Kraken's Lair Demo: Where One Golden Emblem Makes the Reels Expand

Krakens, squid idols and the emblem that runs the game

Five reels of three rows sit in a dark knotwork frame, in an underwater cave where the masts of a sunken ship show through the blue. The Kraken itself, a pink and purple octopus head, leads the pay table, followed by a golden squid statuette, a chest of silver coins, a red-bronze medallion on a chain and a golden trident. A, K, Q, J and 10 on blue stone tiles fill the rest.

The tile that matters most is the Kraken Emblem, a gold square with a knotwork octopus in a ring. The rules call it a Scatter and a Wild symbol: it substitutes for every other symbol in both modes, pays anywhere as a scatter, and one spin can give both kinds of win. Five on a line are worth 500.00 at a €1.00 stake, the same as five Krakens.

All five picture symbols pay for two of a kind; the card ranks need three. For five, the chest pays 40.00, the medallion 30.00 and the trident 25.00, while A pays 15.00, K and Q 12.50, J and 10 10.00. Three of any rank pay 0.50, half the stake, and that is the win you will see most often.

Nine fixed pay lines, whatever the game page calls them

Thunderkick's game page lists this slot with "Pay Ways 9", but the game disagrees. Its pay table ends with a section headed Pay Lines that draws nine numbered patterns, the Expanding Win rule speaks of pay lines, and the configuration the demo server sends lists nine paylines with a line pay table. We follow the game: 9 paylines, always active.

Nine lines on fifteen positions is a sparse layout: only 23.1% of our spins returned anything, most often a single short line of three card ranks or two picture symbols.

Expanding Wins: a winning line that meets the emblem

The base game has one feature, and it hangs on the emblem. The rules give it four short sentences: an Expanding Win occurs when a winning pay line includes a Kraken Emblem; the symbols of that line expand individually; the emblem never expands; and each symbol expands only once. The picture shows a chest stretching up and down to fill its reel.

The geometry explains why it matters. Every line crosses each reel once, so a reel filled with one symbol puts it on all nine lines, and neighbouring full reels next to the emblem can pay the same combination on several lines.

Of the 747 logged spins that did not start free spins, 26 included an Expanding Win. Those 26 returned €342.00, about seven tenths of the €480.00 the base game paid back in total. Nine of the eleven base-game wins of 10x or more came this way, including the best one: 65x on spin 632, where the expansion alone added 52.5x to a 12.5x line win.

750 paid spins at €1.00, three bonus rounds, 90.8% returned

We logged 750 paid spins at €1.00 in Thunderkick's own demo, where every session starts with €5,000.00 of play money. €681.00 came back on €750.00 staked, or 90.8%. Thunderkick publishes 96.12% for the build on its game page, and that is the build this demo loads; a casino may run a different version. On a game rated Very high, a few hundred spins can land far from either figure: this records one sample, nothing more.

• 750paid spins at €1.00 in the demo
• 90.8%of the stakes paid back
• 84xbest round, free spins included
• 3free spins rounds triggered

Wins came on 173 spins, and the median win was 0.5x, half the stake: three card ranks or two picture symbols on a line. The longest losing run lasted 19 spins. In all, 14 spins paid 10x or more and 5 paid 50x or more: the 3 free spins rounds and two Expanding Wins late in the log. Nothing reached 100x.

The first bonus round, from spin 46, retriggered once, ran to 20 free spins and paid 84x. The second, on spin 159, paid 50x over 10 spins and lifted our running total to its high of €5,078.50. A long slide followed, which the third round on spin 337 only slowed: 30 spins after two retriggers, 67x. No bonus came in the last 413 spins. The running total bottomed out at €4,864.00 on spin 631, one spin before the 65x Expanding Win; a 54x one followed four spins later, and the total finished at €4,931.00. The three rounds returned €201.00 of the €681.00.

Ten free spins with an emblem dropped on every one

Land three or more Kraken Emblems anywhere and the Bonus Game begins with 10 free spins; three or more during the round retrigger it with 10 new ones. One rule changes the board: at the beginning of each free spin, a single emblem is placed on the reels at random. Every free spin therefore starts with a wild in view, and any winning line that runs through it becomes an Expanding Win.

Our log shows the difference. In the three natural rounds, 26 of the 60 free spins included an Expanding Win; in the base game it took 747 paid spins to collect the same 26. The largest single free spin paid 27x, on the seventh spin of the first round, the same spin that brought its retrigger.

Length did not decide the result: our 30-spin round paid less than the 20-spin one. The captured rules mention no multiplier for the free spins, and none of our rounds showed one. There is no feature buy either, so the only way in is three emblems.

The first of six Beat the Beast slots

Kraken's Lair started the series in February 2020. According to Thunderkick and trade press, Mighty Sphinx followed in March 2020, Cerberus' Inferno in June 2020, Quetzalcoatl's Trial in August 2020, Griffin's Gold later that year, and Dragon's Wrath in February 2024. Mighty Sphinx has since left Thunderkick's public games page. Every cap in the series repeats one digit, from 4,444x for Mighty Sphinx to 22,222x for Griffin's Gold.

The nearest relative on this site is Cerberus' Inferno, the third chapter: the same 5x3 grid with 9 paylines, an RTP of 96.15%, a 6,666x cap and no feature buy. It replaces the Expanding Win with stacked wilds and plays its free spins on 243 ways.

Thunderkick called Griffin's Gold the grand finale of the series. We review its Reborn build from 2024, with the same 9 paylines and very high rating, a 22,222x cap and a Bonus Game buy at 125x the bet.

Who the Kraken will suit

Kraken's Lair is an old-fashioned line slot with one clever tile. Most spins pay nothing or half the stake while the game waits for the emblem to join a winning line or for three of them to open the bonus, and those two events brought in most of our larger results. Without a buy, the wait is part of the game: our three rounds came after 46, 113 and 178 spins, and the last 413 spins brought none.

It suits players who accept long flat stretches for a 7,777x ceiling. In the demo, watch how often the emblem joins a line, then wait for a natural bonus and count the expansions once every spin starts with a wild.

• Griffin's Gold demo review
• Cerberus' Inferno demo review
• Esqueleto Explosivo 2 demo review

Kraken's Lair: five questions, answered from the game

Answers from the in-game rules, Thunderkick's figures and our log.