Updated
Lisa Michaels
Prepare for magic, mystery, and (hopefully) merry wins in The Great Albini! This 5x3 slot from Foxium and Microgaming stars the eponymous stage magician and his assistant, Lily. It takes you into an elegant, cozy theatre to spin the reels and try to land winning combinations with a fun mix of magic-themed symbols. You can also trigger Mystery Box Respins and a Free Spins feature played on a giant grid, with a top prize of 4,000x your bet to win.
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I found The Great Albini’s interface and controls satisfyingly simple. The spin and autoplay buttons are bright green to stand out from the controls beside them. Push the spin button to play manually, or tap the autoplay button to set up automatic spins instead.
Use the up and down buttons in the bet section of the command panel to adjust your stake. Your current win and balance are shown in the corresponding meters. The green hamburger button on the left-hand side opens the paytable. You can use the speaker button below to turn the sound on and off.
The Great Albini has 12 symbols, and they all impressed me with their detail and relevance to the magic theme. The low-paying royal symbols (10, jack, queen, king, and ace) all feature matching playing cards. Get the 10, jack, and queen to win up to 2x your bet.
The king symbol pays up to 2.4x your stake, and the ace pays a max of 3.2x. The cups and balls, knives in a target board, and yellow canary pay up to 4x, 8x, and 12x your bet, respectively.
The Lily symbol awards 20x your stake, and the Great Albini himself offers a top prize of 40x your bet. Lily and the Great Albini appear together on the Scatter symbol, which can trigger the Free Spins bonus.
The wild symbol substitutes for other symbols to create wins. Mystery Box symbols can appear and award respins — I’ll cover these in more detail later.
Landing three, four, or five identical symbols on any paylines will award a win. It doesn’t always need an exact match, as the wild symbol can stand in for others to build winning combinations.
In The Great Albini’s base game, you can trigger two bonus features: Mystery Box Respins and Free Spins. The Free Spins bonus includes Lily wilds that can build stacks of multiplier wild symbols to boost your cash prizes.
The Mystery Box feature will trigger when a whole stack of Mystery Box symbols fills the third reel. These will stay in place, and the other four reels will spin again. There are three respins initially.
If you land any more Mystery Box symbols anywhere during the respin, they’ll lock into place, and the number of remaining respins will reset to three. The feature will continue until you use all your respins or no new Mystery Box symbols appear.
Once the feature ends, all Mystery Box symbols will be switched with a random symbol to create winning combinations.
To trigger the Free Spins feature, land the 3x3 Free Spin symbol on reels 2, 3, and 4. Alternatively, you can pay to activate the feature: it costs 100x, 125x, or 150x your bet for 8, 10, or 12 free spins, respectively.
The Free Spins feature expands the grid from a 5x3 to a 5x6 layout and doubles the paylines to 50. That creates more opportunities to line up wins!
I was also pleased to see the Lily wild symbols in the Free Spins feature, which can appear on any free spin. They will add a whole stack of x2 multiplier wild symbols on the middle reels and award a random number of respins.
The Great Albini offers a decent max win of 4,000 your stake. The bonus features can make land more generous payouts easier, especially with the x2 multiplier wilds. However, that top prize will still be tough to reach.
The Great Albini’s theoretical Return to Player (RTP) is 96%. That’s the average for a slot game. But remember that an RTP only indicates the average return based on a lengthy calculation process — your return might be higher or lower.
When combining the 96% RTP with the medium volatility, it’s fair to say that The Great Albini can provide a pretty moderate return overall.
I found The Great Albini’s graphics stylish, fun, and atmospheric. The theater setting boasts intricate detail, from the massive curtains hanging on either side of the stage to the lights overhead.
The Great Albini stands on stage in his sophisticated outfit, which gives the game a little more personality than if you were looking at an empty stage. The slightly mysterious and magical music complements the graphics well, too.
Fancy seeing what The Great Albini has up its sleeve? Launch our demo now to play the game for free before you bet any real money on it. You can try the base game, the Free Spins feature, and the Mystery Box Respins with zero risk. Playing the demo will give you a clear idea of what the full version of The Great Albini offers.
If The Great Albini appeals to you, you can try other slots with a similar theme and style.
The most obvious suggestion is Rabbit in the Hat, a magic-themed slot from Microgaming. It offers up to 5,000 your stake, a Magic Hats feature, and a Free Spins round.
The Book of Oz is inspired by the Wizard of Oz. It features a sinister sorcerer and a top prize of 5,000 your stake.
Last but by no means least, it’s Golden Ticket. This may not feature a magician, but it takes place at a circus and has a similar feel to The Great Albini. It can pay out up to 20,000 your bet.
Overall, I like The Great Albini. The max win of 4,000x is decent for a medium-volatility slot, though you can play for higher payouts in plenty of other slots if this doesn’t seem enticing to you. The graphics impressed me, too, with their stylish and atmospheric look.
The Mystery Box Respins can help you land winning combinations, and the Free Spins feature creates a more extensive playing area with more paylines. On top of that, Lily Wilds may add x2 multiplier wilds for potentially higher payouts during the Free Spins round.
Lisa started off as a croupier at her local casino. However she found her niche in writing and has subsequently used her real-world gambling experiences to help produce and review the many online slots that are released monthly. Lisa also contributes to keeping you up to date with Canadian newsworthy stories.
