Mega Moolah
Mega Moolah is Microgaming’s flagship progressive slot, and it’s a game that has maintained a strong following over a long period of time. Breaking world records and creating a lot of millionaires has put this title on the map as one of the most popular slots produced, online or offline, in the history of all of the casino industry. Read all about the slot in this review and compare top Mega Moolah casinos and current bonus offers.
Casinos with Mega Moolah
- Mega Moolah
Introduction to Mega Moolah
There’s a lot of history behind Microgaming’s biggest progressive slot, and there’s actually an entire series of games created from it that share the same set of progressive jackpots. This is a big part of the legacy created by the Mega Moolah online slot, a game that has made more millionaires than any other title in the history of online gaming of any kind.
Because of this history, it’s clear that the graphics and presentation of this title are a bit dated. With that having been said, the overall visual appeal holds up at a decent enough level today that it doesn’t look particularly out of place. Its African safari theme is punctuated with a number of wild animals that you might see on such a trip with lions, elephants, giraffes and a variety of others.
On the gameplay side of things, this slot has a tremendously high volatility, and like most progressive titles, players are cautioned to keep in mind that big swings are a part of the deal whenever you play games like this that could award a life-changing jackpot in a single turn of the reels.
Betting and Layout
Many players forget that video slots with more than about nine paylines are a relatively recent invention. There was a time when only five or nine was the norm, and the creation of the Mega Moolah jackpot slot didn’t come long after that. As such, having as many paylines as it does was pretty notable at the time. Here are some other things to know about the overal betting and layout of the game:
- Players will have five reels and three rows for a standard play area.
- You can have up to 25 paylines activated, and you don’t need to have them all available to activate the jackpot, but it will hurt your overall payout percentage if you do not.
- Between one and five coins can be wagered with coin sizes worth $0.01 to $0.05, and that means you’ll have a maximum bet size of $6.25 per turn.
- Your chances of winning the progressives are proportional to your bet size to make sure that things are fair between players at different levels of stakes.
It’s generally recommended that players keep 25 paylines activated for the maximum available RTP percentage and to then manipulate the number of coins and the size of the coins to fit whatever size wager they’re comfortable with from there.
Features and Gameplay
It’s obvious that the centerpiece and the thing that everything focuses around in the Mega Moolah video slot is the set of progressive jackpot wins that everyone will be shooting for. However, in addition to that, there are a number of other action-oriented features and bonus opportunities to keep things interesting while you play.
Scatters and Free Spins
The scatter in this title is the purple figure with brown/red hair and a white headdress. It gives wins no matter where it appears on the grid of symbols, and you’ll score 100x for five, 20x for four, 3x for three and 2x for two of a kind of this scatter. However, getting three of a kind or more activates the free spins mode, and here’s what you need to know about this feature:
- No matter how many scatters are used to activate the free spins, you’ll always get 15 free turns.
- You do have the opportunity to add 15 more free spins if you get three or more scatters during the feature.
- Every single one of your payouts is multiplied by a factor of 3x thanks to a generous multiplier.
It’s not super common to see such a value-packed bonus feature put in addition to a set of huge progressives, and that’s a part of this title that really sets the tone for the experience as a whole because you know you don’t necessarily have to hit one of the biggest jackpots to take down a sizable payout and to end your session up quite a bit of money.
Wild Symbols
It’s not hard to imagine that the king of the African safari is the lion and that he’s the wild symbol for this title. The wild appears on each reel of the Mega Moolah progressive slot, and it offers quite a bit of value on its own.
Five of a kind of this symbol is worth a very serious 15,000x win that’s larger than the top payout of just about all slots out there to begin with. wins of 1,500x, 125x and 15x are yours for four, three or two of the wilds on an activated payline, respectively.
As if this symbol didn’t award a ridiculous amount of value already, Microgaming upped the ante by making it a 2x wild multiplier as well. Any regular payline combination that includes at least one of these wild lion symbols will be doubled in value as a result.
Four Different Progressive Jackpots
One of the things that helped Mega Moolah to change the game as much as it has is that it set the trend online for progressive slots to have several different tiers of jackpots. In this game, they set the standard with four different progressives at four different levels that can be won at different rates:
- Mega Progressive – The top prize starts at €1,000,000.
- Major Progressive – This payout is always worth at least €10,000.
- Minor Progressive – A win of at least €100 is always picked up with this jackpot.
- Mini Progressive – As a prize that hits several times daily, it’s seeded at a value of €10.
Something that helped the top Mega Moolah online jackpot get so popular is that it guaranteed that winners of the top prize would always walk away a millionaire. What’s more is that there’s no minimum bet size to qualify, and you are simply given the jackpots at random instead of having to hit certain winning combinations.
This is something that has been copied ever since by several software providers developing their own flagship products, and it’s the sort of thing that’s really set a trend in the industry that’s still seen even today.
We also want to point out that the top jackpot for this game has held the official world record for the largest online payouts in history, and it’s broken its own record on a number of occasions.
Payout Structure for Mega Moolah
There’s no denying that there is a very high level of volatility at play with this title. However, outside of all of the top wins from the progressives, the wilds and the scatters, there are some reasonable payouts in the rest of the pay table.
Players have five additional animal symbols, and some of them pay out for as few as two of a kind on a given payline. In addition to that, the wins for five of a kind range from 750x to 250x, which is pretty solid for mid-level wins.
From there, this game has the usual set of card rank symbols from the A down to the 10 with wins that range from 150x to 40x for five of a kind payouts.
How to Win at Mega Moolah
Having the best chances to win at the Mega Moolah slot is about staying in the game and playing in a way that minimizes the swings as much as you can. Generally speaking, that means a combination of two things:
- Picking bet sizes that are smaller than what you’re used to.
- Playing with those smaller bet sizes for more spins than you’re used to.
This is essentially a “fight,” for lack of a better word, against the volatility involved. The reason that this strategy is effective is that it gives a simple trade-off of more time spent playing for a lower volatility in your overall result.
Since the chances of winning the progressive jackpots in this game are all based proportionately on how much you’re wagering, and since you can win with any bet size that’s allowed, you’ll maintain the same chances to hit a big jackpot with this approach. As such, it’s strictly a win-win scenario for the player since you lose nothing but your time compared to playing in a more usual way.
Important Points to Note
There are a few advantages and disadvantages to this game over other high progressive slots. Here are a few of the advantages:
- You can still win some pretty big payouts without hitting a jackpot with the wild symbol giving 15,000x for five of a kind.
- On average, this game produces at least 10-12 millionares a year, which is more than any other slot on the market.
- The free spins mode is a value-packed feature, especially because of the 3x multiplier (that combines with the wild multiplier for 6x total multipliers) and the ability to re-trigger for more free turns.
With that said, there are a couple of things that players might want to be warned about:
- Progressive slots are known for having high levels of volatility, but Mega Moolah’s volatility is even higher than most.
- While the graphics are not terrible by any means, they are dated because this title has been around for so long, and that may bother a minority of players.
The pros definitely outweigh the cons here by far, but it’s worth knowing about so that you can decide for yourself if this slot is a good fit for you.
Overview
There is no denying on any level that Mega Moolah is one of the most important titles ever produced by Microgaming. It has established a legacy that a significant portion of the entire progressive online slot sub-genre has been based on in one way or another. On top of that, it’s created several dozen millionaires and set world records in the process. That’s about as impressive as an online slot can get, especially considering that it was based on their own ideas and not from any pre-existing brand.
FAQ
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