Holmes and the Stolen Stones Demo & review

In Holmes and the Stolen Stones, the shards you collect on each reel stay with you between sessions, and five of one colour open the Jackpot Free Spins, the only place the game's five progressive jackpots can be won. Yggdrasil released this 20-line slot in September 2015 and labels it Low volatility. It suits players who return to the same game and like a long collection, more than those who want a quick bonus.

The reels before our first spin: 20 lines at a $1.00 cash bet, with play-money jackpots above the reels. FluxPlays demo test, 2 November 2026.

How Holmes and the Stolen Stones works

Twenty fixed lines run left to right across five reels of three rows, and eight regular symbols pay for three or more in a row from the leftmost reel. The bet is set as a coin value across all 20 lines, so at $1 a coin is worth five cents, and coin prizes in the features convert at that rate.

The paylines are only the frame. What decides the game is a collection: shards picked up on each reel in the base game, and the free spins they unlock.

How the jackpots work

Each reel has its own local progressive jackpot, shown above it. The five are seeded at 40 to 10,000 euros, or the equivalent in your currency, grow from a share of every bet, and have no upper limit. They can be won only inside the Jackpot Free Spins, by collecting five diamonds of the same type on one reel.

Two ways into the Jackpot Free Spins

Three or more Free Spin keyhole symbols start the round, and four or five also pay 1,000 or 10,000 coins on top. The second door is the shard collection: five shards of the same colour form a diamond, start the round and leave that diamond already counted, so only four more are needed for that reel's jackpot. Either way you get 10 spins with all line wins tripled, and the round cannot be retriggered.

The paytable page for the Jackpot Free Spins, the shards and the five jackpots. FluxPlays demo test, 2 November 2026.

Shards are saved between sessions

The rules keep your shard collection when you leave the game. That makes Holmes a slot that rewards coming back: a player who already holds four blue shards starts every session one shard from the free spins. For us this is the most interesting idea in the game, and it is also why a single short visit shows so little of it.

The Warehouse Bonus

Three or more BONUS symbols in the base game open a wall of crates. Each pick reveals a coin prize of 20 to 1,000 coins or a missing shard, and the game ends on the crate hiding a smoke bomb. Shards found here go straight into your main collection. Four or five BONUS symbols add 1,000 or 10,000 coins, and the bonus cannot start during the free spins.

The Warehouse Bonus page: coin bags, shards and the smoke bomb. FluxPlays demo test, 2 November 2026.

Spin 67: crates of 40 and 200 coins, $12.00 at our coin value. FluxPlays demo test, 2 November 2026.

RTP, volatility and max win

The rules set the return at 96.8%, and Yggdrasil's game page agrees. The rules carry no volatility label, so the Low label here is Yggdrasil's own. Neither source gives a top win as a multiple of the bet, and with five jackpots that have no ceiling, the largest prize depends on how far the top one has grown.

Our Holmes and the Stolen Stones demo test

One feature carried the session. The Warehouse Bonus on spin 67 paid 240 coins and a blue shard, about a third of everything returned. Otherwise just 13 more rounds paid, mostly small line wins, and one dry stretch lasted fifteen spins. Free Spin keyholes arrived in pairs more than once but never as three, so the jackpot round stays a rules-only description here. One session of this length shows the pace, not the return.

The Warehouse Bonus result on spin 67: 240 coins and a blue shard. FluxPlays demo test, 2 November 2026.

Spin 67 settled: the bonus paid $12.00, our biggest win of the session. FluxPlays demo test, 2 November 2026.

Is Holmes and the Stolen Stones worth playing?

No, unless you will keep coming back often enough to build a shard collection. Everything worth having sits in the Jackpot Free Spins, and the saved shards are what make reaching them a project rather than pure luck. Between features the 20 lines rarely pay much.

Pick Royal Potato: Dream Drop if you want progressive jackpots that can drop on any paid spin, with no collection to build. Pick Holmes if you like working toward a jackpot round you can see coming, one shard at a time.

In the demo, open the second paytable page before you spin: it lines up each shard colour with a jackpot, so you know which collection you are building.