Pragmatic Play · June 2022 · 7×7 cluster pays
Sugar Rush slot review
Five or more touching candies pay, then explode and tumble away.
Every explosion marks its cell; hit a marked cell again and it becomes x2, doubling up to x128.
In free spins the marked cells never reset, so a grid can fill with multipliers. Top prize 5,000x.
The quick bite
Sugar Rush is the game the whole series is built on. Pragmatic Play released it in June 2022: a 7×7 board of jelly sweets with no reels and no paylines, where groups of matching candies pay and the board itself keeps score of where wins have happened.
That last idea is what makes it different from the dozens of other tumble slots. Every time a winning candy explodes, the cell it sat on is marked. The next win on that cell turns it into a x2 multiplier, and each win after that doubles it, up to x128. In the base game the board is wiped when the tumbles stop. In free spins it is not, and that is where the game's 5,000x top prize lives.
We read all seven pages of the rules screen in the official demo, played 500 base spins, bought 15 bonus rounds and recorded one in full. Our best one paid 381x; you can replay it below.
The base recipe
As the original, Sugar Rush has no "what's new" list. Instead, here is what its three follow-ups changed, so you can see what you would gain by moving on:
- Sugar Rush Xmas (2023) keeps every number and changes only the look: snow on the sweets, baubles in the scatter.
- Sugar Rush 1000 (2024) lets spots climb to x1,024, raises the max win to 25,000x and adds a 500x Super Free Spins buy.
- Super Scatter (2026) adds instant Super Scatter prizes up to 50,000x, an Ante bet and two Super Spin modes.
- The original has no Ante, no Super buy and the lowest spot cap in the series.
The grid, the seven candies, the paytable, the scatters and the 10 to 30 free spins are the same in all four games. Learn them here and you know the whole family. The full side-by-side table is on the home page.
Play the free demo
Pragmatic Play's own demo, with play money and no sign-up. It loads only when you press the button.
Opens Pragmatic Play's own demo with play money. 18+. Open in a new tab
Seen how it works? Sugar Rush is waiting at our partner casino. Real money, 18+. Set your limits first.
One spin, frame by frame
Here is a real base-game win from our session, step by step. The clip below plays the same tumble at full speed.
Forty-nine candies land. Seven columns of seven. There are seven paying sweets, from the pink lollipop at the top of the paytable down to the orange gummy bear, plus the scatter: a pink gumball machine on a rocket.
The base game at the default $2 bet. Five or more touching candies win. They must connect horizontally or vertically; a diagonal touch doesn't count. The group can be any shape: a line, an L, a blob.
A cluster of stars wins. Every star in it is about to explode. The winners explode and leave a mark. Each exploded candy marks its cell with a pale wrapper. Candies above fall into the gaps and new ones drop in from the top.
After the explosion: the empty wrappers show the marked cells. A second win on a marked cell makes a multiplier. If a new winning candy explodes on a marked cell, the cell becomes x2. Every further explosion there doubles it: x4, x8, x16, x32, x64 and finally x128. When one cluster covers several multiplier cells, their values are added together.
The tumbles stop, the board resets. In the base game, once no new cluster forms, all marks and multipliers are cleared and the spin is paid. That is why most base spins are small: there is rarely time to build a multiplier before the board is wiped.
What clusters pay
Amounts are multiples of your total bet. They are identical in every Sugar Rush game.
| Symbol / cluster size | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pink lollipop | 1x | 1.5x | 1.75x | 2x | 2.5x | 5x | 7.5x | 15x | 35x | 70x | 150x |
| Orange heart | 0.75x | 1x | 1.25x | 1.5x | 2x | 4x | 6x | 12.5x | 30x | 60x | 100x |
 Purple jelly bean | 0.5x | 0.75x | 1x | 1.25x | 1.5x | 3x | 4.5x | 10x | 20x | 40x | 60x |
| Green star | 0.4x | 0.5x | 0.75x | 1x | 1.25x | 2x | 3x | 5x | 10x | 20x | 40x |
 Red gummy bear | 0.3x | 0.4x | 0.5x | 0.75x | 1x | 1.5x | 2.5x | 3.5x | 8x | 15x | 30x |
 Purple gummy bear | 0.25x | 0.3x | 0.4x | 0.5x | 0.75x | 1.25x | 2x | 3x | 6x | 12x | 25x |
 Orange gummy bear | 0.2x | 0.25x | 0.3x | 0.4x | 0.5x | 1x | 1.5x | 2.5x | 5x | 10x | 20x |
A cluster of five pays between 0.2x (orange bears) and 1x (lollipops). The table only becomes generous at 10 and above, and at 15 or more a lollipop cluster pays 150x. In practice, most of the money in Sugar Rush comes from multiplier cells under ordinary clusters rather than from huge clusters. A 5-lollipop win sitting on two cells worth x32 and x16 pays 1x × 48 = 48x. Try your own combinations in the cluster calculator.
