The Elf Wars slot by Realtime Gaming (RTG)

Learning how to play The Elf Wars takes about a minute: choose a stake, start the spin and read what the reels leave behind. The stake can be changed between spins at any point, and every Elf Wars payout moves with it.

The Elf Wars pays on 50 lines: the symbols have to land next to each other from the left edge, and the line has to be one the game is running. Scatters are the exception — they pay from wherever they land.

Everything above is stated in full inside The Elf Wars itself — the paytable button opens the list of symbols and the rules for War Bonus. The numbers there are quoted against the stake you currently have set, which makes them easier to read than any review.

The Elf Wars runs on 5 reels, 3 rows and 50 paylines. Wins are read left to right from the first reel, and only the highest combination on each line counts, so a second red elf further along the same line adds nothing. Payouts climb steeply near the top: the red elf is worth many times what the green elf pays, and the card ranks at the bottom exist mainly to keep a losing spin from looking empty.

Elf Wild is the entry to read first — stretches to fill its reel — because it is what turns a near miss on The Elf Wars into a paid line. The Elf Wars ceiling is 3,000× the line bet, which is a feature number, not a base-game one.

Everything else on the grid is ordinary; War Bonus is not: pick a side; each has its own spin count and its own multipliers. Practically, that means a session on The Elf Wars divides into two very different modes, and judging the game on the base spins alone gives you half the picture.

The Elf Wars carries three features, and they are where the game earns its place in the lobby rather than on the base grid.

War Bonus (pick a side; each has its own spin count and its own multipliers). Watch for the War Bonus trigger rather than the reels — on The Elf Wars it is easier to miss than you would expect.

Free Games — up to twenty-five free spins, counted against the same line bet you staked. In a medium-volatility game like The Elf Wars that matters more than it sounds: Free Games is the round the quoted ceiling is calculated from.

Elf Wild: stretches to fill its reel, on the 5-reel grid described above. Elf Wild is the part of The Elf Wars most worth having a balance left for.

Taken together the set is what separates The Elf Wars from the rest of its shelf. The base grid is common enough across the catalogue; War Bonus is not, and it is the reason the game has its own page here.

The Elf Wars is staked per line: pick a line bet, multiply by 50, and that is what a spin costs; every The Elf Wars payout is quoted against that same line bet. The maximum of The Elf Wars is quoted as a multiple for exactly this reason (3,000× the line bet): it scales with your stake instead of being a fixed sum, so it means the same thing at any bet size.

Volatility on The Elf Wars is medium, which means it balances regular small returns against occasional larger ones, which is the middle of the RTG range. Be careful with any RTP figure you find for The Elf Wars elsewhere. RTG sets the return per operator, not per game, so The Elf Wars runs differently from one casino to the next. The only figure worth trusting for The Elf Wars is the one printed in its own paytable.

Raising or lowering the stake mid-session leaves no memory behind in The Elf Wars: it settles each spin independently, and a run of losses does not make the next one better priced. Autoplay handles the base grid of The Elf Wars perfectly well. Set it to stop on War Bonus and you get the pace without losing the event.

Size the stake on The Elf Wars so the balance covers a few hundred spins — that is roughly the window in which the game shows you what it does. A limit set before The Elf Wars loads is worth more than one set at the end of a losing run; the tools for it are in your account.

If you are clearing a bonus on The Elf Wars, note that slots contribute 100% of the wagering requirement — the full terms are on our bonus page. The specification sets the frame; War Bonus is what fills it, and that only becomes clear with The Elf Wars running.

One thing not to do with The Elf Wars is chase War Bonus by raising the stake after a dry run: its trigger frequency does not change with bet size, only the cost of waiting does. Our responsible gaming page has the limits, the self-exclusion options and the contacts for independent help — none of it requires talking to support about The Elf Wars or anything else first.

The player The Elf Wars is for is the one who wants a game that pays often enough to stay interesting without flattening out. It sits in our lobby alongside Santa Strikes Back!, which shares the family of mechanics and differs in pace.

Put The Elf Wars beside Santa Strikes Back! and the shared parts fall away quickly. Start with The Elf Wars if you want a game that keeps showing you something. Full specifications for The Elf Wars — the 5 reels, 3 rows and 50 paylines, volatility, the top end (3,000× the line bet), the feature list and the release year — are in the table at the top of this page.

Santa Strikes Back!