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Megaways and bonus features
By the Slot Game Desk editorial desk · Published 28 Sep 2026 · Updated 16.10.2026
How Megaways changes the reels
A conventional video slot gives you a fixed grid: five reels, three rows, twenty paylines, and the same twenty ways to win on every spin. Megaways, the mechanic licensed by Big Time Gaming and now used by dozens of studios, breaks that fixed relationship. Instead of a set number of symbols per reel, each reel carries a random number of symbols on each spin, and the number of ways to win is the product of those symbol counts across all reels. With six reels showing between two and seven symbols each, the maximum is 117,649 ways, which is where the famous figure comes from. It is not a marketing number invented for the box; it is simply seven multiplied by itself six times.
The practical consequence is that the reels physically change shape from spin to spin. One spin might show a tall first reel with seven symbols and a short second reel with two, the next spin the reverse. Winning combinations are formed by matching symbols on adjacent reels starting from the leftmost reel, and because there are no fixed paylines, a symbol does not need to land in a specific position to pay. It only needs to appear somewhere on each of the consecutive reels required for that symbol's win. This is why players sometimes describe Megaways as paying "anywhere" — more precisely, it pays on adjacent reels regardless of row.
That flexibility cuts both ways. The number of ways to win changes constantly, so the same bet can feel very different from one spin to the next. A spin where every reel lands on two symbols gives you 64 ways; a spin where every reel lands on seven gives you 117,649. The payout for any individual winning combination is scaled down to compensate, because otherwise the game would be unplayable. A three-of-a-kind win on a Megaways slot typically pays far less than the same win on a fixed-line slot, precisely because it is far easier to hit. The headline number describes the maximum, not the typical.
There is a second structural change that matters more than the ways count itself. Most Megaways games use a variable number of symbols per reel combined with a win-both-ways rule, so combinations pay from left to right and from right to left. That roughly doubles the hit frequency on the reels, which in turn means the base game pays smaller amounts more often. The reels are also usually weighted so that high-paying symbols are rarer on the earlier reels, and the random reel heights are not always uniformly distributed across the two-to-seven range. Studios tune those distributions carefully, and the tuning is what separates a well-made Megaways game from a lazy one.
For a careful reader, the question that remains is whether Megaways is genuinely different or just a repackaging of the same maths. The honest answer is that it is a genuine structural change to how wins are formed, but it is not a change to the underlying economics. The return to player is set by the studio and the operator, and it sits wherever they choose to put it, usually somewhere between the mid-eighties and the mid-nineties per cent depending on the game and the jurisdiction. Megaways changes the shape of the variance, not the average. A game with more ways to win is not a game that pays more overall; it is a game that distributes its payouts differently.
Free spins and multipliers
The free spins round is where most modern slots put their money, and the mechanism is usually a scatter symbol appearing three or more times anywhere on the reels. In a Megaways game the scatter count often also determines the starting number of spins, with four scatters giving more than three. What happens inside the round is where games diverge, and the divergence is the whole point. The base game is deliberately kept modest so that the feature can carry the excitement, and the feature is where the studio concentrates the payout.
The most common multiplier model is a progressive ladder. You start the free spins with a multiplier of one, and every winning cascade or every spin increases it by one, uncapped or capped at some ceiling. A game might start you at one times and climb to five, ten, or higher across the round, and the multiplier applies to every win in that spin. The effect compounds: a modest win early in the round becomes a large win later, not because the symbols changed but because the multiplier did. Some games reset the multiplier on a non-winning spin, which changes the character of the round considerably — it rewards consecutive wins rather than mere persistence.
A second model ties the multiplier to the number of scatters collected during the round. Each scatter that lands adds to a persistent multiplier that applies for the remainder of the feature. This is more forgiving than the reset model because progress is not lost, and it tends to produce a smoother distribution of outcomes. A third model, common in games with a "pick" element, lets you choose between a smaller number of spins with a high starting multiplier and a larger number with a low one. That choice is a genuine decision, not decoration: it changes the variance profile of the round you are about to play, and there is no universally correct answer.
Retriggers are the edge case worth understanding. Many games allow additional scatters during the free spins to add more spins, sometimes with no cap, which is how the largest recorded wins on these games occur. But a retrigger is not a guarantee of anything; it extends the round, and a longer round with a climbing multiplier is more likely to produce an extreme result, in both directions. The tail of the distribution gets fatter. That is the trade-off the feature is designed around.
