Santa Surprise

How to play Santa Surprise

Veikkaus is adjusting to a partial liberalisation of Finland’s gambling market under the new Gambling Act, which was ratified in January 2026. 

From July 2027, the company will lose exclusivity over betting and iCasino products, which will become licence-based, while retaining exclusive rights for lottery games, scratchcards, slot machines and physical table games. 

The company has committed to paying market-based compensation for exclusive operations, estimated at around €1 billion for a 10-year licence period, with a significant front-loaded payment scheduled for 2026.

About Santa Surprise

For an experienced slots reader, that’s the “so what.” A game with several distinct bonus paths that a player can still read at a glance.

Play’n GO’s own framing points to the commercial logic behind the choice. “The Coin carries the game. It pays on the spot, it locks into Hold & Spin, it builds multipliers in Bonus Spins. Operators get a game players read quickly, and GO Ultra changes what the wheel can land,” said Magnus Wallentin, Games Ambassador at Play’n GO.

The observation about readability is the strategic point. Feature-dense slots can overwhelm newer players, and a shared trigger reduces the number of mechanics a player must track before understanding how the game rewards them.

What is Santa Surprise?

One tribunal found in 2019 that Lao Holdings had acted in bad faith and ordered it to pay Laos $1.95 million. Another made a similar finding against Sanum and awarded the government $1.78 million.

A third arbitration produced another award worth nearly $1.3 million, taking the amount Laos is seeking to more than $5 million.

Seven years later, Laos says it is still trying to collect.