Imagine if Santa’s workshop, in lieu of the North Pole, were located in the Ghetto, and gift-giving was contingent upon sheer good luck and heavy betting as opposed to a naughty-or-nice list.

Well Microgaming did in producing their slot-based interpretation “Gift Rap” that makes the “house” appear to be no more than a housing project, a simple concept seemingly the product of a lazy pun (art need not apply in the gambling world, even if it is online). This game is more tricked out than a slot machine on a special Vegas Edition episode of Pimp My Ride.

Here 25 pay-lines intersect 5 reels, and can result in merry 6000 coin payouts (in not coal) derived from bets between one and fifty cents. The format is less traditional than standard slots, as toy arrangements replace a need to be familiar with any external or poker-based rules. Bonus doodads also make this game more enticing, allowing bonus rounds for further prize opportunities (three consecutive snow men initiate a bonus round), and a “scatter” option allows a re-dealing of shapes a la poker by way of a vandalistic spray can (how excessively and stereotypically urban can you get?). Also “wild” shapes can take the place of non-exceptional, regular ones (like deuces) and make the possibility of winning slightly more ostensible.

Rapping elves might make you scratch your head even if this game is played in December, but regardless if you don’t care for the over-indulgent kitsch that is commonplace in casinos, the myriad opportunities to fill your stockings year-round might pardon everything else about this game.