Dragon Train pokie: play free online and where to play for real money in Australia

Dragon Train in two minutes

Dragon Train is not an Aristocrat game, although most people who search for it assume it is. It is a Light & Wonder series, launched in New South Wales at the Australasian Gaming Expo in August 2023 and built, in the company’s words, “specifically with the Australian player and customer in mind”. Its defining idea is a Hold & Spin inside a Hold & Spin: the familiar six-orb respin round from Dragon Link, with a second eight-position “train” that spins on its own at the end of it and carries a Fortune 8 jackpot. It became the fastest-selling Light & Wonder game in Australia, then the subject of Aristocrat’s trade-secret lawsuit, which is why it is now being removed from floors.

How it plays

The club machines are 5 × 3 Hold & Spin games sold as four launch themes — Chi Lin Wins, Khutulun Battle Princess, Forever Emperor and Sun Shots — on Light & Wonder’s Kascada dual-screen cabinet. They are multi-denomination, so the credit value and the cash bet are set by the venue within the state cap: A$10 per spin in New South Wales, the ACT and the Northern Territory, A$5 in Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia. The online build of Chi Lin Wins, released to regulated markets in July 2024 and since withdrawn, ran 10 lines with bets from €0.20 to €100; we have not found a published line count for the Australian cabinets, and Light & Wonder publishes no hit frequency.

Bonus features

Hold & Spin. Six or more orbs anywhere in view lock in place and the rest of the reels respin. You start with three respins; every new orb resets the count to three, and the round ends when three respins in a row add nothing or when all 15 positions are full. Orbs carry cash values or jackpot prizes, and filling the screen pays the Grand.

Dragon Train. This is the part that is new. When the Hold & Spin ends, a separate eight-position train spins, with each position spinning independently. Three consecutive blank spins end it; filling all eight positions pays the Fortune 8 jackpot. On the online build the Fortune 8 was a fixed 2,500x the stake and the Grand 10,000x; the club versions show their own jackpot values on the machine, and we have not seen a published figure for them.

Free games. Three green dragon scatters award free games — six on the online build, with up to nine more. Light & Wonder’s launch description adds Sticky Reels, in which held positions reveal matching symbols, Orb Clusters and Nudging Wilds as a second route into the Hold & Spin, and a Cash Clusters feature.

RTP and volatility

Like every club game, Dragon Train has no single RTP: Light & Wonder sells each theme with a choice of return settings and the venue picks one. The legal floor is 85% of turnover in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, 87% in the ACT and 87.5% in South Australia, and only the machine’s help screen tells you where it sits above that. The one published figure is for the withdrawn online build of Chi Lin Wins, which SlotCatalog lists at 96.00%, dropping to 94.00% at bets under €2, with a 10,000x maximum. That number does not describe an Australian cabinet.

Volatility is high in the way all Hold & Spin jackpot games are: most respin rounds pay a handful of small orbs, and the train adds a rarer layer on top. Light & Wonder publishes no volatility rating.

The lawsuit, and why the machines are going

In March 2024 Aristocrat sued Light & Wonder in the US District Court for the District of Nevada, alleging that Dragon Train was built on trade secrets from Dragon Link and Lightning Link taken by former Aristocrat designers. On 23 September 2024 Judge Gloria Navarro granted a preliminary injunction stopping “any continued or planned sale, leasing, or other commercialization of Dragon Train” in the United States; Light & Wonder converted out about 95% of its 2,200 North American units. In the Federal Court of Australia, Justice Stephen Burley refused an interlocutory injunction on 7 February 2025, leaving roughly 10,000 machines on Australian floors. On 12 January 2026 the companies settled: Light & Wonder agreed to pay Aristocrat US$127.5 million, acknowledged that “certain Aristocrat math information” had been used in Dragon Train and Jewel of the Dragon, and undertook to “permanently cease commercialisation of these games globally” and make best efforts to remove existing installations. Its chief executive blamed “a former employee” who “inappropriately used certain Aristocrat math without our knowledge”. A Dragon Train bank at your club is on borrowed time.

Where to play Dragon Train in Australia and New Zealand

There is no legitimate online Dragon Train for Australians or New Zealanders, and now there is none anywhere: the online Chi Lin Wins ran only at regulated operators such as New Jersey’s before the injunction, and the settlement withdraws it globally. Any offshore casino advertising “Dragon Train” is offering an unauthorised copy, and none of the casinos we review names Light & Wonder as a supplier.

What is legitimately available is the format underneath. Booongo’s Dragon Pearls: Hold and Win is a 25-line, 5 × 3 game where six pearls start three resetting respins and a full screen pays a 1,000x Grand; databases list it at 95.01%. Its sequel 15 Dragon Pearls raises the full-screen prize to 5,000x at 95.00%. RocketPlay names Booongo in its review and Richard Casino names 15 Dragon Pearls specifically. Pragmatic Play’s Dragon Hot Hold and Spin is a five-line dragon game whose Hold & Spin leads to a wheel bonus with multipliers up to 5,000x, at 96.70% per the studio; Spin Samurai and Golden Crown name Pragmatic Play. None has a train stage, and none of the reviews records which RTP build is loaded.

Free demo

Light & Wonder does not publish a web demo of Dragon Train, and the online version is gone. The “Dragon Train free play” sites that rank for the name are unlicensed copies of a game that is itself being withdrawn for copying. Pragmatic Play publishes an official demo of Dragon Hot Hold and Spin on its own site.

Verdict

Dragon Train’s nested Hold & Spin is a genuine idea; the maths beneath it, by the company’s own admission, was partly Aristocrat’s, and a US$127.5 million settlement followed. It is being removed from club floors, it was never available online to Australians, and it will not be. If the six-orb format is what you want, Dragon Pearls and the other Hold & Win games listed above are licensed and stay put.

FAQ

Is Dragon Train an Aristocrat pokie? No. It is made by Light & Wonder, the former Scientific Games. Aristocrat sued over it, and the January 2026 settlement withdraws it worldwide.

Can I play Dragon Train online in Australia? No. The only online build was licensed in regulated markets before the September 2024 injunction, and it has been removed. Offshore sites offering it are running copies.