Vegas Megaways

Vegas Megaways: Slot Overview

If you've ever placed a wager, there's a good chance you've heard of a little 'ol place called Las Vegas. It might not rake in as much money as its counterpart in Asia, Macau, but for many, gambling is synonymous with Sin City. Rising out of the Nevada desert like a dream, or a nightmare, Las Vegas is a town that has inspired countless stories, legends, and quotes over the years.

Here's a good one from author Tom Wolfe: 'Las Vegas is the only town in the world whose skyline is made up neither of buildings, like New York, nor of trees, like Wilbraham, Massachusetts, but signs.' He's got a point. There are a lot of signs in Vegas doing their best to pull in the tourist dollar. And hey, if you can't get to Las Vegas to be a tourist, there are always games like Vegas Megaways from Big Time Gaming, which might help scratch the itch. Vegas Megaways is one of those online slots that has been designed to make players feel like they are there, in a gambling room, trying their luck in a faux live setting.

To achieve this, Vegas Megaways' game panel is set in a blurry gaming hall, depicting banks of physical slot machines, while live ambient noise flitters in the background when the reels are stationary. It's played on a machine comprised of 6 reels holding 2-7 symbols each and a 4-symbol tracking reel at the bottom, providing up to 117,649 ways to win. With massive potential and high volatility, the RTP wavers around 96.27% - 96.3% depending on whether you play regularly or buy the bonus round, while bets of 20 p/c to $/€15 per spin are available.

Wins are awarded when matching symbols land in adjacent reels from the left-hand side of the grid and trigger the Reaction feature when they hit. There are 10 regular pays on the board. Six of them are the low pay card royals (9-A), paying 0.8-1.75x the bet for six of a kind, while the others are clovers, horseshoes, cherries, and diamonds worth 2-50x the stake for a six-symbol win. A technicolour wild symbol appears on the bottom reel only, substituting for all ten pay symbols.

Vegas Megaways: Slot Features

BTG might be infamous for their creative bent, yet not so much this time, as Vegas Megaways is essentially a reskin of the studio's first branded slot, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Megaways. Therefore, most of what is covered here will be familiar if you've played the previous game.

Reaction

Winning combinations are removed from the reels by the Reaction feature, and the empty cells are filled by symbols falling down. This can create a new win from the same spin, and Reactions keep triggering as long as new wins keep forming.

Bonus Game

When at least 3 scatters land in view, play moves to the bonus round. In the beginning, players can take part in the VIP Free Spin Gamble if they so choose. Here, a ladder with 12 rungs is displayed with 0 Spins at the bottom and 50 Spins at the top. Players start at rung 2 with 8 Spins if 3 scatters triggered the feature or at higher rungs when more scatters trigger it.

Firstly, you do not have to gamble for extra free spins if you do not want to but can collect and move to the free spins part of the bonus round. To gamble, though, means picking hearts, clubs, spades, or diamonds. A face-down card is flipped, and if the guess was correct, you move up the ladder to more free spins. If incorrect, you move down to fewer free spins. Moving down to 0 Spins means you go back to the base game. To the left of the ladder are 3 VIP Tips. One activates at the start of each gamble, which may or may not assist you in picking a suit. These are:

• Remove Two – two wrong suits are removed, making it a 50/50 choice.
• Winning Odds – the most likely suit is highlighted.
• All Odds – the odds of the correct suit are revealed.

The ladder also comes with two safety levels – 10 Spins and 20 Spins which are guaranteed once you reach them. Should you lose the gamble at 8 Spins, the bonus is over, and you move back to the base game. Once underway, a win multiplier is added during the bonus round. It starts at x1 and increases by +1 after each Reaction win. It is also possible to win +4 or +8 additional free spins when 3 or 4 scatters land on the lower tracker reel, respectively.

Bonus Buy

Bonus buy players have Big Time Gaming to thank for popularising the concept in their 2017 Wonderland-themed slot White Rabbit Megaways. Eligible players have the chance to buy free spins in Vegas Megaways too, where 75x the bet gets you 10 spins or 150x the bet for 20 spins.

Vegas Megaways: Slot Verdict

If your idea of Las Vegas is one of those 'anything goes' type places that wants to show you something you've never seen before, Vegas Megaways doesn't have quite the same MO. It's unusual to see BTG do over a previous slot, and choosing Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Megaways is an interesting choice. The original slot was designed with the game show firmly in mind, so picking an answer to move up a ladder with the help of lifelines made perfect sense, closely mirroring what happens on the tv show.

Remove the branding, and what have you got? A solid enough game, to be sure, with a lively Vegas vibe, but one that's a little harder to justify. Players who like the gambling for extra free spins option, though don't have access to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Megaways, might be enticed. As before, caution is needed when gambling at the 8 Spin level since it can easily vanish with one wrong pick. It's good then that players start at either the 10 or the 20-spin safety level when buying free spins. Once into free spins, it's a regular round of hopefully building as big a win multiplier as possible. As in the previous game, the potential is huge, topping out at 27,040x in the base game and 72,310x in the bonus.

Safe to say, if you weren't a fan of the original Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Megaways online slot, you might not dig this one either. Using Vegas rather than a tv show might broaden the appeal, and players who like the thought of winning up to 50 free spins might relish the challenge. Climbing to the top rung won't be a cakewalk, though.