pay 50% extra for the Ante Bet to see the bonus more often, or use Bonus Buy options where available for direct entry.

Year of the Dragon King RTP, Volatility and Max Win

On the maths side, Year of the Dragon King sits in classic high volatility territory. The default RTP is quoted at 96.08%, though many casinos run lower settings around 95.08%, so I always check the help screen. Free rounds tend to trigger roughly once in 118 spins without Ante Bet, the base hit rate hovers near 20%, and the advertised 5,000x max win drops roughly once in 8.94 million spins.

Year of the Dragon King Slot Verdict

For me, Year of the Dragon King is very much a bonus-heavy experience. The Asian artwork and sweeping soundtrack do their job without blowing me away, and the main game can feel flat once you realise there are no extra base modifiers at all. The mood shifts the moment the reels line up in one colour though, and watching several mini slots spinning with growing multipliers is genuinely absorbing.

I would not pick Year of the Dragon King if I wanted steady low-risk play, but when I am in the mood to chase swingy bonuses it hits the spot. The stats mean long dry spells are possible, especially on versions using the 95.08% setting, so I keep stakes sensible and do not chase the 5,000x dream. Treated as an occasional high volatility outing, it can be very entertaining.