Megaways™ Slots Explained: What Does Megaways™ Mean?

Megaways™ slots are named after the popular Megaways™ mechanic established by Big Time Gaming. As opposed to regular slots, the number of paylines isn’t fixed, but is randomly decided on every spin instead. If you want to learn more about the best Megaways™ slots, which providers make them, where to find the best Megaways™ casinos and how much you can win, you’ve come to the right place.

What Does Megaways™ Mean?

Megaways™ is a term coined by Australian software provider Big Time Gaming for a new online slot mechanic they created in 2017, which enables players to unlock up to 117,649 ways to win.

The engine was widely recognised as innovative within the industry, and became so popular that it was licensed to a large number of game developers such as Blueprint Gaming, Red Tiger, Scientific Games, iSoftBet or Pragmatic Play.

How Do Megaways™ Slots Work?

To better understand how Megaways™ slots work and why they are so popular, we first compared them to regular slots. Megaways™ slots are based on a unique mathematical model and have a random reel modifier, which changes how many symbols appear on the reels and the number of paylines on every spin. That means, at any given moment, players can unlock between 2-7 special symbols and between 324 and 117,649 ways to win.

Some Megaways™ slots are even more profitable, but also highly volatile – for example, White Rabbit offers up to 248,832 ways to win, whereas Holy Diver has an even more explosive maximum configuration of 586 971 Megaways™.

How to Calculate the Exact Number of Megaways™

A standard Megaways™ slot has a configuration of 6 reels and up to 7 special symbols selected randomly on every spin.  The exact number of Megaways™ will almost always get displayed on the developer’s website or in the game window.

However, if you want to calculate for yourself, the mathematical formula is pretty simple – all you need to do is multiply the number of symbols on each reel with each other. If we take a Megaways™ slot with 6 reels and a maximum of 7 special symbols as example, 7 × 7 × 7 × 7 × 7 × 7 results in 117, 649 ways to win (this is the maximum slot configuration).

How Do I Win on Megaways™?

The player objective at Megaways™slots is to match 3 or more identical symbols from left to right on adjacent reels to create winning combinations. This differs from regular slots, which require players to align these symbols along the slot’s paylines.

What Is the Difference between Paylines vs. Megaways™?

What is exactly a payline? This is an imaginary line where identical symbols might fall. Regular online slots such as Rise or Dead by Play’n GO or NetEnt’s Dead or Alive have fixed paylines that the player can’t adjust in any way. That means they have to bet on every possible combination of symbols and activate all of them during a spin for a better chance at a payout. However, it’s good to note that some slots, such as Odin Infinity Reels, have infinite ways of winning.

At the opposite end, that’s where the magic of new Megaways™ slots comes to the picture – players get more possibilities to create winning combinations as more symbols land on the reels, and dozens – if not thousands – of ways to win get unlocked.

Megaways™ slots are jam-packed with other special features, symbols and bonuses that increase win potential, such as:

Cascading Reels

Cascading reels is a bonus feature that appears when you land a winning combination. It is found in many video slots, but is also a key part of most Megaways™ slots. Once a winning combination gets triggered, the lucky symbols get blasted from the reels and replaced by new ones. The mechanic stays active until no more winning combinations are formed. You can try this function on Twin Spin Megaways™, Gorilla Gold Megaways™ or Gonzo’s Quest Megaways™.

Mystery Symbols

Mystery symbols are a reel modifiers randomly activated during the base game, and are heavily used by software provider Blueprint Gaming in their Megaways™ slots. When triggered, 3-15 mystery symbols appear on the reels at once and then turn into the same symbol. This encourages more lucrative winning combinations, as some mystery symbols can also appear stacked or cover an entire reel on a single spin. Some titles you might want to try out for free (or with real money in one of our selected Megaways™ Casinos) are Beetlejuice Megaways™, Buffalo Rising Megaways™ or Dragon’s Luck Megaways™.

Bonus Buys

Bonus buy is another popular feature found in Megaways™ slots that allows players to buy their way into the free spins round or another bonus game by paying between 50x and 150x their stake. Due to local legislation, this feature is not available in all jurisdictions – for example, it’s banned in the UK. This means that players from the UK, even if they are playing on Crypto casinos, can not use this function.

Free Spins with Unlimited Win Multipliers

The true Megaways™ meaning (and magic!) comes to play when players can trigger free spins with unlimited win multipliers. In short, when the free spins feature is triggered, most games will start the multiplier at 1x and have it increase by 1 for every winning combo. In the case of Megaways™ slots in our list offering free spins with unlimited win multipliers, there is no maximum cap set on the multiplier value, meaning it can theoretically increase to infinity. If you’re lucky enough to trigger the free spins bonus round, you may try this feature on some of the most famous Megaways™ slots of the series: Pirates Kingdom Megaways™, Deal or No Deal Megaways™, Diamond Mine Megaways™ and Bonanza Megaways™.

Infinity Reels Slots

Infinity Reels is a new slot structure introduced in 2020 by ReelPlay with their game, El Dorado Infinity Reels. The concept is pretty straightforward – extra reels get added continuously to the game, with no upper limit. Many of these games offer cascading wins that are triggered to infinity as well.

Megaclusters™ Slots

Megaclusters™ is another exciting game mechanic developed by Big Time Gaming, best showcased in their Starclusters Megaclusters™ title. Slots that employ this mechanic don’t have traditional paylines, but instead reward you using a Cluster Pays mechanism – when triggered, every special symbol gets split into 4 other smaller symbols, essentially creating a Megacluster that gives you more chances to score a winning combination.

Megaquads™ Slots

Because Big Time Gaming loves to provide us with mega wins, they created yet another engine, Megaquads™. Essentially, you get to play 4 slot games at the same time, which connect with each other to create huge wins. There are no fixed paylines and all four tables employ the Megaways™ mechanic, giving you up to 256 ways to win.

Megaways™ Slots Explained Summary

The Megaways™ catalogue of games is growing daily, as more and more quality providers seek to employ this revolutionary Big Time Gaming engine in their own creations. Because of their unique math model, increased win potential, high RTP and exciting bonus features, such as cascading reels or multiplier Wilds, Megaways™ slots remain extremely popular at casinos worldwide, such as Thailand.

Titles such as White Rabbit, Spicy Meatball Megaways™ and The Dog House Megaways™ attract thousands of players every day, and the trend is only expected to continue.

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