Mega Moolah is the progressive jackpot slot that made progressive jackpots famous. Microgaming released it in 2006 with a plain African savannah theme — lions, elephants, zebras, card ranks — and the graphics have barely moved since. What kept it in lobbies for close to two decades is the four-tier jackpot wheel bolted onto an otherwise ordinary five-reel game, and the handful of very large payouts it has produced, including a 2015 win of about €17.8 million that held a world record for years. Those wins are extreme outliers, not a description of what the game normally does.
- Progressive jackpot wheel
- Four jackpot tiers
- Free spins
- Multiplier wild
- Studio
- Microgaming
- Released
- 2006
- Layout
- 5 reels, 3 rows
- Ways to win
- 25 lines, left to right
- Volatility
- High
How It Plays
Five reels, three rows and 25 paylines, paid left to right from the leftmost reel. The stake is built from two controls rather than one: a coin value and the number of coins staked per line. With all 25 lines running, the total spin cost ranges from 0.25 to 6.25, which is a narrow band by modern standards and a deliberate one — the jackpot pool is fed by a large number of small bets.
Wins are paid for three, four or five matching symbols on an active line, with only the highest combination on each line counting. On top of the line pays sit two separate things: a free spin round triggered by scatters, and a jackpot wheel that can appear at random on any paid spin. The wheel is not a line win and is not tied to any symbol combination.
Symbols
The reel set splits into three groups. The card ranks — 10, J, Q, K, A — fill the low end. Above them sit the animals: antelope, zebra, giraffe, buffalo and elephant, with the elephant the strongest of the ordinary symbols. The monkey is the scatter and the lion is the wild.
The lion is the top symbol and also the most useful one, because it substitutes for everything except the monkey and doubles any win it completes. Two lions in the same combination double it twice over. The monkey pays as a scatter from any position rather than on a line, and is the symbol that opens the free spins.
Bonus Feature
There are two separate bonus layers. The first is conventional: three or more monkey scatters anywhere on the reels award 15 free spins, and every win during them is tripled. The round can retrigger from within itself if more scatters land. Bets carry over from the spin that triggered it.
The second is the reason the game exists. The jackpot wheel can appear at the end of any paid spin, without warning and without any symbol combination bringing it on. When it does, the reels are replaced by a wheel divided into four coloured bands — Mini, Minor, Major and Mega — and wherever the pointer stops, that jackpot is paid in full and reset to its seed. The Mega tier seeds at one million and grows from there; the three smaller tiers reset far lower and are hit far more often.
The wheel is triggered at random, and a larger total bet increases the chance of it appearing — but nothing else does. A jackpot that has not been hit for months is no closer to landing than one paid yesterday: each spin is independent, and the game holds no memory of what came before it. Any account of the slot being “due” describes a pattern the maths does not contain.
Controls
The panel runs along the bottom of the screen in the classic Microgaming layout. Coin Value sets the size of one coin, and a separate control sets how many coins go on each line; the lines themselves can be scaled back from 25, though doing so cuts the total bet and with it the odds of the jackpot wheel appearing. Bet Max sets everything to its ceiling in one press.
Spin starts the round and Autoplay runs a set number of automatic spins, with stop conditions for a win or for the balance moving past a limit you set. The current jackpot totals sit above the reels and tick upward in real time; the paytable and the game’s build details, including the return figure that applies to it, are in the information panel reached from the same bar.
Every game also carries an information panel with its rules and its return-to-player figure for the build running here. That panel is the accurate source; a number copied from elsewhere may describe a different build — see how to read RTP.
Pros and Cons
Mega Moolah is a plain slot with an unusual attachment. The base game is dated — flat artwork, one modest feature, low ceiling on ordinary line wins — and a slice of every bet is diverted into the jackpot pools rather than paid back across the reels. That is the trade: ordinary spins return less than they would in a comparable non-progressive game, and in exchange there is a wheel that occasionally pays a life-changing sum to one player out of many millions.
It suits someone who understands exactly what they are buying and is happy at 0.25 a spin for a long stretch. It is a poor choice for anyone who wants regular feedback from the base game, sharp modern design, or a bonus round with decisions in it. Anyone playing it because a jackpot looks overdue has misread the game — the trigger is random on every spin, and the size of the pool does not change that.
- Four jackpot tiers, three of which are hit regularly
- Jackpot wheel can appear on any paid spin, including the minimum
- Free spins triple every win and can retrigger
- Minimum stake of 0.25 keeps a long session cheap
- Base game is thin and visually dated
- Part of every bet funds the jackpots rather than ordinary wins
- Maximum bet of 6.25 limits ordinary line payouts
- Mega tier is a remote outcome, however often it is advertised
18+ or the legal age where you live. This game carries a house edge like every other. Play only with money you can afford to lose.
More From Microgaming
Other titles by the same studio in our lobby.
Questions
- How is the Mega Moolah jackpot triggered?
- At random at the end of a paid spin. No symbol combination brings it on and no feature leads into it. Once the wheel appears, one of the four tiers is paid depending on where the pointer stops.
- Does a bigger bet improve my chances?
- It improves the chance of the jackpot wheel appearing, because the trigger is weighted by the size of the total bet. It does not change which of the four tiers the wheel then lands on.
- Can the jackpot be won on the minimum stake?
- Yes. Any paid spin can trigger the wheel, including one at 0.25. Larger bets simply make the trigger more likely.
- Is a jackpot more likely if it has not been hit for a long time?
- No. Every spin is independent and the game does not track how long a pool has been growing. A jackpot untouched for months is exactly as likely to land as one paid out last week.
- How do the free spins work?
- Three or more monkey scatters award 15 free spins with all wins tripled, and more scatters during the round retrigger it. The free spins are separate from the jackpot wheel and one does not lead to the other.