- Published by
- Big Time Gaming
- Grid
- 6 reels plus cart reel
- Maximum ways
- 7⁶ = 117,649
- Feature multiplier
- Steps per reaction, no reset
The original Megaways title, and why that matters
Bonanza is published by Big Time Gaming, the studio that built the Megaways mechanic and licenses it to other developers. Bonanza is the title the mechanic shipped on first, which makes it the reference implementation rather than one example among many. When a Pragmatic Play, Play'n GO, Relax or Blueprint release carries the Megaways name, it is working with a licensed version of the reel engine that debuted here. That lineage is interesting history and a poor basis for assumptions: the licence covers the reel behaviour, not the paytable, the feature rules or the limits.
The release is still in active distribution rather than archived, which is why it still appears in lobbies alongside titles a decade younger. Published material about it is less reliable than its age suggests. Review pages do not even agree on the year it came out, with 2016 and 2017 both widely stated, and a disagreement that basic is a useful early warning about how much of the writing on this game was copied rather than checked. The provider's own game help, reached from inside the game frame, is the only description that describes the build you have loaded.
Naming is the other early trap. A lobby tile may read Bonanza, Bonanza Megaways or Bonanza Megapays. The first two normally point at the same game, the Megaways suffix having been added as the brand became the selling point. The third is a separate release with an added jackpot layer, and it is covered further down because confusing the two changes what the return figure means.
18+ · Bonus conditions
Offer information supplied: 2026-10-05.
18+ · Bonus conditions
Offer information supplied: 2026-10-05.
Six reels and the cart that sits on top of four of them
The grid is six reels whose heights are redrawn every spin, which is the standard Megaways arrangement. What is not standard, and what makes this title worth describing separately, is the horizontal mine cart that runs above the middle reels. It contributes an extra symbol to each of the positions it covers on every spin, raising the effective height of those reels beyond what the vertical reel alone shows.
That cart is the reason the headline ceiling is reachable at all. The ways figure for a spin is the product of the effective heights of the six reels, so all six have to show their tallest configuration at once for the maximum to appear: seven multiplied by itself six times, which is 117,649. Every other spin produces a smaller figure, usually a far smaller one, and the ways counter on screen is reporting that spin's product rather than a property of the game.
Counting by eye is harder here than on a fixed-grid Megaways release, and understanding why saves confusion later. The cart symbols do not form a seventh reel of their own; they belong to the reels beneath them for matching purposes. A win running across consecutive reels can therefore include a symbol sitting in the cart, which looks like a break in the sequence until you know the rule. The on-screen ways counter already folds the cart contributions in, so a hand count that ignores the cart will never match it.
One figure worth not guessing at is the per-reel minimum. Third-party pages state it as two symbols on some sites and three on others, and both numbers circulate confidently. Do not resolve that by picking whichever you saw more often. The reel range is printed in the game's own information screen, it is specific to the build in front of you, and a range copied from a review is exactly the kind of detail that goes stale without anyone updating it.
GOLD is an entry condition spelled in letters, not a symbol count
Free spins are entered by collecting the letters that spell GOLD. That is structurally different from a scatter-count trigger and the difference matters when you are watching a spin resolve. A scatter trigger needs a quantity of one symbol; a letter trigger needs a set of distinct symbols, so three of the four letters is not a near miss in the way that three of four scatters would be. The letters can also land in the cart positions, which is why a spin on a short grid can still qualify while a tall grid produces nothing.
Inside the feature, further letters extend it. The spin award for entry and the award for each extension are two separate figures in the paytable, and they are not the same number. Treating them as interchangeable is how people end up with a wrong idea of how long a round will run, which then feeds a wrong idea of how much multiplier the round can build.
The procedure is short enough to be worth doing every time you open the game at a new operator. Open the information panel, find the free-spins page, and write down three things: how many letters the entry requires, the spins awarded on entry and for each additional letter, and whether a letter in a cart position counts the same as one on the reel below it. If the help text does not answer all three, record the feature length as unknown rather than filling the gap from a review page. An unknown field in your own notes is accurate; a borrowed number is not.
// sponsored · Safe Casino · 18+
+500% + 120 free spins
Safe Casino welcome offer. Check the qualifying deposit and wagering conditions before you claim.
