What Dragon Link is
Dragon Link is a family of pokies from Aristocrat, the Australian maker of Lightning Link and Queen of the Nile. Aristocrat credits it to HRG studios, the creators of Lightning Link, and says the series builds off the Lightning Link platform. So if you've played Lightning Link, you already know the core of it: orbs that lock in place, a respin counter, and four jackpots on the panel above the reels.
There are ten titles. The first four — Golden Century, Autumn Moon, Happy & Prosperous and Panda Magic — were on Aristocrat's Australian site by March 2017. Peacock Princess and Spring Festival followed, then Genghis Khan and Peace & Long Life, and last Golden Gong and Silk Road. Every title uses the same orb symbol to trigger Hold & Spin and keeps the same denominations; in Aristocrat's words, “the uniqueness in each game comes from the different Free Game features”.
In Australia today, Aristocrat lists eight of them on its MarsX cabinet, which it sells on “sharper graphics and larger jackpots” — the earlier machines were Aristocrat's Helix cabinets. Each title also exists as Dragon Cash, the standalone version that isn't linked to other machines.
How Hold & Spin works
Aristocrat describes the feature as the Hold & Spin made popular in Lightning Link, “with the opportunity to collect credit prizes, bonus prizes and Jackpots”, and notes that it can trigger in the base game or in free games. It doesn't publish the counts online — the machine's help screen does. Player and review descriptions agree on this much:
- Six or more orbs (the fireballs) on the reels start the feature.
- The orbs lock in place and the other spots respin. You get three respins.
- Each new orb locks and resets the count to three.
- When the respins run out, every orb pays what's written on it: a credit prize or a jackpot. Fill all 15 spots and you win the Grand.
The toy at the top of this page runs on those rules in credits, so you can see how quickly the grid fills and stalls. Its odds are ours, not Aristocrat's. The full walk-through, from the bet buttons to the feature, is on how to play Dragon Link.
The four jackpots
The panel on every Dragon Link shows four prizes: Grand, Major, Minor and Mini. On the Autumn Moon screen in our games row — a 1c machine playing 50 lines at a 50c bet — they read $10,000.01, $500.01, $50.00 and $10.00 — the cents on the Grand and Major are the tell that those two are progressives that had only just started to climb.
Aristocrat's own description is that “Dragon Link's grand jackpot is a linked progressive, while standalone jackpots give players a chance to win smaller-sized progressives more quickly and more often”. The ACT's approvals say the same thing in regulator language: each title runs as “1 Link + 1 iSAP” — one linked progressive shared by a bank of machines, and one progressive inside the machine.
Where the Grand starts is a venue setting. Club Burleigh's starts at $10,000 and tops out at $23,500 across 20 machines; the Transcontinental Hotel in Brisbane advertises a $20,000 start-up. More on the Dragon Link jackpots.
Which game is which
Because the trigger and the jackpots are shared, the free games are the real difference between titles. Here's what Aristocrat's title pages say each one does, with the date the ACT approved it for Canberra's clubs.
| Title | Free games | ACT approval |
|---|---|---|
| Golden Century | In free games every special symbol reveals the same symbol, jackpot symbols included, which gives Hold & Spin another way in. | 29 March 2018 |
| Autumn Moon | Free games work like Golden Century's: special symbols all reveal the same symbol, jackpot symbols included. | 29 March 2018 |
| Happy & Prosperous | The royals come off the reels in free games, and any scatter win during the feature adds 3 more free games. | 29 March 2018 |
| Panda Magic | Same free-game idea as Happy & Prosperous: no royals, and 3 extra free games with any scatter during the feature. | 29 March 2018 |
| Peacock Princess | Reels 2, 3 and 4 combine into one big reel; a full scatter on it adds three free games. | 4 June 2018 |
| Spring Festival | Reels 2, 3 and 4 become a big reel, and a full scatter on it adds three free games. | 4 June 2018 |
| Genghis Khan | 6 free games from 3, 4 or 5 scatters; each x2 wild in a win doubles it, up to x16 on one line. | 6 December 2018 |
| Peace & Long Life | The Genghis Khan feature: 6 free games, x2 wilds that multiply up to x16 on a line, and retriggers. | 6 December 2018 |
| Golden Gong | A wild that lands on reels 2 to 5 turns its whole reel wild at the end of the spin. | 30 July 2020 |
| Silk Road | The Golden Gong feature: a wild on reels 2 to 5 fills its reel. | 30 July 2020 |
All ten pay up to 250 times your bet on a scatter, according to Aristocrat. There's a guide to each of the first four and a side-by-side of all ten on every Dragon Link game.
What Aristocrat publishes — and what it doesn't
Aristocrat's Australian specifications list 50-, 25- and 5-line versions and the denominations by state: 1c, 2c, 5c, 10c, $1 and $2 in NSW and the ACT; 1c to $1 in Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory. What it doesn't publish anywhere — not in its catalogue, not in the approvals — is the return to player.
So no page can honestly give you a single return figure for Dragon Link. What exists is the minimum each state requires a machine to pay back over time, and the biggest bet you can make on one spin:
| State | Minimum return | Maximum bet a spin |
|---|---|---|
| NSW | 85% | $10 |
| VIC | 85% pubs and clubs, 87% Crown | $5 pubs and clubs, $10 Crown |
| QLD | 85–92% clubs and hotels, 85% casinos | $5 clubs and hotels |
| SA | 87.5% | $5 |
| WA | 90% (Crown Perth only) | $10 |
| TAS | 87% | $5 |
| ACT | 87% | $10 |
| NT | 85% | $5 clubs and hotels, no limit in casinos |
What your bet does and doesn't change is on Dragon Link strategy, and the symbols and prizes on the pay table.
Where to play
On 29 September 2026 its own website confirmed Dragon Link at 12 venues: The Star Sydney, seven clubs and hotels in Queensland — Club Burleigh has 20 machines on its link — and four venues in the Northern Territory, including Mindil Beach Casino and Lasseters in Alice Springs. The Star Sydney's Dragon Link jackpots paid out $1,722,813.19 in July 2026 alone.
Plenty of venues don't name their games online, so a missing club isn't proof the machines aren't there. The state-by-state board, the rules that change at each border and a table of every venue we've confirmed are on Dragon Link in Australia.
Online and free
There is no official real-money Dragon Link online. Aristocrat brought Lightning Link to regulated online casinos in the US and Canada in July 2026, and on 17 September 2026 said Dragon Link would be shown to the online industry “ahead of the full launch”. Games using the Dragon Link name at offshore casinos aren't Aristocrat releases, and online casinos aren't licensed in Australia. The detail is on Dragon Link online pokies.
You can play the real thing for free, though. Aristocrat's social casino apps — Lightning Link Casino and Mighty Fu Casino — list Dragon Link titles by name. They run on virtual coins and pay nothing out. Which app has which title is on free Dragon Link pokies.
Pros and cons
Pros
- One feature across ten titles: learn it once.
- Linked Grand with venue start-ups published by some clubs, from $10,000.
- Low denominations, from 1c.
- Free versions in Aristocrat's own apps.
Cons
- Aristocrat publishes no return to player for any title.
- The Hold & Spin counts aren't published online; you need the help screen.
- Medium-high volatility on every title, per Aristocrat's catalogue: long quiet runs are normal.
- No official online version for money.
My verdict
Dragon Link is Lightning Link's feature with better themes and a shared Grand, and that's why it's on so many floors. Pick the title by its free games, not its artwork: same-symbol free games on Golden Century and Autumn Moon, cleaner reels on Happy & Prosperous and Panda Magic. Before you play, read the help screen and set your amount — then see where the machines are.
