THE TOP 10
My subjective list of the best new slot games to be launched in the coming months
By Frank Legato
As you may know, I’ve been writing about slot machines for 41 years. I’ve witnessed the evolution of the slot from a sea of three-reel mechanical games to modern video slots with hot game mechanics like hold-and-spin and pot collection features.
As I’ve built up something of an expertise on the subject of slots, people always ask me what my favorite games are. Every November, I reveal them in this space. The slot manufacturers rolled out their new games for the year last month at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. Following are my subjective picks of what I feel are the best of this year’s crop of games.
1 Frankenstein Returns Light & Wonder
This game gets my vote as the Best of Show for 2025. I knew it was going to be No. 1 the second L&W executives showed it to me, last summer in their showroom.
Frankenstein was already a popular game, with great animation and compelling bonus features. Frankenstein Returns supercharges what was there, and places the game in a new cabinet configuration they call Lightwave—a 49-inch portrait cabinet with a high- definition “micro-surround” display attached to the back that creates a dynamic overhead canvas of light and animation synchronized to game events. Placed in a bank, the adjacent LCD displays appear like a movie connected to game events.
When the “It’s Alive!” feature is triggered, lighting zaps travel from the electrodes on the necks of monster symbols on the reels up to a prize board for awards and to a replica of the monster’s head on the backing display. It is a remarkable marriage of motion and graphics that you have got to see.
2 Fantastic Dragons Mystery Aruze Gaming Global
What puts this game near the top of my list of favorites is another synchronized presentation, a groundbreaking cabinet setup called “Reach.” It is a portrait cabinet with an attached LED canvas display of animation from the game, synced with the actual live game events. It is available in banks of up to five games, and in the multiple configurations, the backing LED panels combine into one giant display reflecting game graphics and events.
The launch title, Fantastic Dragons Mystery, features a hold-and-spin bonus in which symbols collect toward a giant “prize reel” that reaches up to the LED display above, landing on credit prizes and jackpots. Like No. 1 on my list, this is a slot presentation you have got to see.
3 Monopoly Big Board Bucks Aristocrat Gaming
When Light & Wonder chose not to renew its longstanding licensing deal with Hasbro to produce slots carrying the theme of the legendary Monopoly board game, Aristocrat snatched it up immediately, and they ran with the ball to create this game. It includes all the popular game features of the day, woven into bonuses centered on the famous Monopoly game board.
A free-spin bonus awards properties on the game board, each holding a credit award. “Free Parking” on the reels triggers the Hold & Spin bonus. “Pass Go” triggers a wheel bonus with only jackpots and multipliers on the reels. Multipliers are awarded for collecting all the railroads or both utilities on the board. Aristocrat did the deepest of deep dives into the timeless board game to create this slot. If you like Monopoly, you’ll love this.
4 Wheel of Fortune Cash Machine Jackpots • IGT
This is a mashup of the IGT Wheel of Fortune brand and the popular Cash Machine slot by Everi, which is now part of IGT. The base game is Cash Machine, with its digit reel symbols forming a “what you see is what you get” pay—the player’s result is spelled out on the reels, up to a top line win of $10,100 for 10-1-00 on the reels.
But this version adds the famous bonus wheel on top, triggered by a “spin” symbol on the reels and the familiar audience chant. The top wheel includes the normal credit amounts and the top wide-area progressive jackpot.
5 Railroad Wishes Link Sega Sammy Creation
This game takes the classic railroad theme to new dimensions with its hold-and-spin sequence and extra second-screen train bonus. The hold-and-spin feature starts on a normal five-by-three grid, with three extra rows of symbols on top, locked with railroad- crossing gates. Special “Gate Lift” symbols unlock the additional rows on the grid.
Unlocking the top row triggers a feature within the feature, the “Railroad Riches Bonus.” In a home video-style sequence, the player rides along as a train crashes into piles of coins for an accumulating bonus award. It is presented from the engineer’s perspective as the train rolls along. Very cool.
6 Straight Cash 3-Play • AGS
One of the most successful current three-reel video titles from AGS is Straight Cash, which features numbers as the basic reel symbols in a three-reel, single-line format, the numbers forming the pays in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get setup. The top line jackpot is $10,550 for lining up 10-5-50 on the payline.
However, there are a lot of twists to its latest version, Straight Cash 3-Play. Players can wager up to “buy” additional reel sets. In the dollar version, a $5 wager activates the main reel set, while a $10 wager unlocks a second reel set and a $15 wager unlocks all three. With all three reel sets active, 2X and 3X multipliers appear on the reels. Some of the numbers are red, and with all three reels active, they duplicate on the other two reel sets to increase wins. It’s a clever take on a tried-and-true bonus.
7 Five Fortunes Duck & Cover Ainsworth Game Technology
This is a follow-up to the Five Fortunes Emperor and Panda sister games released earlier this year, and it combines animation and humor for a thoroughly entertaining game experience.
Funny animated duck characters in five pots that lead to enhancements to the Lock & Respin hold-and-spin feature, different-colored firecrackers that increase cash- on-reels values and add more coins to the screen in the hold-and-spin feature, and the way the Power Boost and Power Blast hold-and-spin enhancements are presented—two very nervous duck characters holding bombs—will keep you playing and laughing.
8 Major Multiplier Poker IGT
IGT releases new specialty video poker games every year, and this year’s batch holds up to any of them. My favorite is Major Multiplier Poker. For a 10-credit-per- hand bet, when dealt Jacks or better, two pair or three of a kind, any improvement of the dealt hand on the draw can generate a multiplier up to 100X. This occurs every five hands, on average—a very frequent chance to boost payoffs on winning hands.
9 Banana Bash • Eclipse Gaming Systems
This is another clever take on the hold-and-spin bonus. Banana Bash is a funny game featuring an animated monkey. At the center of the game are the three filler pots of bananas, marked “Flambé,” “Split” and “Pie.” When one or more of the pots bursts, it triggers a hold-and-spin event.
During the feature, “Flambé” frames random locked cash-on-reels symbols, and increases their value with every spin for the remainder of the feature. “Split” splits a cash-on-reels symbol into two symbols of equal value, and you can also split the split. “Pie” triggers a feature within the feature. A pie with six slices appears on the screen, and a mini hold- and-spin round takes place. If you fill the pie slices with cash, it reveals a multiplier that is applied to the total.
10 Shear Luck Bluberi
As the name indicates, sheep are the main theme—with the title character “Baachus” hosting—and it is another game bringing a unique twist to a popular game feature. The cash-on-reels symbols in the game are all fluffy sheep. When Baachus lands on the fifth reel, he shears all the sheep to reveal and reward the cash-on-reels credits, or jackpots—all lower-level jackpots are hidden by the gold sheep landing in the feature.
