9 Pots of Gold Megaways

9 Pots of Gold Megaways: Slot Overview

For a group as productive as the Games Global linked studios, you'd be forgiven for thinking they'd make greater use of the Megaways licence from Aussie studio Big Time Gaming. For whatever reason, while online slots pour from the interlinked studios like a broken tap, they haven't really gone to town with Megaways. Perhaps they prefer to keep things in-house as much as possible, or they don't want a third-party name to be too heavily associated with what they do. Maybe we'll spitball ideas some other time, but for now, here's is 9 Pots of Gold Megaways. It comes from Gameburger Studios, and if you've been following this lot, it'll be pretty obvious this is a Megaways makeover of 9 Pots of Gold release back in 2020.

In its turn, 9 Pots of Gold was a follow-on from what must have been a mega smash hit for Gameburger Studios. We're talking, of course, about 9 Masks of Fire, a slot which seems to have served as inspiration for countless scatter prize-winning games ever since. Where 9 Masks of Fire was all about masks and whatnot, 9 Pots of Gold was a leprechaun-themed game possessing many of the bits and bobs that genre entails. They're all back for 9 Pots of Gold Megaways, too, so be on the lookout for four-leaf clovers, harps, and hats, all that sort of thing. Really, the visuals haven't changed a huge amount between this one and the previous game, which is sort of how these Megaways redos usually go.

One obvious switcheroo is the game grid which now consists of 6 reels, each reel landing up to 7 symbols. This symbol variability translates to ways to win variability as well, all the way up to 117,649 when the panel is at full capacity. This slot is highly volatile as well and is available in four RTP models, with 96.1% being the highest of the lot. However, the return value increases to 96.5% when activating the Win Booster ante bet. Doing so increases the stake by x2, giving players an increased chance of triggering the features and guaranteeing at least 4 rows of symbols on the grid. Base bets range from 20 p/c to $/€50 per spin, and the game has a theoretical hit rate of 34.89% on the highest RTP model.

Hits occur when matching symbols land on adjacent reels from the leftmost reel onwards. Landing winning ways made up of 6 symbols pays 1 to 1.2 times the bet for the low pay 10-A royals and 1.6 to 5 times the bet for the premium clover, hat, harp, and golden 7s symbols. Winning combinations get removed from the grid when they hit and are replaced by symbols dropping down from above them. Also,appearing on reels 2-5 are psychedelic-looking wilds, able to replace any regular paying symbol.

9 Pots of Gold Megaways: Slot Features

We've mentioned a couple of 9 Pots of Gold Megaways' features already, such as the Win Booster and the Rolling Reels tumble mechanics. The reminders include the Epic Strike, free spins, and a feature buy.

Epic Strike

Epic Strike scatters look like a pot of gold sprouting a rainbow. Landing at least 3 of them awards an instant cash prize. More precisely, hitting 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 Epic Strike scatters awards 1x, 5x, 15x, 40x, 100x, 500x, or 2,000x the bet, respectively.

Free Spins

Spelling out G, O, L, D with 4 scatter symbols awards 10 free spins. Any extra free spins scatters in view award an additional +5 free spins each. Triggering the free spins round awards 1x the bet, and free spins scatters only appear in the base game. However, retrigger scatters appear during the feature and for every 4 of them collected, an extra 4 free spins are awarded.

Now, free spins also benefit from a win multiplier that starts at x1. After every roll of the Rolling Reels, the win multiplier increases. The win multiplier is applied to all wins during free spins but not to Epic Strike wins.

Bonus Buy

Lastly, to skip straight on through to the free spins round, players can buy 10, 15, or 20 free spins for the cost of 50x, 70x, or 85x the bet, respectively.

9 Pots of Gold Megaways: Slot Verdict

If you're the sort of person who likes to experience something new every time they load up a game, better back the fudge away from 9 Pots of Gold Megaways cos this is all old hat by now. We alluded to the popularity of 9 Masks of Fire style game at the beginning of the review, and it's more or less morphed into a runaway freight train of a phenomenon that shows no signs of abating any time soon. A ton of studios seem to be keen on making their contribution to the genre in one form or another - not just those related to Games Global, either. Even if Gameburger Studios did not wholly invent the concept, it feels like 9 Pots of Gold Megaways brings this style of gaming back to its origins in some ways.

And really, how many players out there would actually pick 9 Pots of Gold Megaways expecting to see something brand new? Probably not a whole lot. So, for the chance to land Epic Strike scatter symbols in order to collect payouts of up to 2,000x the bet, 9 Pots of Gold Megaways is an okay option. Shame Epic Strike prizes are unaffected by the rising win multiplier in free spins, which might have upped the game's titillation factor. As it stands, 2,000x isn't overly impressive for a Megaways game. Are better results possible from straight ways wins in conjunction with a decent win multiplier? Theoretically, it seems the answer is yes, as the official max exposure equates to 5,000x the bet max bet. Though, again, not an incredible figure to find in a Megaways game.

For fans of anything 9 'x' of whatever, 9 Pots of Gold Megaways probably has the goods to be entertaining, fair dues. Otherwise, 9 Pots of Gold Megaways felt a little unnecessary. It hardly pushes 9 Pots of Gold into amazing new territory or coaxes something out of the Megaways game engine, which hasn't been done bigger and better elsewhere.