Walk past any bank of Lightning Link or Dragon Link machines and you'll hear it: the thud of a coin locking in, a cheer, then three anxious respins. That's Hold and Spin, the feature that turned a 2015 Aussie pokie into one of the most copied ideas on the gaming floor.
Here's exactly how Hold and Spin works, what the Mini, Minor, Major and Grand mean, why you need a full screen for the Grand, and how the feature spread from Lightning Link to just about everything else.
How Hold and Spin triggers
In the base game you'll see special bonus symbols mixed in with the regular ones. Depending on the game they're coins, pearls, fireballs or orbs, and each one carries either a credit value or a jackpot name.
On Lightning Link and Dragon Link, landing six or more of those symbols anywhere on the screen triggers the feature. Five won't do it, which is why the fifth fireball landing feels so cruel. The trigger symbols then lock in place for the respins.
The trigger is decided by the random number generator like any other spin, so a bank that's "close" to a feature isn't really close at all. Our how pokies work guide explains why.
Three respins that keep resetting
Once triggered, the rest of the screen spins on its own while the locked symbols stay put. The rules are simple:
- You start with 3 respins.
- Every time at least one new bonus symbol lands, it locks in and the counter resets to 3.
- If a respin lands nothing new, the counter drops by one.
- The feature ends when the counter hits zero or every position is full.
- You're paid the total of all the values and jackpots on screen.
That reset is the magic. A feature that looks dead on its last respin can suddenly come alive with one new coin, and the whole bank leans in. It's simple to follow from across the room, which is a big part of why the feature caught on.
Mini, Minor, Major and Grand
Most Hold and Spin games show four jackpot levels above the reels:
| Tier | How it usually works | How you win it |
|---|---|---|
| Mini | Smallest prize, often tied to your bet | Lands on a bonus symbol |
| Minor | Small prize, often tied to your bet | Lands on a bonus symbol |
| Major | Bigger prize, often a progressive on that machine | Lands on a bonus symbol |
| Grand | Top prize, usually a progressive linked across a bank | Fill every position during the feature |
When Lightning Link launched, Aristocrat described it as offering standalone jackpots with the option to link the top Grand across machines. In practice, each venue's setup varies, and some prizes can depend on your bet level, so the help screen on the machine is the final word.
Why the Grand needs a full screen
On a 5×3 Lightning Link or Dragon Link game there are 15 positions. Fill all 15 with bonus symbols during Hold and Spin and you win the Grand, on top of everything else showing.
Getting there is the hard part. You need the screen to keep refilling before your respins run out, and the last few empty spots get tougher as the screen fills. That's why a Grand is a rare event that people talk about, and why most features finish with a respectable handful of coins rather than a full house.
Because the Grand is often linked across a bank, its meter grows with play on every connected machine, which is why it keeps climbing on the display above the bank.
Where Hold and Spin came from
Lightning Link was created by Australian designer Scott Olive, whose HRG Studios works exclusively with Aristocrat. The game was dreamt up in 2014 and launched in 2015 on Aristocrat's Helix cabinet, with four themes: Happy Lantern, High Stakes, Magic Pearl and Sahara Gold.
Alongside the hold-and-respin jackpot feature it had a free games round where the middle three reels joined into one big reel. Low denominations played 50 lines and higher ones 25 lines.
How the feature spread
Once Lightning Link took off, Aristocrat built on it. The family tree looks roughly like this:
- Dragon Link (2017): Asian-themed, using fireballs, with the original themes Autumn Moon, Golden Century, Happy & Prosperous and Panda Magic, later joined by titles such as Spring Festival and Genghis Khan.
- Lightning Cash and Dragon Cash: sister games with their own jackpot setups. See Dragon Cash.
- Dollar Storm: built on the Lightning Link formula and launched with the MarsX cabinet in 2019.
- Buffalo Link and Mr Cashman Link: classic Aristocrat characters given a coin-collecting feature.
Beyond Aristocrat, the hold-and-respin idea has been imitated across the industry, to the point where many punters now use "hold and spin" as a generic term for any coin-collecting feature.
Want to see one in action without spending at the venue? The official Lightning Link Casino app is a free place to watch the feature play out. Our Link series hub covers every family member. If the chase stops being fun, see our play-safely page.