Monopoly Megaways

What these figures mean for Monopoly Megaways

Monopoly Megaways is one of two Big Time Gaming titles here, White Rabbit being the other, on which the studio's page and Evolution's page tell the same story. Both give the return as 96.50%; Big Time Gaming's page gives up to 117,649 ways and is dated 4 December 2019, and Evolution lists 2019 as the release year. Evolution then adds what the studio's page leaves out: a High volatility rating and a maximum win of 14,700x. With no contradictions to untangle, this page can spend its time on the game.

The return first. At 96.50% Monopoly Megaways is the second-best-returning of the six Big Time Gaming games in this catalogue, a shade behind Star Clusters Megaclusters at 96.54%, ahead of White Rabbit's 96.42% and well ahead of Danger High Voltage's 95.67%. The house edge is 3.50%, or £35 of expected cost per thousand £1 spins. Evolution's own page makes a point of saying that the figure is above a standard 96%. As with every title from this studio, there is one published figure and no list of alternative settings, so a lobby that shows a lower number is showing something neither official page mentions.

The ceiling is the most modest Evolution gives for any of the three Big Time Gaming games where it states one: 14,700x here, against 26,000x for Bonanza and 72,310x for Millionaire Megaways. It comes without odds. A lower ceiling in a High-volatility game does not mean gentler sessions; it means the largest outcomes are less extreme, not that quiet stretches are shorter.

The design is where this game differs from every other slot on this site. A strip of the board runs below the reels, and after each win Mr Monopoly moves along it by as many squares as there were symbols in the winning combination. Landing on GO makes the next spin play at the full 117,649 ways. Landing on a train station or utility for the first time gives you ownership: a station later adds a free spin, a utility a higher multiplier. Community Chest moves you to a random property and can add one to four houses; Chance can move you, give a maximum-ways spin, or start the free spins outright. A property visited a third time gets a house, and further reactions add more.

The free spins begin when a fifth house goes onto a property, or from Chance, with eight spins to start. Each house beyond the fifth and each station you own adds a spin, and every further trigger after the first adds three more. So a round that opens on a property carrying seven houses, with one station already owned, starts with eight plus two plus one: eleven spins. Inside the round the multiplier rises by one for each house on a property Mr Monopoly lands on, and those houses are then spent, converted into spins. When the round ends, stations and utilities are taken back, but houses standing on properties you never visited stay where they are.

That last rule makes Monopoly Megaways a game with memory. The state of the board after a bonus is part of what the next bonus is worth: a board left with houses scattered on unvisited squares is a better starting point than an empty one. What Evolution's page does not say — and what matters a great deal in practice — is whether that board survives between sessions, across devices, or when you switch casino. Games that carry state forward reward the person who keeps playing and quietly penalise the person who stops at the wrong moment, so if you play this one, it is worth finding out from the game's own rules how its board is saved.

Before a session at a UK casino, the checks are these. Find the RTP in the game's information screen; 96.50% is the figure both official pages give. Look at the board before you start spinning, since its state is part of the value of the game in front of you. And treat the 14,700x as Evolution's ceiling, published without the odds that would make it meaningful.

The overall picture is cleaner than for the studio's other games here: one agreed return, a ceiling from the parent group's page that conflicts with nothing, and a mechanic whose most important property — that progress carries forward — is better understood before the first spin than after a long session.

How Monopoly Megaways compares with the rest of our catalogue

Against every other game here whose studio publishes its maths.

Volatility as the studio states it — what the index measures.