Wild Panda pokies are Aristocrat’s 100-line panda game from around 2006 on its MKVI platform. Some card symbols carry the letters P, A, N, D and A, and spelling the word across reels 1 to 5 in one spin awards five free games where those letter positions become panda wilds. It was licensed for online play in 2012 and later extended as Wild Panda Gold. The free demo below is a similar panda pokie, no download.
Wild Panda has five reels and 100 lines that pay left to right from the leftmost reel. Sources disagree on the number of rows, and online versions disagree on whether all 100 lines are compulsory or can be reduced. Coin sizes in the online version run from 1 cent to $1, but every site gives a different total bet range, so the figure in the game is the one to trust. Aristocrat publishes no RTP for Wild Panda, land-based or online, and the ACT approval lists none; databases give 94.36% for the online version. Volatility is rated medium by databases. No hit frequency is published and there is no official maximum win: the largest prize named anywhere is five gold coin scatters at 200x the total bet. There is no progressive jackpot.
Wild Panda Pokies Characteristics
Line wins pay left to right on adjacent reels from reel 1, and the gold coins pay anywhere. The panda is the wild: it substitutes for every symbol except the gold coin, though sources disagree on whether it can land in the base game or only appears in the free games. Some of the card symbols carry a single letter, P on reel 1, A on reel 2, N on reel 3, D on reel 4 and A on reel 5, and sites disagree on which cards those are. The letters only matter when all five land in the same spin.
There is no progressive or linked jackpot, and none of the sources describes a gamble option. Several review sites call the five-coin scatter prize a “fixed jackpot”, but it is simply the top scatter pay. The online version adds autoplay of 5 to 50 spins, which is not a land-based feature.
Aristocrat publishes no paytable for Wild Panda, so the only figures below are the scatter pays, in multiples of the total bet; the picture symbols follow the order of one review site’s table, highest to lowest.
Five gold coins at 200x the total bet is the largest fixed prize anyone names for the game. The panda’s own pays are left out because they differ between versions: Aristocrat’s 2012 iPhone release lists one set of values in credits, and review pages for the online version list lower ones, possibly because the two use different credit bases. One site prints a full table for the picture symbols, but almost none of it is confirmed elsewhere, so it is not repeated here.
The free games start only when P, A, N, D and A land on reels 1 to 5 in the same spin, which is how Aristocrat describes the feature and how almost every review site explains it. The award is five free games. The positions where the letters landed turn into panda wilds for the remaining spins, one on each reel, and panda symbols then pay left to right like any other line symbol. One site says the feature cannot be retriggered; nobody else addresses it.
Two review sites say three or more gold coins also trigger free spins. That is not how Aristocrat describes the game, and every other source gives the PANDA trigger only, so the coins are best treated as a pay-anywhere prize and nothing more. Five games is a short round, and it is the wilds rather than the count that decide whether the feature pays well.
Without an RTP from Aristocrat, the 94.36% that databases list applies to the online version only, comes from sources that cite no origin, and cannot be checked against anything official. Taken at face value it means about 94 cents back for every dollar staked over the long run, with around 5.6 cents kept, which is below what most recent online pokies advertise. Club and pub machines are a separate matter: the ACT approval gives no return for the game, so what any venue machine pays back is not published.
Medium volatility fits a game whose largest named prize is 200x and whose feature lasts five spins. At $1 a spin, $50 buys 50 spins; three coins would return $4 and five coins $200. Neither the five-coin prize nor the free games can be planned for, since both need everything to line up in a single spin.
The online version most likely came from a three-year licence Aristocrat signed in January 2012 with Chartwell Technology to adapt Wild Panda, Pompeii and Where’s the Gold for online and VLT play, and one database lists the browser version as Flash, so it may not run on a modern phone. On 20 April 2012 Aristocrat released Wild Panda as its 14th iPhone app, a play-for-fun version priced at $1.99 that kept the original sound effects and animations and added Game Center leaderboards.
Wild Panda Gold came later. Aristocrat’s January 2016 media release for Europe, the Middle East and Africa listed it among “Gold” extensions of its core titles for the Arc Single cabinet. In the Gold version, spelling P A N D A on any of the five reels wins free games, all reels grow, and a random Panda bonus on any paid game can turn K, Q and J into wilds. Used Wild Panda machines on Aristocrat’s Viridian cabinets are sold by US resellers, so the original also travelled overseas. Other panda pokies are different games: our Panda Magic review covers another Aristocrat title, and our Panda King review covers Ainsworth’s game.
Wild Panda is a Chinese-themed pokie set in a bamboo forest. A bamboo-chewing panda is the wild and a gold coin is the scatter, and the picture symbols include a temple, koi, a parasol, a money tree, a mandolin and a lotus, which different sites name differently. The letters on the card symbols are the visual hook, and US resellers of used machines single out the spell-to-win mechanic. One review site notes that the online version has little animation. It is a mid-2000s design and looks it, but the PANDA letters make the feature easy to follow.
Wild Panda is a confirmed club and pub game. The ACT Gambling and Racing Commission’s approval of 30 April 2014 for Aristocrat’s MK6 system software includes Wild Panda in its game list, alongside 5 Dragons, Buffalo, Indian Dreaming, King of the Nile and Where’s the Gold. Lists for other states were not checked, and which venues run it today is not documented. Online, no real-money Wild Panda from Aristocrat for Australians was found; one affiliate site claims it is widely offered to Australians, but that was not confirmed, so availability varies and a lobby search, with the provider checked, is the way to find out. Aristocrat publishes no official free demo; free play exists on some third-party review sites.
Wild Panda suits players who remember it from the club and want a simple Aristocrat feature game: 100 lines, a spelling trigger and five free games in which the letter positions turn wild. It does not suit anyone who wants a published return, a full paytable or a large top prize, since Aristocrat publishes no RTP or paytable and the biggest named award is 200x. The one thing to check is which version is in front of you, because the online version, the iPhone app and Wild Panda Gold may not pay the same way.
Aristocrat does not publish one, and the ACT approval lists none. Databases give 94.36% for the online version without citing a source.
Spell P-A-N-D-A across reels 1 to 5 in a single spin. You get five free games, and the five letter positions become panda wilds for the rest of the feature.
Not according to Aristocrat’s own description, which gives the PANDA trigger only. Gold coins pay anywhere: 4x, 40x and 200x the total bet for three, four and five.
Aristocrat publishes no maximum. The largest prize anyone names is five gold coins at 200x the total bet, which review sites sometimes call a fixed jackpot.
It was approved for venues: it is on the ACT’s 2014 list of approved Aristocrat MK6 games. No real-money online version from Aristocrat for Australians was found.
Aristocrat’s later “Gold” extension, listed in 2016 for the Arc Single cabinet. Spelling PANDA still wins free games, all reels grow, and a random Panda bonus can turn K, Q and J wild.
