Key facts
- A hold and spin feature locks coin or money symbols in place and gives you a few respins, usually three, that reset each time a new coin lands.
- In Pragmatic Play's Wolf Gold, six or more money symbols trigger three respins; filling all 15 positions adds a Mega Jackpot worth 1,000x the bet.
- Aristocrat built its Lightning Link and Dragon Link families around Hold & Spin, with a linked Grand Jackpot on top.
- In our worked model, a round that starts with 6 coins ends with no extra coins 25% of the time and fills the grid about once in 610 rounds.
- The full-grid jackpot is usually a small slice of a game's return. Most of the value comes from ordinary coin prizes.
What a hold and spin feature is
A hold and spin feature is a bonus round where special symbols lock in place and you get a small number of respins to land more. Each new symbol resets the respin counter. When the counter runs out, or the screen fills, you are paid the total value of the locked symbols.
The makers describe it in almost the same words. Pragmatic Play's Wolf Gold page says six or more money symbols trigger the Money Respin with three respins, "only money symbols remain", and the count resets to three each time one lands. Chilli Heat works the same way, with money symbols worth 1x to 100x the bet or a Mini or Major jackpot. Aristocrat's Lightning Link page says its Hold & Spin "awards credits and jackpots" and works the same in every title in the family.
The names makers use
| Maker | Name | Example | Jackpot prizes the maker lists |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aristocrat | Hold & Spin | Lightning Link, Dragon Link, Choy's Kingdom | Grand Jackpot, a linked progressive |
| Pragmatic Play | Money Respin | Wolf Gold | Three jackpots; Mega Jackpot 1,000x for a full grid |
| Pragmatic Play | Respins | Chilli Heat | Mini and Major; Grande Jackpot 1,000x for a full grid |
| Big Time Gaming | Hold and Spin | White Rabbit 2 | Mini, Midi and Mega Megapots, only awarded in Hold and Spin |
| Hacksaw Gaming | Hold & Win | 3 Cursed Chests: Hold & Win | Shown in game |
"Hold and win" and "hold and spin" are the same mechanic under different brand names. Aristocrat's Choy's Kingdom takes it further, with up to four Hold & Spin reel sets, and Aristocrat's Hall of Fame game More Chilli now has a Hold & Spin edition too.
How a round plays out
- Trigger. Six or more coins (orbs in Dragon Link pokies) land in one spin.
- Lock. Those coins stay put. In Pragmatic Play's versions, only money symbols remain on the reels.
- Respin. You get three respins. Each time at least one new coin lands, the counter goes back to three.
- End. The round ends after three respins in a row with no new coin, or when every position is filled.
- Collect. You win the value of every coin on screen, plus any jackpot coins, plus the full-screen prize if you filled it.
The maths: why the last spots are the hardest
The respin counter resets, so it feels like the round could run forever. It cannot, because every coin you land leaves fewer empty spots for the next one. Makers do not publish their coin odds, so here is a simple model to show the shape of it: a 15-position grid, a round that starts with 6 coins, three resetting respins, and a 5% chance that any empty spot lands a coin on each respin.
| Empty spots left | Chance a respin adds nothing | Chance of three blanks in a row (round over) |
|---|---|---|
| 9 | 63.0% | 25.0% |
| 5 | 77.4% | 46.3% |
| 2 | 90.2% | 73.5% |
With 9 spots open, a dead run of three blanks is a one-in-four event. With 2 spots left, it is closer to three in four. That is why rounds tend to stall with a few gaps left.
Run the whole model and the round ends like this:
| Coins at the end | Chance |
|---|---|
| 6 (nothing added) | 25.0% |
| 7 | 17.7% |
| 8 | 16.5% |
| 9 | 14.0% |
| 10 | 11.0% |
| 11 | 7.8% |
| 12 to 14 | 7.9% |
| 15 (full grid) | 0.16%, about 1 in 610 |
Change the coin chance and the full screen moves a long way: at 3% per spot it is about 1 in 17,000 rounds, at 8% about 1 in 51. Real games also use weighted coins and special symbols, so treat this as the shape of the maths, not any game's actual odds.
Where the value really comes from
Most of a hold and spin feature's value is in ordinary coin prizes, not the jackpot. In the model above, the average round ends with about 8.3 coins. If the average coin were worth 2x the bet, that is about 16.6x the bet per feature. A 1,000x full-screen prize at 1 in 610 adds about 1.6x. Big top prizes look like the point of the feature, but they are a small slice of what it pays on average.
That also explains why linked jackpots matter so much in venues. On Lightning Link, Aristocrat says the Grand Jackpot is linked to other games in the series. A linked prize can grow far beyond 1,000x because many machines feed it, as our jackpot pokies guide explains.
Pundit tip: count the coins, not the celebrations. A round that locks six coins worth 1x each pays 6x your bet, which may still be less than you spent getting there.
