Every slot mechanic that dominated the last decade, one name appears more than any other: Megaways. The word itself became a genre — thousands of titles now carry it, players search for it by name, and studios license it the way carmakers license an engine. Yet the majority of players who spin a Megaways game could not explain what those famous 117,649 ways actually are, where the number comes from, or whether a game with more ways to win is genuinely more generous than one with fewer. The number, it turns out, is arithmetic dressed as magic — and once the dressing comes off, choosing good Megaways titles becomes a skill of a completely different kind.
The mechanic belongs to Big Time Gaming, which developed and trademarked it in the mid-2010s, and its core idea is simple enough to state in one sentence: the number of symbols on each reel changes with every spin. Instead of fixed reels with fixed symbol counts, each reel holds between two and seven symbols, selected at random per spin. Multiply the possibilities across six reels and you get the famous figure — and the reason the mechanic changed the industry. This guide unpacks how that arithmetic works, what it means for volatility and return, and which titles among the thousands have earned their reputation.
Where 117,649 actually comes from
The number is not a design flourish; it is multiplication. In the original Megaways configuration, six reels each hold between two and seven symbols. The maximum configuration is therefore seven symbols on each of six reels — and seven to the sixth power equals 117,649. When all six reels land at their maximum height, every possible combination of one symbol from each reel becomes a potential win line, because Megaways pays on any left-to-right symbol adjacency rather than on fixed positions.
The arithmetic generalizes across the genre, and the variations explain why different Megaways games display different numbers. Five-reel versions with up to seven symbols per reel reach 16,807 ways; some games use a seventh horizontal reel to add positions; others cap the maximum at 6 symbols per reel, producing 46,656. The displayed number is always the product of the maximum symbol counts — nothing more, nothing mystical. What matters for the player is not the number itself but what it does to the game’s behavior: more ways mean more frequent small wins, which in turn means the paytable must pay less per win to preserve the game’s overall return.
How the mechanic changes the paytable
This is the part most explanations skip, and it is where the honest economics live. A slot’s RTP is fixed by design; the ways system does not add return, it redistributes it. In a classic three-reel game, a win is rare but pays generously. In a Megaways game, the thousands of ways produce frequent small hits — and each of those hits carries a smaller individual payout, because the same total return is being spread across far more winning events. The structure also produces the genre’s signature feature: cascading wins, where winning symbols disappear and new symbols drop in, allowing chains of consecutive wins within one paid spin. The cascade mechanic and the variable reels work together, and their combined effect defines the genre’s character:
- Frequent micro-wins in the base game — the ways system generates hits on a large share of spins, but most pay less than the stake; the base game’s rhythm feels active without being profitable;
- Concentration of return in the bonus round — the overwhelming share of a Megaways game’s total return lives in its free spins feature, and sessions live or die by whether that feature arrives and performs;
- Unlimited win multipliers — the genre’s signature bonus mechanic: an increasing multiplier, typically starting at 1x and rising by one with every cascade, applies to all wins during free spins with no upper limit;
- Variable reel heights as drama — the expanding and collapsing reels produce the genre’s visual signature, and the maximum configuration’s rarity is exactly what makes its arrival feel eventful.
The unlimited multiplier is the genius of the genre’s mathematics: it converts a high-frequency, low-payout base structure into a game whose ceiling is effectively uncapped. The famous Megaways highlights — the multi-thousand-x wins that circulate as clips — are almost always constructed inside that feature, where a long cascade chain compounds a rising multiplier into an enormous single payout.
The numbers that actually matter when comparing titles
The ways count, as established, is arithmetic rather than quality. What separates generous Megaways titles from stingy ones is a set of entirely different figures, and the genre’s most celebrated games illustrate the range. The comparison below covers the titles that defined the mechanic:
| Title | RTP | Max win | Volatility | Signature feature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bonanza Megaways | ~96.0% | 12,000x | Very high | Unlimited multiplier in free spins |
| White Rabbit Megaways | ~97.3% | ~13,000x | Very high | Feature drop; bonus retrigger adds reels |
| Extra Chilli Megaways | ~96.2% | 20,000x | Very high | Gamble wheel on bonus entry |
| Divine Fortune Megaways | ~96.1% | ~4,000x | High | Progressive jackpot overlay |
| The Dog House Megaways | ~96.5% | 12,305x | Very high | Sticky wilds in free spins |
| Great Rhino Megaways | ~96.5% | 20,000x | High | Respins feature with growing symbols |
The comparison’s most instructive entry is White Rabbit. Its RTP of roughly 97.3% — achieved through its Feature Drop mechanic, which lets players purchase the bonus directly and pay a reduced price as they collect symbols in the base game — stands among the highest returns in the entire slots genre. It demonstrates the genre’s ceiling: when a studio designs a Megaways game with a player-friendly return structure, the mechanic’s transparent mathematics allows returns that ordinary slots cannot reach. The lesson cuts both ways: the same transparency means reduced-paytable versions of famous titles can sink well below their reputation, and the RTP printed in the game’s information screen is the only figure that matters, not the game’s fame.