How the spots behave
The rule, as the game puts it: whenever a winning symbol explodes it marks its spot; after the second time a symbol explodes on the same spot a multiplier is added, starting from x2 and doubling every time one more symbol explodes on top of it, up to x128. Multipliers involved in the same winning combination add to each other.
Three practical consequences:
- A cell needs eight explosions to reach x128: one to mark, one for x2, and six more doublings. In one base spin that almost never happens. In 500 base spins our biggest base-game spot was x16, and a multiplier formed at all in 12.2% of spins.
- Adding beats multiplying. Two x8 cells under one cluster give x16, not x64. A cluster that covers many medium cells can still be big.
- The centre does more work. Middle cells belong to more possible clusters than edge cells, so they are marked and doubled more often. Our heatmap below shows it clearly.
Chapter 2 of our Learn section goes through the rule with examples, and the spot simulator lets you click cells and watch them climb.
Free spins
Three or more scatters anywhere start the bonus round, and the scatter count sets its length.
| Scatters on the grid | To trigger | To retrigger, in the round |
|---|---|---|
| 3 scatters | 10 free spins | +10 more |
| 4 scatters | 12 free spins | +12 more |
| 5 scatters | 15 free spins | +15 more |
| 6 scatters | 20 free spins | +20 more |
| 7+ scatters | 30 free spins | +30 more |
Two things change in free spins. Marked cells and multipliers stay on the grid from the first free spin to the last, and the game uses special reels, a different symbol mix from the base game. A retrigger adds 10 to 30 spins on top of what is left and keeps every multiplier on the board.
The Buy Free Spins button costs 100x the bet. When you buy, 3 to 7 scatters land at random, so a bought round can be 10, 12, 15, 20 or 30 spins long. The RTP stays at 96.50% when you buy.
Our best bonus, replayed
Bought at $2: three scatters for 10 free spins, a retrigger for 10 more, and a cell in the middle of the grid that climbed all the way to x128. Press Play and watch the board fill up; amounts are in multiples of the bet.
| Free spin | Spin win | Total | Best spot |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 of 10 | 1.95x | 1.95x | x2 |
| 2 of 20 | 3.1x | 5.05x | x4 |
| 3 of 20 | 0x | 5.05x | x4 |
| 4 of 20 | 4.45x | 9.5x | x8 |
| 5 of 20 | 4.2x | 13.7x | x16 |
| 6 of 20 | 132.6x | 146.3x | x64 |
| 7 of 20 | 0.3x | 146.6x | x64 |
| 8 of 20 | 0x | 146.6x | x64 |
| 9 of 20 | 3.6x | 150.2x | x64 |
| 10 of 20 | 0x | 150.2x | x64 |
| 11 of 20 | 0x | 150.2x | x64 |
| 12 of 20 | 6x | 156.2x | x64 |
| 13 of 20 | 36x | 192.2x | x128 |
| 14 of 20 | 4x | 196.2x | x128 |
| 15 of 20 | 88x | 284.2x | x128 |
| 16 of 20 | 0.3x | 284.5x | x128 |
| 17 of 20 | 0x | 284.5x | x128 |
| 18 of 20 | 69.2x | 353.7x | x128 |
| 19 of 20 | 27.6x | 381.3x | x128 |
| 20 of 20 | 0x | 381.3x | x128 |
It ended at 381.3x the bet with 31 multiplier cells on the board. That was our luckiest Sugar Rush round, not our typical one: of the 15 more we bought for the Test Kitchen, only two paid back their 100x price.
Where the multipliers ended up
We stacked the final grids of our 15 bought Sugar Rush bonuses. The picture is the same in every game in the series: the busiest cells are in the middle, the quietest are the corners.
It is tempting to read that as a hot zone. It isn't one. A middle cell touches four neighbours and is part of far more possible clusters than a corner cell with two neighbours, so it gets exploded on, marked and doubled more often. Every new candy is drawn the same way wherever it falls.
Fancy the real thing? Spin Sugar Rush with real money. Real money, 18+. Set your limits first.
Paying for features
The original keeps it simple: one buy button and nothing else.
Buy Free Spins · 100x
Starts the bonus straight away; 3 to 7 scatters land at random. RTP with the buy: 96.50%, the same as normal play.
No Ante, no Super options
Those came later, in Sugar Rush 1000 (Super Free Spins) and Super Scatter (Ante and Super Spins).
