Monkey Bonanza: Slot Overview

After going down a few online rabbit holes, we discovered that monkeys in the wild don’t actually eat bananas—at least not in the way pop culture loves to suggest. They will eat them, sure, but since edible bananas are a domesticated fruit, wild monkeys supposedly won’t often find them unless they’re hanging around places where humans have planted them. Along similar lines, Paignton Zoo Environmental Park in the UK reportedly stopped giving bananas to monkeys because of the high sugar content. Then again, this all came from the internet, so make of it what you will.

In any case, on the subject of monkeys, here’s Monkey Bonanza from Games Global partner Northernlights, a title that leans fully into playful primate antics. It’s a colourful, upbeat slot, fronted by one of the most bright-eyed and cheerful monkeys you’re likely to meet in an online casino game. The backdrop is a jungle clearing with butterflies fluttering around, palm trees gently swaying, and vibrant flowers dotted about. The audio suits the vibe perfectly too, mixing jungle sounds with music that feels like a reggae-tinged take on Over the Rainbow, bringing to mind Israel Kamakawiwoʻole’s heartfelt rendition. All in all, it’s a very pleasant setting.

If you’d rather spin Monkey Bonanza than cuddle it, the first step is choosing your stake, with bet levels ranging from 10 p/c to $/€40 per paid spin. Once that’s set, hitting play gets the 5-reel, 3-row grid rolling, featuring 10 fixed paylines for standard line wins. There are four RTP settings, from 96.06% down to 86.79% for the German market, and they’re all highly volatile, except the 94.12% configuration, which—oddly—is listed as medium volatile.

With a hit rate a little shy of 1 in 3, Monkey Bonanza includes eight regular pay symbols. Four are leafy J-A icons, paying 0.5 to 2 times the bet for five of a kind, while the other four—a frog, a lizard, a parrot, and another primate—award 2.8-8x the bet for a five-symbol line. The big ‘W’ acts as a wild and can appear on all five reels. Wilds substitute for all standard pay symbols and carry the same value as the top-paying symbol when forming wins on their own.

Monkey Bonanza: Slot Features

Monkey Bonanza packs in a solid selection of features, so get comfortable—peel a banana too if you fancy a healthier snack—while we run through what’s on offer. You’ll come across Monkey Symbols, Banana Bonanza, Super Monkey Spin, Piggy Bank & Win, free spins, and a bonus buy.

Monkey Symbol

The standard Monkey symbol shows up during the Banana Bonanza feature (see below), while the Jumbo Monkey can appear in the base game or in free spins in sizes up to 3×3 in size.

Banana Bonanza and the Super Monkey Spin

When the Jumbo Monkey lands fully in view, the Banana Bonanza is activated. It starts with 3 respins on reels where only Monkey symbols or wilds can land. Any new symbols that drop in reset the respin counter, and wilds are locked in place on the grid. Wilds may carry multipliers of up to x5. Any Monkey symbols that land knock out the lowest current pay symbol from the Banana Splat Bar. Once the respins finish, a Super Monkey Spin is triggered. During this spin, any grid positions not occupied by locked wilds will only land symbols that have not been knocked out from the Banana Splat Bar.

Piggy Bank & Win

Gold coins can land with values of 0.2 to 50 times the stake in the base game or during free spins. If coins appear at the same time as a Collect symbol on reel 5, their values are awarded to the player.

Free Spins

Free spins symbols appear on reels 1, 3, and 5, and landing all 3 in the base game grants 5 free spins. In the free spins round, reels 2, 3, and 4 merge together, meaning they drop only Jumbo symbols. Every symbol can appear in jumbo form except the Collect symbol.

Finally, if you’d rather not wait for the free spins feature to land naturally, you can purchase the free spins round from the base game for 45 times the stake.

Monkey Bonanza: Slot Verdict

Even if Monkey Bonanza were a total dud, it’s so ridiculously charming that it would be tough to dislike entirely. The vivid palette, cute creatures, and laid-back soundtrack create a genuinely welcoming first impression. That said, a quick look at the paytable and a batch of early spins suggested that, despite all the wildlife on display, Monkey Bonanza doesn’t always have much bite—despite a max win of or around 5,000x the bet.

Instead, Monkey Bonanza seems aimed at players who enjoy relaxing with friendly visuals and audio while getting gameplay that’s familiar in places, but a bit more inventive in others. The familiar elements include the coin collects and the merged middle reels during free spins, which felt somewhat like a monkey-themed take on Wolf Gold. The most interesting angle, from a “where slots are heading” point of view, is the Banana Bonanza into Super Monkey Spin chain. To be fair, the symbol knock-out concept paired with building up sticky wilds can be genuinely entertaining at times. Still, the low number of paylines and fairly modest symbol values act like a kind of handbrake, even if some wilds do come with multipliers. Overall, Super Monkey Spin is a nice touch, and because it triggered quite often in free spins, it helped stretch out the five-spin award.

If you’re after a chilled, cute animal slot, Monkey Bonanza should be able to provide exactly that. It’s easygoing, mixing well-known mechanics with a few relatively fresh ideas, and it scores highly for charm. If that’s your thing, Monkey Bonanza could be a lot of fun. But if the huge crowd of online slots were an animal kingdom, Monkey Bonanza would sit fairly low in the hierarchy—nowhere near the top, and certainly not an alpha.