Hold and spin versus free spins
| Hold and spin | Free spins | |
|---|---|---|
| What lands | Only coins (and blanks) | The normal reel symbols, sometimes boosted |
| Length | Open-ended: resets on every new coin | Fixed number, plus retriggers |
| Typical prizes | Fixed coin values and named jackpots | Line or ways wins, often with multipliers |
| Swing | Clusters near the trigger value; rare full screens | Depends on multipliers; can be very wide |
Both are part of the game's return, so neither is better on average. Games that put a lot of value into rare features feel streakier, which is the volatility side covered in our pokies volatility guide.
Buying the feature
Some online games let you skip the wait. Big Time Gaming's White Rabbit 2 offers a bonus buy into Hold and Spin for 35x your stake, or into free spins for 100x. A buy does not improve your odds; it just puts a large bet on one feature. See bonus buy pokies for the maths.
Online pokies, hold and spin or otherwise, cannot legally be offered to people in Australia under the Interactive Gambling Act. If you want to see how a feature behaves without risking money, try a maker's demo; our free pokies guide explains the options.
Our partner sites
Terms checked 8 to 9 October 2026We earn a commission if you join through these links; it pays for the site and does not change the facts we show. Listed in no particular order. Every detail comes from the casino's own terms, except ACMA notes, which come from ACMA's blocked list. These are offshore casinos without an Australian licence, so BetStop and Australian dispute services do not cover them: read whether online pokies are legal in Australia and our affiliate disclosure.Commission links. Offshore sites with no Australian licence or BetStop cover: is it legal?
LuckyOnes
Partner · termsTerms checked 9 Oct 2026- Withdrawals
- AUD 6,000 a day
- Max bet (bonus)
- AUD 8
- Min deposit
- AUD 30
- Names no licence or operating company in its terms or footer
- luckyones.com, luckyones1.com and luckyones7.com are on ACMA's blocked list (8 Oct 2026)Main domain on ACMA's blocked list
Wild Tokyo
Partner · termsTerms checked 8 Oct 2026- Withdrawals (entry)
- AUD 800 a day
- Max bet (bonus)
- AUD 8
- Monthly cap (entry)
- AUD 13,000
- States a Curacao eGaming licence (no number shown)
18+ Offers and terms change often; the casino's own terms always apply. Never gamble money you need. Free help: Gambling Help 1800 858 858, 24/7.
Frequently asked questions
How does hold and spin work on pokies?
Landing enough special symbols, usually six or more coins or orbs, starts a round of respins. The coins stay locked, only coin symbols can land, and the respin counter, usually three, resets whenever a new coin lands. When the respins run out, you collect the value of every coin on screen.
Is hold and win the same as hold and spin?
Yes, in practice. Makers use different names for the same idea: locked symbols plus resetting respins. Aristocrat calls it Hold & Spin, Pragmatic Play calls its version Money Respin in Wolf Gold, and Hacksaw Gaming uses Hold & Win in some titles.
How often do you fill the screen in hold and spin?
Rarely. Makers do not publish the odds, but in our simple model where each empty spot has a 5% chance of a coin on each respin, a round starting with six coins fills all 15 spots about once in 610 rounds. The more spots you fill, the fewer chances you get to land the last ones.
Do hold and spin pokies have better odds?
No. The feature is part of the game's total return to player, which is fixed by its maths. If a game puts a lot of value into its hold and spin feature, it has to pay less somewhere else.
Can you buy the hold and spin feature?
On some online games, yes. Big Time Gaming's White Rabbit 2 offers a bonus buy straight into Hold and Spin for 35x your stake. Buying the feature does not change the odds of what it pays, and online pokies cannot legally be offered to people in Australia.
Related reading
Pokies Where's the Gold Where's the Gold is an Aristocrat name that now covers several different games. Here is what the current Australian version does, how its jackpot editions differ, and the odds of a big prize in plain numbers. Read more 
Pokies Bonus buy A bonus buy lets you pay a fixed price, often 100 times your stake, to jump straight into the feature. It does not change the odds. It changes how fast you bet, and that is what makes it expensive. Read more 
Pokies Hit frequency Hit frequency is the share of spins that win anything. Put it next to RTP and you get the average size of a win and the odds of a dry spell. Here is the maths with real maker data. Read more 
Pokies BGaming BGaming games turn up again and again in offshore casino free spin offers. Here is who makes them, what the provably fair label does and does not prove, and the max win cap that can bite before the multiplier does. Read more 
Pokies Buffalo Buffalo is Aristocrat's biggest pokie franchise, with a ways-to-win layout and dozens of spin-offs. Here is how the ways maths works, what each version changes, and why its online versions are not for Australians. Read more 
Pokies Gates of Olympus Gates of Olympus is Pragmatic Play's Zeus-themed pay-anywhere pokie, built on random multipliers. Here is how they behave in the base game and free spins, worked through with numbers, plus the sequels and the law here. Read more Sources
Official pages we relied on. If anything here has changed, tell us via the contact page and we fix it.