Slot of the Week: Golden Nugget Megaways

This week’s Slot of the Week is the exclusive branded Golden Nugget Megaways slot, which manages to combine the classy black and gold theme of this top NJ online casino with some pretty unique features.

Ranking 25th in the Garden State, Golden Nugget Megaways is more than just an exercise in self-promotion, with the slot boasting a jam-packed main feature and bags of luxuriant character!

In Short:

• Golden Nugget Megaways is a 6-reel, 117,649-ways online slot by Inspired Gaming.
• It is a branded slot that’s exclusive to Golden Nugget.
• The slot’s features include cascades, free spins with unlimited win multipliers, and a gamble option.
• The maximum payout of a single way in Golden Nugget Megaways is $1,000.

The Basics

Golden Nugget Megaways is a 6+1-reel slot by Inspired Gaming that is exclusively available at Golden Nugget, as the name implies. Thanks to Big Time Gaming’s Megaways mechanism, the slot sports a mind-blowing 117,649 ways to win due to its unique reels.

Launched in the latter part of 2021, Golden Nugget Megaways has made a lasting impression from the start, with the slot currently ranking 25th in New Jersey. This is most likely due to the classy combination of piano jazz, the brand’s black and gold theme, and a plentiful supply of rewarding features.

First Impressions

When the game opens, you’ll be greeted by a very luxurious gold on black damask/ornate fleur de lis style print background and over that will appear the reel set itself. Gold and black are the obvious themes here, being a Golden Nugget slot, with the NJ casino’s logo taking pride of place in the top right corner.

A reminder that this is a Megaways slot sits at the top left of the game, with three VIP signs and five lightable diamonds lined up underneath, the purpose of which will be revealed later. The reel set itself consists of six traditionally aligned vertical reels and a seventh horizontal reel that sits along the top, spins from right to left, and effectively adds another symbol to reels 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Completing the highbrow theme is a very classy piano jazz soundtrack that’ll have you feeling like you’re in a plush VIP room in Vegas! Game sounds are generally muted clicks as the reels come to rest, with wins given a snare drum roll flourish, and newly lit reels announced with a brief muted trumpet outburst.

Symbols

The symbols in Golden Nugget Megaways are simple yet sophisticated and can be split into high-paying and lower-paying sets. The higher-value symbols are a pair of golden dice, black and gold playing cards, a golden roulette wheel, and the Golden Nugget logo, which is the highest value symbol in the game.

On the lower end of the scale are the 9 to A card value symbols, each of which is a different color, namely, orange, turquoise, blue, green, purple, and red, outlined with a thin gold frame, making them look a bit like metal pin badges.

The golden wild symbol stands in for all other symbols in this game to help you make up winning lines, but it only appears on the horizontal reel.

One more symbol comes into play in Golden Nugget Megaways, the VIP Slot, but it only appears in the VIP Slot Feature, which we’ll explore next.

Golden Nugget Megaways Features

Golden Nugget Megaways boasts three different features that make the game an even more thrilling experience: the Megaways mechanism itself, Cascades, and the VIP Slot Free Spins. Let’s check out each of these features in turn to see how they amp up your gameplay.

Megaways

Big Time Gaming’s Megaways mechanism has been implemented into many slots, introducing a move away from set paylines in favor of a less structured and more appealing approach. Megaways wins are triggered by landing three (for the Golden Nugget symbol, two!) or more matching symbols in any order, as long as they’re on consecutive reels.

In the image above, you’ll notice that each reel can hold a varying number of symbols. Each one can hold two to seven symbols (including the top reel for reels 2, 3, 4, and 5) and this changes every time you spin them.

What results is a different number of ways to win every time you spin, with each spin’s exact number of maximum ways to win indicated under the Megaways logo in the top left corner. The maximum number of ways to win in this game is 117,649!

Cascades

Also featured in Golden Nugget Megaways are Cascades. When you land a winning combination of matching symbols, you’ll get your payout, but then those involved symbols will disappear to be replaced by more falling from above. This can result in an additional win at no extra cost to you. More wins may follow, hence the cascade name.

Cascades serve a dual purpose in Golden Nugget Megaways: not only do they give you the chance to win more on every spin, they also hold the key to unlocking the game’s main feature, as we’ll see next.

VIP Slot Free Spins

Up to 25 free spins with unlimited multipliers can be won in this slot’s main feature, VIP Slot Free Spins, which contains several steps.

As mentioned in the last section, it’s the cascades that hold the key to unlocking the free spins feature in Golden Nugget Megaways, but how? Every time you spin the reels, between zero and all six reels will be illuminated with a white background, starting from the left and moving towards the right. Each cascade you trigger lights an additional reel. In order to unlock the feature, you’ll need to light up all six reels at once. You can track your progress by following the column of diamonds on the left of the reel set. Once you hit the VIP sign, you’ve triggered the feature.

For each additional cascade you get from there, you’ll move another space up the column, hitting Super VIP, then, if you’re seriously lucky, Mega VIP. These will determine what level of free spins game you’ll be playing for as indicated in the image above. As you can see, the VIP level promises 8 to 15 free spins, the Super VIP level offers 8 to 20 free spins, and the Mega VIP level contains 8 to 25 free spins. But what are VIP Slots?