In our test the 15 regular buys returned a median of 12.8x and an average of 30.1x against their 100x price; two of them paid back more than 100x (161.4x and 102.2x). Bought bonuses are a high-variance way to play: before you press the button, check what a run of buys costs at your stake with the bonus-buy calculator.
Straight from the rules screen
| Mode | RTP |
|---|---|
| Base game | 96.50% |
| Buy Free Spins | 96.50% |
Volatility is marked high: the game pays less often on average, with a bigger chance of large wins over a short time. The max win is 5,000x in both base game and free spins, and a free spins round that reaches it ends immediately. The game's configuration in the demo gives a figure of about one in 2.34 million rounds for hitting that cap. Bets run from $0.20 to $240 per spin in the demo; casinos may set other limits.
The 96.50% figure on the rules screen matches the one on Pragmatic Play's site. Some casinos run lower RTP versions of the same game, so check the information screen in your own lobby: our RTP chapter shows where to look.
Ready for a real board of Sugar Rush? Real money, 18+. Set your limits first.
On a phone
The portrait layout puts the logo on top, the grid in the upper half and a big Buy Free Spins button under it. The grid fills the width of the screen, so tumbles stay easy to follow.
Test Kitchen numbers
| Base spins played | 500 |
|---|---|
| Spins that paid something | 33.2% |
| Spins where a spot multiplier formed | 12.2% |
| Best single base spin | 101.25x |
| Free spins triggered naturally | 1 |
| Bought bonuses (100x each) | 15 |
| Median bought bonus | 12.8x |
| Mean bought bonus | 30.1x |
| Best bought bonus | 161.4x |
| Bought bonuses that paid back 100x | 2 of 15 |
| Highest spot multiplier in a bought bonus | x64 |
Small samples swing hard: these numbers describe our sessions, not the game's maths. Full data and method: Test Kitchen.
Our 500 base spins returned 98.2% of what we bet, helped by one 101.25x spin, and triggered the bonus once on their own (it paid 11.3x). A different 500 spins could look completely different. That's the point of publishing the raw data: you can see the swings for yourself in the Test Kitchen.
Sweet for, sour for
Sweet for
- Learning the series: one buy option, nothing else to understand.
- Players who like to watch a board build up over a bonus round.
- Anyone whose casino offers only this one: it plays the same at 96.50% as on day one.
Sour for
- Big-win hunters: x128 and 5,000x are the lowest caps in the family.
- Fans of base-game action: multipliers rarely form before the board resets.
- Players who want options like Ante or a premium buy.
Undecided between this and the newer games? Sugar Rush vs Sugar Rush 1000 puts them side by side, and Sugar Rush vs Sweet Bonanza compares it with Pragmatic's other famous candy slot.
Play Sugar Rush for real Free demo first
Questions about Sugar Rush
What is the RTP of Sugar Rush?
96.50%, both for normal play and when you buy free spins, according to the rules screen in the official demo and Pragmatic Play's own site. Casinos can run lower versions; the game's information screen in your lobby shows which one you are playing.
What is the maximum win in Sugar Rush?
5,000 times your bet. If a free spins round reaches it, the round ends and the remaining spins are lost. The game's configuration in the demo gives a figure of about one in 2.34 million rounds for reaching it.
How do the multipliers work in Sugar Rush?
A winning candy that explodes marks its cell. The second explosion on a marked cell makes it x2, and every explosion after that doubles it, up to x128. If a winning cluster covers several multiplier cells, their values are added together. In the base game they reset when the tumbles stop; in free spins they stay for the whole round.
How many scatters do I need for free spins?
Three, anywhere on the grid. Three, four, five, six or seven scatters give 10, 12, 15, 20 or 30 free spins, and the same counts retrigger the round with the same numbers of extra spins.
How much does the Sugar Rush bonus buy cost?
100 times your bet, for example $200 at a $2 bet. 3 to 7 scatters then land at random. The RTP with the buy is the same 96.50%. In our test, 2 of 15 bought rounds paid back more than their price.
Does Sugar Rush have an Ante bet?
No. The original has a single buy button and no special bets. Ante and Super Spin modes were added in Sugar Rush Super Scatter.
What are the minimum and maximum bets?
$0.20 to $240 per spin in the official demo. Casinos may set narrower limits.
Is there a pattern for when Sugar Rush pays?
No. Each spin is decided by a certified random number generator, and nothing about earlier spins, the time of day or the cells that were busy last round changes the next one. Our chapter on patterns and myths goes through the popular theories.
Rules read and demos played on . Page updated . What we re-check and when.
