Lollipop Demo & review

Lollipop runs two different games on one machine. The base game is PopWins ways, where every win pops into two new symbols and grown reels raise a multiplier, while the free spins throw the paytable out and become a collect round of sticky cash rewards, Hearts and lives. Avatar UX released it in January 2022. It suits players who like hold-and-win style bonuses and want to decide, before the round starts, whether to gamble it for a bigger one.

How Lollipop works

A spin starts on a 5x3 board showing 486 ways. Wins count from the leftmost or the rightmost reel, and five of a kind pays from one side only, so a full line is never paid twice. Every winning symbol pops and two new ones take its place, which makes that reel taller, up to five symbols high in the base game.

What feeds what:

1. Pops grow the reels and unlock them. The first fully unlocked reel sets a win multiplier of x2, and each further one adds +1, up to x6. It multiplies the chain's final win.
2. Three or more scatters open the Bonus Game: free spins at three lives on a 5x3 grid.
3. Before it starts you may gamble it, up to twice, for more lives and taller reels.
4. In the free spins only Scatter Rewards and Hearts land. Rewards pay and stick, Hearts add lives, and matching rewards upgrade.
5. Two buys skip the scatters: the standard Bonus Game, or Bonus MAX with the gamble already won twice.

The Bonus Game is what you play Lollipop for. The base multiplier is the side dish, a way to make a long chain pay a little more while you wait. On spin 36 it reached x6, and that spin paid $6.90, the best base win we had outside the bonus.

The opening board at a 1 EUR bet, every reel locked and the multiplier at x1. FluxPlays demo test, 3 November 2026.

Free spins: how they trigger and what sticks

Three or more scatters trigger the Bonus Game, and a screen shows the round you have won: three lives on a 5x3 grid. From there the reels hold only two symbols. A Scatter Reward pays the value printed on it the moment it lands, then sticks until the round ends and stretches its reel by one, to as many as seven high. A Heart adds one or two lives and sticks as well.

Reel growth does not reset between free spins. It holds for the whole round, so every reward you land makes room for the next. Lives are the round's fuel: the counter falls as the spins go by, and Hearts are the only way to top it up. In practice a Heart buys extra spins on a board that keeps growing, so the lives counter matters as much as the rewards.

Spin 6 opened the Bonus Game at three lives on a 5x3 grid. We pressed Take. FluxPlays demo test, 3 November 2026.

The reward ladder

Rewards come in seven tiers, the lowest worth 1x the bet and the top one 500x, and the panel beside the reels counts the matches toward each upgrade. Enough rewards of the same value move up to the next tier: two for the lowest tier, then one more for each step, so the tier worth ten times the bet needs five. Unlocking a reel in free spins also upgrades every reward on that reel by one level. So matching values matter as much as landing many rewards.

Mid-round on spin 6: three rewards stuck, a Heart on the first reel and the lives counter beside the reels. FluxPlays demo test, 3 November 2026.

The gamble

Before the first free spin you can collect the round as dealt or gamble it. A won gamble lifts the start to four lives and four-high reels. A second one lifts it to five lives and five-high reels, and that is the limit. Lose either and you go back to the base game without the free spins. Avatar UX calls it a gamble wheel. For us it is the most interesting choice in the game, because lives and reel height are the two things the collect round runs on.

Bonus buy: prices and what you get

Two buys skip the scatters, and the BONUS button opens the same Bonus Game screen with three ways out: take the standard round, gamble it, or buy the maxed start.

The rules give one RTP for the game and none for either buy. Avatar UX's game page lists the standard buy at 80x the bet, but the demo and its rules charge 75x, and that is the price we paid. Bonus MAX is the gamble won twice, sold outright, so a gambler who wants the top start without risking the round has to pay for it.

The buy screen: take the standard round, gamble it, or buy the five-life, 5x5 start for 500. FluxPlays demo test, 3 November 2026.

RTP, volatility and max win

The rules give one figure, 95.73%, and Avatar UX's page rounds it to 95.7% with no other versions listed. Avatar UX rates the variance Super High, which the table shows as V.High. One review site gives 13,000x as the top win, but Avatar UX's own page puts the win potential at 9,500x the bet. The top reward tier lives only in the free spins, so that is where a win of that size has to be built.

Our Lollipop demo test

The two natural Bonus Games carried the base session. Spins 6 and 68 each opened the round at three lives without a gamble, and between them they paid about three quarters of what the base spins returned. Only 19 base spins paid anything, and outside the bonuses the wins stayed small.

The bought rounds went the other way. Bonus MAX ended with four rewards of 10x and one of 3x on its taller grid, and that tier's counter stopped one short of an upgrade. Neither buy came close to its price. We took every round as dealt, so the gamble wheel is described from the rules. One session and two bought rounds show how the collect works, not what Lollipop returns over time.

The spin 6 Bonus Game settled at 43.00, base win included. FluxPlays demo test, 3 November 2026.

Mid-round in the bought Bonus MAX: four 10 rewards stuck, three lives left, the 10 tier at 4 of 5. FluxPlays demo test, 3 November 2026.

Is Lollipop worth playing?

For a player who likes collect rounds, yes. For someone who wants the ways game to do the work, no. Lollipop's base game is a waiting room with a multiplier, and its bonus is a different machine: a lives counter, rewards that stay put, and a ladder that rewards patience more than luck on any one spin. The gamble is the part we would play for, because it changes the two things the round depends on.

Barn Beats, also from Avatar UX, is the pick if you want a full hold-and-win board with modes that stack and a Grand for filling it. Choose Lollipop for a lighter collect round where you decide the start yourself.

In the demo, gamble the first Bonus Game you trigger. It costs play money only, and it shows what four lives and four-high reels change before you ever think about the maxed buy.