The multiplier that does not reset, and the failure mode that comes with it
During free spins a win multiplier starts at its base value and steps up with each reaction, which is this studio's term for a cascade. The rule that defines the game is what the multiplier does at the end of a spin: nothing. It does not reset. It carries forward across the whole round, so the counter you see late in a feature reflects every reaction since the feature began rather than only the current spin.
The failure mode follows directly from that, and it is the single most common disappointment players report with this title. A high multiplier pays nothing on its own. It applies to a win, and only to a win that lands while the counter is high. A round that builds an impressive multiplier across its early spins and then produces non-paying boards for the remainder pays out roughly what those early reactions paid, with the big number sitting unused in the corner of the screen. The counter is a record of reactions that have already been paid for, not a balance waiting to be collected.
Knowing the shape tells you what you are actually waiting for, which is more useful than any figure. In a summing-multiplier design every spin starts clean and the round turns on one spin happening to combine a long chain with heavy multiplier symbols. Here the round turns on whether a long chain arrives late, after the counter has climbed. Neither shape is better than the other and both can return nothing. The practical consequence is that a screenshot of a large multiplier tells you nothing whatsoever about what the round paid.
Two details are build specifics rather than facts about the mechanic: the size of each step, and whether any ceiling is stated for the counter. Both belong to the help panel.
Figures differ between builds and lobbies. Read the live game's information panel before you rely on any of them.
Play here →The return figure: why there is more than one, and where yours is written
A search for this game's return figure produces a single confident percentage from most pages, often to one decimal place. The reason to distrust it is not that those pages are careless. It is that Big Time Gaming, like every studio of its size, builds a title in more than one return configuration, and the operator chooses which one to integrate. A figure that is true in one lobby misdescribes another, and it can stop describing the same lobby after a re-integration without anything on the page changing.
Reading the figure that applies to you takes under a minute. Open the game, find the information or paytable icon inside the game frame rather than on the casino page around it, and look for the line labelled theoretical return, return to player or RTP. Note which state of the game it describes. If the panel lists more than one figure, they are not alternative estimates of the same thing: each one governs a different way of playing, and the one that matters is the one for how you intend to play.
Two traps are specific to this title. The first is contamination from the licensees. Because the mechanic carries the same brand across a dozen studios, search results for Megaways return figures mix this game's number with numbers belonging to entirely different games that share nothing but reel behaviour. Matching on the word Megaways is not matching on the game. The second is the jackpot variant. A release with a progressive layer carries a return that includes a jackpot component funded from qualifying stakes, so comparing it with a non-jackpot figure compares two different quantities. Where the help panel splits the return into base and jackpot components, read the split rather than the total.
An unlimited multiplier inside a hard ceiling
Unlimited multiplier and maximum win both appear in the same set of rules, and they are not in conflict. The multiplier has no stopping point written into its step rule. The payment does have a ceiling, normally expressed as a multiple of the total stake. Once a round's accumulated win reaches that ceiling the cap governs the payment, whatever the counter happens to read at the time.
Three things about a cap are worth checking and are frequently different between releases. Whether it applies per spin, per feature round or per paid round, because a per-spin cap and a per-round cap produce very different outcomes on a long feature. What happens to any remaining free spins once it is reached, since some designs end the round and pay immediately while others let the spins run without further payment. And whether it is stated as a stake multiple or a currency amount, because a currency cap interacts with the account currency and the chosen stake in a way a multiple does not.
The useful way to read a cap is as the realistic best case for the game rather than as an estimate of anything. It is also what makes unlimited legible: the counter can keep climbing, the payment cannot. If the stated cap looks modest relative to what reaching the feature repeatedly would cost, that is genuine information about the game, and it is better found in a help panel than inferred from a round that ended early.
// sponsored · WinCrown · 18+
+500% + 120 free spins
WinCrown welcome offer. Read the current promotion terms, eligibility and withdrawal conditions.
Bonanza, Megapays and Extra Chilli are three machines, not three skins
Megapays belongs to the same family with a progressive jackpot layer added on top. A jackpot layer moves part of the return into a pool funded by qualifying stakes and paid on its own separate trigger, which changes the distribution even where the base game looks and sounds identical. The practical point is about figures rather than feel: a return quoted for a jackpot release may include the pool contribution, so it is not comparable with a figure for the non-jackpot game without knowing how it was composed.