The VIP Slots are tiny 3-reel classic slot machines that you’ll use to propel yourself along the free spins trail that you triggered above. A number of VIP Slots in the range next to the level you triggered will appear and you’ll get to spin each one in turn for payouts. The reels of these slots light up too and for each slot whose three reels illuminate, you’ll move one space along the free spins trail. The number you finish on once all the VIP Slots have been played is the number of free spins you’ll play.

Finally, the free spins! At the start of the free spins feature, your win multiplier will be set at 1x and increase by 1 for each cascade you trigger. Just like in the base game, each time you get a cascade, one of the reels will light up, but here, it will stay lit as you continue to spin. When all six reels are illuminated, a VIP Slot will appear that you can spin to win up to three additional free spins and a win multiplier boost of up to 3x.

Free Spins Gamble

After you’ve played all the little VIP Slots to determine the number of free spins you’ll get, if you fancy it, you can take a gamble for more free spins. Spin the green and red wheel and if you land on green, you’ll win extra free spins, moving you along the track at the top. Lose, though, and you’ll drop free spins! The gamble feature gives you the chance to win a maximum of 25 free spins.

Golden Nugget Megaways Payouts

Megaways payouts work a little differently to those of set payline slots, but it’s relatively easy to follow the math if you’re interested.

Payouts in this game are determined by how much you bet per spin, which symbols you’ve landed, what they are, and how many “ways” you’ve triggered. The number of ways can be worked out by multiplying the number of symbols on each reel. Here’s an example:

This spin landed us a win with Qs on every reel: three on reel 1, two on reel 2, one on reels 3, 4, and 5, and two on reel 6. Multiply those numbers together to get 3x2x1x1x1x2 = 12 and that’s the number of ways you’ve triggered. You can then multiply this by the paytable value for 6x Q symbols (ie. one on every reel) and your bet per spin amount to get your final payout. In this case, our $1 bet per spin returned $12 — nice!

Here’s a breakdown of each symbol’s payout for a single way:

Symbol	x2	x3	x4	x5	x6
Golden Nugget	2x bet	5x bet	10x bet	25x bet	50x bet
Roulette wheel	–	1x bet	2x bet	2.5x bet	7.5x bet
Cards	–	0.25x bet	1x bet	1.5x bet	2x bet
Dice	–	0.25x bet	0.5x bet	0.75x bet	2x bet
A/K	–	0.2x bet	0.4x bet	0.6x bet	1.75x bet
Q	–	0.2x bet	0.25x bet	0.6x bet	1x bet
J	–	0.15x bet	0.25x bet	0.5x bet	1x bet
10	–	0.15x bet	0.25x bet	0.5x bet	0.9x bet
9	–	0.1x bet	0.2x bet	0.4x bet	0.8x bet

From the table above, you can see that the biggest payout for a single way is 50x your bet. With the maximum bet amount in this game set at $20 per spin, that gives a maximum single way payout of $1,000! Of course, if you find multiple ways to land 6-in-a-row, you’ll be laughing all the way to the bank! And that doesn’t even include cascades!

Golden Nugget Megaways RTP and Volatility

How do the payouts of Golden Nugget Megaways compare to those of other slots? To make such a comparison, we’ll use the industry standard measurements of Return To Player (RTP) and Volatility.

The RTP of a game is defined as the percentage of played funds that is paid out to players over the long term. An easier way to think about it is that it’s the opposite of the house edge, which is the cut the casino keeps for itself. The RTP of Golden Nugget Megaways is 95.56%, which is just a shade under the industry average of 96%, making it a reasonably attractive game to play in terms of payouts over time.

Volatility (or Variance), on the other hand, is the balance between small, frequent payouts and larger, less frequent payouts, and where on that scale a slot’s payouts lie. The payouts of low volatility slots tend to be smaller but more frequent, whereas those of a high volatility slot are far more variable, with larger but less frequent wins in the mix too. Golden Nugget Megaways has a volatility rating of Medium, which means there’s a good balance of small, frequent wins and larger, less frequent ones, making it a relatively stable yet still fairly exciting slot to play.

Go for Golden Nugget Megaways!

Golden Nugget Megaways is an example of a branded slot done right. While it’s very easy to slap your logo on a slot and use it as a self-promotional tool, it takes careful consideration to come up with a decent game behind the branding so it’s actually playable and that is what Golden Nugget has managed to pull off by going with the Megaways approach. After all, 117,649 ways to win is always going to be a crowd-pleaser!

Golden Nugget takes things further with a super classy piano jazz soundtrack, lots of gold accents, and a collection of exciting features that will have you easily overlooking the brand placement motive. The increasingly energetic muted trumpet outbursts as you light up each subsequent reel towards the main feature will trigger a shot of adrenalin each time and the little VIP Slots will certainly put another smile on your face.

Golden Nugget Megaways is exclusive to Golden Nugget. To play the game, simply open an account at the Golden Nugget New Jersey online casino, make your first deposit, then click on the slot to start spinning for golden wins!