Lightning Link pokies: the titles, the features and the app explained

What Lightning Link is

Lightning Link is a family of pokies from Aristocrat, the Sydney-founded maker covered in our Aristocrat pokies guide. Aristocrat's product page describes it as a game group that "brings together a diverse group of some of our most popular games" and adds three shared features: bonus prizes, a Hold & Spin Jackpot feature and a "Big Reel" free game. Its sister family, Dragon Link pokies, builds off the Lightning Link platform, according to Aristocrat.

The Lightning Link titles

Aristocrat's Lightning Link product page lists 12 titles. Every one has Hold & Spin and a Grand Jackpot; what changes is the theme and the free games.

These are the titles on Aristocrat's product page. What is installed at your local club or pub is up to the venue. Aristocrat's standalone venue classics have their own guides too: More Chilli, now rebuilt with Hold & Spin, 50 Lions and its Cash Express trains, Where's the Gold and Big Red.

Hold & Spin and the linked Grand Jackpot

The Hold & Spin feature is the heart of every Lightning Link game. Aristocrat says it "awards credits and jackpots", can trigger in the base game or in free games, and "operates the same between all Lightning Link titles". That consistency is deliberate: once you know one Lightning Link game, you know the feature in all of them.

The top prize, the Grand Jackpot, is what Aristocrat calls a "linked progressive award": it is shared with other games in the series, so every eligible bet on the link feeds it. In NSW law, a progressive system means two or more machines linked to contribute a percentage of the money wagered on them to a separate jackpot pool. For how those contributions come out of the game's return, see our jackpot pokies guide. For the respin mechanics and their odds, see hold and spin pokies.

Why "royals removed" matters: a worked example

Moon Race's free games remove the King, Queen, Jack, Ten and Nine symbols, which Aristocrat says "increases the chance for big 5-of-a-kind wins". A simple model shows why. This is an illustration, not the game's real reel strips:

• Suppose each reel shows 10 symbol types equally often, and 5 of them are royals.
• With royals in, the chance a given picture symbol lands on a payline on one reel is 1 in 10. Five in a row needs that on all 5 reels: (1/10)^5 = 1 in 100,000.
• With royals removed, the same symbol is 1 in 5 per reel: (1/5)^5 = 1 in 3,125.
• That is 32 times as likely, which is why free games with royals removed can produce big wins.

The trade-off is built in. The free games are only a small share of all spins, and their extra value is already counted in the game's overall return.

Lucky Chance Spin: what to do with leftover credits

Several Lightning Link titles include a Lucky Chance Spin. Aristocrat describes it as a way to "wager away those annoying insufficient credits", or to use a minimum credit for "one last spin". In plain terms: when your balance is below one full bet, you can gamble the remainder on a final spin.

You do not have to. Cashing out the remainder is also an option, and in a Victorian casino the regulator's gaming machine rules say that if a player does not want to play out remaining credits under $1.00, the casino must let them collect it.

Pundit tip: leftover credits are your money. Cashing out 60 cents is not a loss to be "won back" with one more spin.

The Lightning Link app

Lightning Link Casino Pokies is Aristocrat's own social app, published by Product Madness. On the Australian App Store it is listed as free with in-app purchases, rated R 18+ for frequent simulated gambling, and noted as containing loot boxes. New players get 10,000,000 virtual coins, with more every three hours. Coin and bundle packs cost from $2.99 to $29.99.

The listing is clear that the app "does not offer gambling or an opportunity to win real money or prizes". Coins cannot be cashed out, so anything you spend on packs is spent for good. The app also carries Dragon Link titles such as Golden Century and Panda Magic.

Lightning Link pokies online for real money

You will see sites claiming to offer Lightning Link online for real money. None of them can lawfully offer it to people in Australia. The Interactive Gambling Act prohibits providing online pokies to Australian customers, ACMA lists "slots (pokies)" as an illegal online service, and there is no Australian licence that would allow it. ACMA also warns that if an illegal operator does not pay, Australian regulators cannot help you get your money back.

The legal options are the real machines in licensed venues and the free app. More on the law in are online pokies legal in Australia.

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