It is also worth noting that the advertised maximum win on a slot is a cap, not an expectation. When a game advertises a maximum win of many thousands of times the stake, that figure is the point at which the software stops paying, and it is reached only in a vanishingly small fraction of rounds. The typical free spins round returns something far more modest, often less than the cost of the spins that triggered it. The feature is not a bonus in the sense of free money; it is a redistribution of the game's overall return toward rare, large events.
What a bonus buy really costs
Many jurisdictions now require slots to offer a bonus buy, and many players use it without thinking through what it is. A bonus buy lets you skip the base game and purchase the free spins round directly, usually for a fixed multiple of your stake. The price is set so that the expected value of the round is slightly worse than the expected value of triggering it naturally, because the studio and operator need to be compensated for the certainty you are buying. You are paying a premium for variance reduction in the sense that you no longer have to grind the base game, but you are also accepting a lower average return on that specific purchase.
The price is not arbitrary. It is derived from the probability of triggering the feature naturally and the average payout of the feature. If a feature triggers once every two hundred spins on average and returns, say, eighty times the stake on average, then a fair price would be around the cost of those two hundred spins. The actual price is usually higher than that, sometimes substantially, and the difference is the house edge on the purchase. This is why bonus buys almost always carry a lower theoretical return than the base game — often a percentage point or two lower, sometimes more. The convenience is real, but it is not free.
There is a second cost that is easier to overlook: bonus buys concentrate your entire stake into a single outcome. If you buy a round for a hundred times your stake and the round returns twenty times, you have lost eighty times your stake in one transaction. The base game would have spread that loss across many spins, giving you more time and more chances to stop. A bonus buy removes that buffer. For a player with a fixed budget, this is a meaningful difference in how quickly the money can go, and it is the reason some operators and regulators treat bonus buys as a higher-risk product.
The price also varies with the game and with the operator. The same feature can cost different multiples at different sportsbooks, because the operator can adjust the price and the return within the limits the studio allows. That means a bonus buy is not a fixed commodity; it is a product with a price that you can compare. A careful player checks the stated return and the stated price before buying, and treats a cheap bonus buy with a low return as no better than an expensive one with a high return. The two numbers have to be read together.
One further edge case: some games offer multiple bonus buys at different prices, typically a standard round and a "super" round with a higher starting multiplier or more spins. The super version is not simply better; it is a different variance profile at a higher price. It will produce larger wins more often and also lose your stake more often, because the whole purchase is a single bet. If you are going to use bonus buys at all, it is worth deciding in advance what you are willing to lose on the purchase and treating it as a single wager rather than a session.
Cascading wins and how they work
Cascading, also called tumbling or avalanche, is the mechanic where winning symbols are removed from the reels and the symbols above them fall down to fill the gaps, with new symbols entering from the top. If the new arrangement produces another win, the process repeats. A single spin can therefore contain a chain of wins, each one feeding the next, and the chain ends when no new winning combination appears. This is distinct from a simple respin, because the reels are not re-randomised in full; only the positions affected by the removed symbols change.
The mechanic matters because it changes the relationship between a spin and its outcome. On a conventional slot, one spin is one event. On a cascading slot, one spin can be ten events, and the payout is the sum of all of them. That is how games with modest individual wins can still produce large totals: a long cascade with a rising multiplier attached can accumulate far more than any single combination would pay. In many Megaways games the cascade is also what drives the multiplier upward during free spins, so the two mechanics are deliberately coupled.
There is a subtlety in how the new symbols are generated. In most implementations, each new symbol that falls in is drawn independently from the same weighted distribution as the base game, so a cascade does not make further wins more or less likely in a mathematical sense. But because the reels have already been partially cleared of non-winning symbols, the visible arrangement changes, and the probability of the next win depends on what remains. This is why some players talk about cascades "running hot," though the underlying draws are independent. The perception of a streak is real in the sense that the wins are chained, but it is not predictive of the next spin.
The trade-off with cascading is that it tends to lower the size of individual wins while raising the frequency of chains. A game with cascades will often show many small wins per spin and occasional long chains, which produces a distinctive feel: the reels keep moving, the total climbs in small increments, and the big moments arrive as a sudden accumulation rather than a single hit. That feel is a design choice, and it suits some players better than others. It also makes the game harder to read at a glance, because the number on the screen after a spin is not the result of one combination but of several.
The edge case to watch is the interaction between cascades and the maximum win cap. A long cascade during a high-multiplier free spin can, in principle, approach the game's maximum payout, at which point the software stops paying further. This is rare, but it means that the theoretical maximum is not a sum of independent events; it is a ceiling that truncates the tail. For the vast majority of players this is irrelevant, but it is the kind of detail that separates a careful understanding of the mechanic from a superficial one.
