Big Time Gaming and the maths of Megaways

A small Australian studio with a very big idea

Big Time Gaming was founded in Sydney in 2011 by people from the land-based machine industry. It released only a handful of games a year, and one of them changed the business. Dragon Born, in 2015, introduced a reel system in which the number of symbols on each reel changes every spin. BTG called it Megaways, patented it, and licensed it to other studios. Evolution bought BTG in 2021.

Counting the ways

A classic Megaways layout has six reels. On each spin, every reel shows between two and seven symbols, chosen at random. Wins pay for matching symbols on adjacent reels from the left, in any position. The number of ways is simply the number of symbols on each reel multiplied together.

Many games add a horizontal reel above the middle four, which adds symbols and can push the count up a little further. The famous 117,649 is just seven to the power of six: every reel at its maximum height at once.

What the ways do not change

Here is the part the marketing skips. The number of ways is a description of the screen, not of your chances. The game's return to player is fixed by its maths, typically around 96%, whether the spin shows 64 ways or 117,649. A spin with more ways is more likely to produce some win, but the symbols are weighted so that those wins are usually small. The big ways count mostly makes the display busier and the free spins more dramatic.

What Megaways does change is the shape of a session. Because the reel heights vary, the gap between an ordinary spin and a great one is wider than on a fixed-line slot. That usually means higher volatility, and it is why so many Megaways remakes feel harsher than the originals.

The games that made the name

• Bonanza (2016): the gold-mine game that made Megaways famous, with cascading wins and an unlimited free-spins multiplier.
• White Rabbit (2017): an Alice in Wonderland theme and reels that can extend during the feature.
• Danger High Voltage (2017): a cult favourite with two different free-spins modes to choose from.
• Extra Chilli (2018): a sequel to Bonanza's formula, and the game most associated with BTG's Feature Drop, a way to buy the free spins directly.

Why the screen feels busier than the balance

Anyone who has watched a Megaways game for ten minutes knows the pattern: the reels light up, a cascade rolls on for four or five steps, the counter climbs, and the win at the end is a few cent on a one-euro stake. That is not the game teasing you; it is the weighting doing its job. Low-paying symbols are common and match easily across tall reels, so most cascades are made of them. The valuable symbols are scarce, and they only produce something meaningful when several land together on a spin with many ways. Knowing that helps you read a session calmly. Frequent small hits are the normal texture of the engine, and the free spins, where multipliers build on each cascade, are where the maths hides most of its return. Judge a Megaways game on what the feature pays over a few dozen demo triggers, not on how lively the base game looks.

Megaways everywhere else

Because BTG licensed the engine, Megaways versions exist across the industry: Blueprint Gaming, Pragmatic Play and NetEnt's sister studio Red Tiger, among others, have released Megaways titles, often of their own classics. They share the reel system but not the maths, so two Megaways slots can behave very differently. The logo tells you how the ways are counted, not how generous the game is.

How to play a Megaways slot sensibly

1. Check the RTP in the information screen rather than the ways count on the splash screen.
2. Use the demo to see how often the free spins arrive; on many Megaways games it is rarer than the busy screen suggests.
3. Lower the stake if the balance moves faster than you expected. Volatility on these games is usually high.
4. Treat Feature Drop and other buy options as a big stake in disguise.

BTG now sits in the same group as NetEnt, Nolimit City and Evolution. The rest of the studios are on game providers, and for slots in general, see online slots in Ireland.

Where to look for Megaways-style slots

Megaways games come from many studios, so large lobbies are the easiest place to compare them. We do not claim any particular title is at the five casinos we cover.