The ways count and volatility: what more ways really buys
A common intuition holds that more ways to win means a better game. The relationship is more subtle and mostly backwards from the intuition. More ways produce more frequent wins, and more frequent wins at a fixed RTP mean smaller average wins — the game pays out in a wider stream of smaller increments. This is why Megaways games, despite their thousands of ways, sit almost uniformly in the high-to-very-high volatility tier: the base game’s frequent micro-hits are compensated by a bonus round that carries most of the return in rare, concentrated events.
The practical consequence for bankroll planning is significant and often miscalculated. A player moving from a classic 20-payline slot to a Megaways title at the same stake level should expect:
- Longer base-game droughts before the bonus — the natural trigger frequency of the free spins round typically sits around one in one hundred to one in five hundred spins, depending on the title;
- Wider swings between sessions — the concentration of return in the feature makes the game’s distribution tail-heavier than classic slots’;
- Higher per-session cost at the same stake — the very high volatility demands more total spins to reach the game’s characteristic outcomes, which translates into a larger budget for comparable playing time;
- A session profile shaped entirely by the bonus — the base game produces texture and near-misses, but the session’s outcome will be written in the free spins round or not at all.
The last point defines the Megaways experience more than any other single fact. Players who describe the genre as “dead until the bonus arrives” are describing the mathematics accurately: the game’s return is structurally housed in its feature round, and everything before it is approach. This is also why the genre pairs so naturally with the bonus buy mechanic discussed elsewhere — the purchase and the engine were designed for each other’s economics.
Which titles actually pay best
The question “which Megaways pays best” has a deceptively simple answer and a more useful one. The simple answer is the RTP column: among widely available titles, the highest returns belong to games like White Rabbit and other feature-rich variants whose paytables push toward and past the 97% mark. The more useful answer adds two considerations that RTP alone misses.
The first is the RTP’s dependence on the specific version deployed. Famous Megaways titles exist in multiple return configurations, and the difference between the best and worst deployed version of the same game can exceed two percentage points — a larger gap than the entire house edge difference between a full-pay table game and its worst variant. The information screen inside the game states the exact return of the version being played, and consulting it is the Megaways equivalent of checking a paytable before sitting down.
The second consideration is the player’s intended session shape. High-ceiling titles like Extra Chilli and Bonanza suit players hunting the rare enormous outcome, at the cost of long droughts and heavy variance. Titles with sticky-wild or respin mechanics, like The Dog House Megaways and Great Rhino, deliver their peaks with somewhat gentler gradients — still very high volatility, but with base-game texture that sustains shorter sessions. Neither profile is superior; they answer different temperaments, and the honest choice between them is a choice of experience rather than of mathematics.
How to evaluate any Megaways title in five minutes
The genre’s enormous catalog makes a general evaluation method more valuable than any single recommendation. The method takes minutes and covers the figures that actually determine the game’s quality:
- Open the information screen and read the RTP — the deployed version’s exact return, not the game’s reputation, is the figure that governs your session;
- Note the maximum win and the volatility rating — the ceiling and the swing size together define what the session can become;
- Check the bonus trigger frequency if published — the ratio between feature frequency and feature payout determines whether the game rewards patience or punishes it;
- Read what the free spins multiplier does — unlimited, capped or absent multipliers define the genre’s most important mechanic and vary meaningfully between titles;
- Test the base game at minimum stake — twenty to thirty spins reveal the actual rhythm: cascade frequency, dead-spin stretches, and whether the base game’s texture suits your temperament before real budget is committed.
The fifth step embodies the method’s philosophy: a slot’s mathematics are published, but its experience is only testable. The player who samples before committing — at minimum stakes, with a defined budget — gathers the one kind of information that no review or paytable provides: whether this particular game’s rhythm matches their own.
The mechanic and the market: what the number never promised
The Megaways revolution is real and its mathematics are genuine: a variable-reel structure that pays on adjacency rather than fixed lines, cascading wins, and bonus rounds with unlimited multipliers produced a genre whose ceiling and drama reshaped modern slots. But the 117,649 number itself was never a promise of generosity — it is a combinatorial fact, identical in generous and stingy games alike, and the industry’s licensing of the mechanic to hundreds of studios means the label guarantees the engine, not the fuel.
What determines whether a Megaways title pays well has never changed: the RTP of the specific deployed version, the volatility profile that suits the player’s bankroll, and the bonus mechanics that concentrate the game’s return. The players who thrive in this genre read past the number on the cover and into the figures on the information screen — and they discover what the mechanic’s history quietly confirms: the ways count is the same in every Megaways game, but the generosity never is. The number sold the genre; the paytable is what pays the player — and between those two facts sits the entire skill of choosing well.