Midas Golden Touch Christmas Edition: Slot Overview

The legendary golden-touch king returns in a festive update of Thunderkick’s myth-inspired 2019 title Midas Golden Touch. Known as Midas Golden Touch Christmas Edition, it delivers almost the same style of gameplay as the original, but with a handful of tweaks and additions. The clearest change is the Christmas Edition theme itself, which comes with a nice bump in return value, along with a bonus buy for anyone who wants to jump straight into the free spins round where a respin feature can be used.

If the tale has slipped your mind, King Midas was granted the power to turn anything he touched into gold. What started as a gift quickly became a curse when he turned his daughter into a statue, and it likely made everyday things like eating (or even using the bathroom) a bit of a nightmare. Either way, the original Midas Golden Touch already looked great—packed with gold hues and set inside a place that suggested Midas had been touching everything in sight. In Midas Golden Touch Christmas Edition, that same setting gets a seasonal overhaul, complete with Christmas trees, decorations, and similar festive touches. Sure, some say Midas ruled Phrygia in the 8th century BC—long before Christmas existed—but that’s what creative freedom is for.

Just like before, Midas Golden Touch Christmas Edition runs on a 5-reel, 3-row layout with 15 paylines. The default RTP is slightly higher this time, listed at 96.17%, and there’s also a bonus buy option that lets players purchase free spins. This costs 80 times the base bet, and using it pushes the return value up again to 96.43%. Bets range from 10 c to $/€100 per spin in this highly volatile slot, where the main objective is to form wins with at least 3 matching symbols starting from the leftmost reel.

At the lower end of the paytable sit the 9 to A card ranks, which return 5 to 7.5 times the bet for 5 matching royals. Above them are the chest, chalice, crown, and King Midas premium symbols, paying 15 to 75 times the bet for a 5 OAK win. King Midas’ golden hands act as the wild symbol and can appear on all reels. Wilds pay the same as the standard Midas symbol, and they can also substitute for any regular paying symbol. On top of that, any payline including a wild receives a multiplier based on how many wilds are part of the win. With 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 wilds involved, the multiplier becomes x2, x4, x8, x16, or x32, respectively.

Midas Golden Touch Christmas Edition: Slot Features

Extra gameplay in Midas Golden Touch Christmas Edition comes via a free spins bonus round that introduces a dedicated respin mechanic. Landing 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols awards 10, 15, or 20 free spins. While free spins are running, collecting 3 scatter symbols during the respin feature adds an extra +10 free spins.

Any win during the free spins round activates the respin feature. When the respin feature starts, any winning symbols are locked in place and the remaining positions spin again. The respin feature keeps going until no further winning symbols become locked. Also, a single random wild is placed on the reels at the beginning of every free spin.

Midas Golden Touch Christmas Edition: Slot Verdict

It’s a little odd to lean into Christmas cheer with a character who supposedly lived before the holiday even existed, but it’s hardly an issue—this is a slot, not a history class. And considering Midas Golden Touch arrived around 4 years before this festive version, in an industry that releases games at a relentless pace, maybe that gap already feels like iGaming prehistory. Either way, Midas Golden Touch was a strong, fairly simple slot, and it plays just as smoothly in the Christmas Edition. In fact, it’s arguably improved thanks to the tiny (barely noticeable in play, but still satisfying) RTP increase and, for bonus buyers, the option to head straight into the main feature.

When Midas Golden Touch first launched, Thunderkick weren’t particularly known for feature-buy mechanics. That has clearly shifted over time, and now a buy feature in a Thunderkick slot is far from unusual. Alongside that, since Midas Golden Touch appeared, plenty of “lock-and-respin” style games with accumulating winning symbols have filled the market, ranging from the horror vibe of Serial to lighter takes like Hula Balua. What helps Midas Golden Touch Christmas Edition stand out, though, is how adding more wilds to a winning line increases the multiplier. It’s such a strong idea that Thunderkick has used it not only in the Midas titles, but also in Phoenix Paradise and Lava Lava.

So, in a way, reviewing Midas Golden Touch Christmas Edition feels like bumping into a small “who’s who” of slot influences—either shaping other games or being shaped by them. Leaving the references aside, Midas Golden Touch Christmas Edition is a dependable Christmas slot and, in some respects, a step up from the original, offering the same 10,100 x the bet max win in an Xmas-meets-Ancient-History setting.