Extra Chilli is the studio's follow-up on the same engine, and it has two structural additions that Bonanza does not carry in the same form. One is a purchase route into the feature, priced according to how many qualifying symbols have already landed rather than at a flat multiple. The other is a gamble that stakes awarded free spins against more of them, with the risk of losing the lot. Both change the shape of a session substantially. A reader who has absorbed an article about a feature purchase or a spins gamble and then gone looking for those controls in Bonanza was reading about a different game.
Licensee Megaways titles are the broadest version of the same error. They share the reel behaviour because that is what the licence covers. The paytable, the trigger, the multiplier rule and the cap are the licensee's own work, and they vary enormously. It is a Megaways so it works like Bonanza is the most expensive assumption available in a lobby full of games branded identically.
The procedure that prevents all three confusions is reading the full title in the loaded game's header or on the first screen of its help panel, including any suffix. Lobby tiles truncate names, search boxes match loosely, and a help screen for one release establishes nothing about another.
On a phone, and on finding the game at all
Most Australian play happens on a phone, and this grid is dense on a narrow screen. The cart row sitting above six variable reels means counting symbols by eye stops being practical, so you end up trusting the win counter and the ways counter instead. That is fine, provided you know the ways counter already includes the cart contributions. The information panel is also somewhere different from the desktop layout, usually behind a menu inside the game frame rather than beside it, and it is worth locating once at each new operator rather than hunting for it mid-session.
Whether any particular lobby carries the title at all is an operator integration decision that changes without notice. In the two sponsored lobbies on this site, Safe Casino and WinCrown, search by the exact title rather than browsing a Megaways category, and read the game header once it loads to confirm which release opened and which build is running. This page does not assert that either carries this game, or which configuration it would serve if it did. Online casino services cannot lawfully be provided to people in Australia; the operators described here are offshore, and a familiar provider logo in a lobby does not change that or create any Australian authorisation.
What this page could not verify
No return percentage, spin award, multiplier increment, reel minimum or cap figure appears on this page. Every one of them is a build or release detail and every one of them is printed in the game's own information panel in the lobby you are playing in. Where third-party sources disagree about this title, and they do on both the reel range and the release year, that is the reason the figures are absent here rather than reconciled into a confident average.
The mechanical description is the part worth writing down, because it is structural and stable across builds: six reels with heights redrawn each spin, a horizontal cart reel contributing extra symbols above the middle reels, reaction wins that clear and refill, a GOLD letter set as the entry condition, and a feature multiplier that steps with each reaction without resetting between spins. Those facts explain the game's behaviour. The numbers decorate it.
Megapays and Extra Chilli are described here as the separate releases they are documented to be; their own help panels are the authority on their rules. Nothing here is a recommendation to play this title or to treat a documented maximum as an outcome worth pursuing.
Questions people actually ask
What is the RTP of Bonanza Megaways?
It depends on which configuration the operator integrated, because Big Time Gaming builds the title at more than one return setting. The figure that applies to you is on the information or paytable screen inside the game frame, in the lobby you are playing in, today. A percentage quoted on a review page describes one build in one lobby on one day.
Does the multiplier reset between free spins in Bonanza?
No. It steps up with each reaction and carries forward across the whole round rather than resetting when a spin ends. That is the design the game became known for, and it is why the result depends on whether a long reaction chain arrives after the counter has already climbed.
What does 117,649 ways mean on this game?
It is all six reels showing their tallest configuration at once, seven to the power of six. The horizontal cart reel above the middle reels is what makes the maximum reachable, and its symbols count toward the reels beneath them rather than forming a reel of their own. Most spins produce a far smaller figure.
How do the free spins trigger?
By collecting the letters that spell GOLD, which can land in the cart positions as well as on the reels themselves. How many letters the entry requires, the spins awarded, and what each additional letter adds are all on the free-spins page of the game's information panel.
Is there a maximum win on Bonanza Megaways?
The rules state a payment ceiling, normally as a multiple of total stake, and it governs regardless of what the multiplier counter reads. Check whether it applies per spin or per round, and what happens to remaining free spins once it is reached, because releases differ on both.
Is Bonanza Megapays the same game, and can you buy the bonus?
Megapays is a separate release with a progressive jackpot layer funded from qualifying stakes, so its return and distribution are not comparable with the non-jackpot game. A feature purchase is a release detail, not a property of the Megaways engine; the Feature Drop people remember belongs to Extra Chilli. Read the loaded game's controls and help panel.
// next step
A paytable makes more sense with the game open in front of you.
View current offer