Why features raise volatility
Volatility, or variance, describes how widely the outcomes of a game are spread around its average. A low-volatility game pays small amounts frequently; a high-volatility game pays large amounts rarely. Feature-heavy slots are almost always high volatility, and the reason is structural rather than accidental. If a game concentrates a large share of its total return into the free spins round, and that round triggers infrequently, then most spins return little or nothing and a small number of spins return a great deal. The average is unchanged, but the spread is wide.
The maths is straightforward once you see it. Suppose a game returns ninety-six per cent overall, and half of that return is delivered through the free spins. If the feature triggers once every two hundred spins, then the base game is effectively returning forty-eight per cent per spin, and the remaining forty-eight per cent arrives in a lump every two hundred spins on average. Your bankroll has to survive the two hundred spins of near-nothing to reach the lump. That is what high volatility means in practice, and it is why bankroll management matters more on these games than on simpler ones.
Megaways compounds this because the ways count itself is a source of variance. On a fixed-line slot, the number of ways to win is constant, so the only variable is which symbols land. On a Megaways slot, the number of ways is itself random, and the spins with the most ways are the ones most likely to produce large wins. That adds a second layer of randomness on top of the symbol draws, and it widens the distribution further. The same game can feel tame on a spin with 64 ways and wild on a spin with 117,649, even though the stake is identical.
There is also a psychological dimension that is worth naming honestly. High volatility feels exciting precisely because the wins are large and rare, and that feeling is not a coincidence; it is the design. The near-misses, the cascades that almost connect, the multiplier that climbs and then resets — these are engineered to keep the player engaged through the long dry spells. Recognising that is not cynicism, it is literacy. The game is doing what it was built to do, and the player's job is to decide whether the trade-off suits them before they start, not during.
The practical implication is that volatility is not a measure of how good a game is. A high-volatility slot is not better than a low-volatility one; it is a different product with a different risk profile. A player with a small budget and a short session is usually better served by lower volatility, because the money lasts longer and the session is less likely to end in a single cold streak. A player with a larger budget and a tolerance for long dry spells may prefer the higher volatility, because the potential upside is larger. Neither choice is wrong, but they are choices, and the feature-heavy design of modern slots pushes players toward the higher end whether they intended it or not.
Reading a feature before you chase it
Before committing to a feature-heavy slot, the first thing to read is the paytable and the game information screen, which almost every regulated operator is required to provide. The two numbers that matter most are the return to player and the maximum win. The return tells you the long-run average, and the maximum tells you the ceiling. A game with a high maximum win and a low return is not a generous game; it is a game that concentrates a modest return into a very rare event. The two figures have to be read together, and neither one alone tells you whether the game suits you.
The second thing to read is the volatility rating, which most studios now publish as a low, medium, or high classification, sometimes with a numerical scale. This is a rough guide rather than a precise measure, but it is useful for matching a game to your budget and your temperament. A high-volatility game with a large maximum win and a feature that triggers rarely is a game that will punish a small bankroll. A medium-volatility game with a more frequent feature is a gentler experience. The rating is not a promise, but it is a signal.
The third thing to read is the feature structure itself. Does the free spins round have a multiplier that climbs, and does it reset on a non-winning spin? Is there a retrigger, and is it capped? Are there multiple bonus buys, and what do they cost relative to the base game? Does the game use cascades, and if so, do they feed the multiplier? These details determine the shape of the variance, and they are usually explained in the game's help file. Reading them takes a few minutes and tells you more about what you are about to play than any amount of watching someone else's session.
It is also worth checking the operator's terms, because the same game can be configured differently at different sportsbooks. The return to player can vary between operators for the same title, sometimes by a percentage point or more, and the bonus buy price can vary too. A game that looks identical on the screen may not be identical underneath. If you are choosing where to play, comparing these details is more useful than comparing welcome offers, which are usually subject to wagering requirements that change the effective value substantially.
Finally, treat the feature as what it is: a rare event with a wide range of outcomes, not a target you can chase. The money you have already put into a session is gone regardless of what you do next, and the next spin is independent of the last. If you decide to play, decide in advance what you are willing to spend, and stop when you reach it. Gambling is entertainment, not a strategy, and it is not a way to make money. It is for adults only, and if it stops being fun, or if you find yourself chasing losses, seek help from a responsible-gambling service in your country. This is general information, not legal or financial advice, and the rules on online gambling differ by jurisdiction, so check what applies where you are before you play.
This guide was researched, written and fact-checked by the Slot Game Desk editorial desk before publication. Last reviewed 16.10.2026. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.