Slot of the Week: Dazzle Me Megaways

The bedazzlement continues this week with our tour of Slot of the Week, Dazzle Me Megaways, which takes the original game to new heights with a host of sparkling new features!

This popular revamped slot is sure to put a twinkle in your eye thanks to the introduction of the rewarding Megaways mechanism and its subsequent Avalanches, an extra reel, and a wild-charged free spins feature!

In Short:

• Dazzle Me Megaways is a 99,225-ways online slot by NetEnt.
• It is available to play at 14 New Jersey online casinos including Golden Nugget, SugarHouse, Unibet Casino and Pala Casino.
• The main features of this slot are random stacked wild reels, chain reaction wins, and free spins with wild reels.
• The maximum payout of a single line in Dazzle Me Megaways is $150.

The Basics

Almost six years after the launch of the original Dazzle Me slot back in 2015, world renowned developer NetEnt released a ramped up version in 2021 in the form of Dazzle Me Megaways that features Big Time Gaming’s famous Megaways mechanism for even more ways to win.

Though much has remained the same, there are several notable changes in the newest release, aside from the new payout mechanism, which offers you up to 99,225 ways to win. Dazzle Me Megaways features an extra reel for six in total, each reel now holds a variable number of symbols on each spin, and the features have had an upgrade too.

First Impressions

If you’ve already explored the original slot, you may open Dazzle Me Megaways and wonder if you’ve accidentally loaded Dazzle Me! Both the background, with its shimmering sea effect, and the design of the reel set, sort of like a gold framed jewelry box, is very similar, almost identical, in fact, to those of the original game. What reminds you that it isn’t is the word Megaways that’s propping up the game’s logo.

The main difference between Dazzle Me Megaways and its predecessor is, of course, the Megaways mechanism, the most obvious hint of which (aside from the logo) can be found in the variable sizes of the reels. The first and second reels can each hold anywhere from two to five symbols, reels 3 and 4 can each hold three to seven symbols, and the last two reels can each contain four to nine symbols. With a different number of symbols appearing on each reel every time you spin, the result is a variable number of ways to win each time, up to a maximum of 99,225, which is a definite upgrade from the original game’s 76 paylines!

The soundtrack remains largely unchanged from the original, still offering a light and airy accompaniment to your gameplay with synthesizer tones and hi-hat taps. A few extra sounds have been added to highlight the exploding gems and their replacements falling in from above, which emit a tinkly shattering sound and a light clacking, respectively.

Symbols

To trigger a payout in this game, you simply need to land three or more (two for the 7 symbol!) matching symbols in any order along consecutive reels.

Those with a keen eye may have spotted that the game’s symbols have also had a bit of a makeover. The 7 and gold bell symbols from the last game have remained as the highest payers, but this time around they’re accompanied by a red heart gem and a green four-leaf clover.

The gem collection has also increased in size, with the trove now consisting of six sparkling jewels of orange, magenta, green, purple, pink, and blue.

The big juicy diamond still plays a central role in Dazzle Me Megaways as the slot’s wild symbol, substituting for all other symbols except the free spins symbol to help you make up those winning combinations.

One of the most important symbols in the game, the free spins symbol is exactly the same as it appeared in the original Dazzle Me, with both an inactive (unlit) and an active (lit) version. This symbol is key to unlocking the game’s main feature, which we’ll take a closer look at next.

Dazzle Me Megaways Features

Dazzle Me Megaways offers increased winning chances via three attractive features: Avalanches, Dazzling Wild Reels, and Free Spins. Fans of the original Dazzle Me may have noticed the absence of the exciting Linked Reels feature. Not to worry, the features in this iteration will still dazzle you!

Avalanches

One of the most loved aspects of many Megaways slots is the Avalanches feature. Whenever you trigger a winning combination, all involved symbols will break into pieces and disappear, leaving gaps on the reels. These gaps are then filled by the symbols sitting above, which fall into place to close the gaps. This can result in the creation of new winning combinations in a chain reaction or avalanche effect.

Dazzling Wild Reels

During any spin, up to three reels from reels 2 to 6 may be selected at random to contain only wild diamond symbols, which could potentially boost your chances of scoring even bigger wins!

Free Spins

If you’re lucky enough to land four or more free spins symbols anywhere on the reels at once, you’ll trigger the free spins feature. Landing four of these special symbols awards eight free spins, with each additional symbol upping those free spins by four. It’s during these free spins that the Dazzling Wild Reels really start to pay out!

At the start of your free spins, each of reels 2 to 6 shows a Dazzling Wild Counter at the top, with each one starting at 2. For each free spins, you’ll land at least one Dazzling Wild Reel, with the number of symbols on that reel determined by the Dazzling Wild Counter. Each time you trigger a win involving a wild, the wild reel’s counter will go up by one. How does this boost your potential payouts? More symbols on the reels means more potential ways, which is effectively more paylines paying out into your pocket!

Dazzle Me Megaways Payouts

Speaking of payouts, how much can you stand to win playing Dazzle Me Megaways? In order to work that out, we need to know how much you’re betting per spin, how many symbols you’ve matched along consecutive reels, what those symbols are, and how many of them you’ve landed on each reel.

Let’s take a closer look at how this works…

In the image above, we’ve scored a win by landing three blue gems in a row. Notice, however, that on reel 2 there are two blue gems. That creates two winning ways, or two lines of three symbols each. The payout of a line of three blue gems is 0.1, giving us $0.20 at our current total bet of $2, but since we’ve got two ways here, our payout is $0.40.

How do you work out your payout in a slightly more complex situation like the one above? Here, we’ve landed three magenta gems in a row, but we need to know how many winning ways that is. Luckily, there’s a very easy way to work it out. Simply multiply the number of involved symbols on each reel. In this case, that would be 2x2x1, giving us four ways. One line (or way) of three magenta gems pays out $0.30 at our current total bet ($1), but because we have four ways here, that gives us 4x 0.30 = $1.20.

Having said all that, you don’t have to calculate your payouts if you don;t want to as the game does it all for you! Still, it’s good to know where those numbers come from.

Here’s a breakdown of the Dazzle Me Megaways symbol payouts (per line/way) as a multiple of your total bet:

Symbol	x2	x3	x4	x5	x6
7	1x bet	1.5x bet	2x bet	2.5x bet	3x bet
Bell	–	0.6x bet	0.8x bet	1x bet	1.2x bet
Heart	–	0.5x bet	0.7x bet	0.9x bet	1.1x bet
Clover	–	0.4x bet	0.6x bet	0.8x bet	1x bet
Orange gem	–	0.3x bet	0.5x bet	0.7x bet	0.9x bet
Magenta gem	–	0.3x bet	0.4x bet	0.5x bet	0.7x bet
Green/purple gem	–	0.2x bet	0.3x bet	0.4x bet	0.6x bet
Pink/blue gem	–	0.1x bet	0.2x bet	0.3x bet	0.5x bet

As you can see, the maximum single-way payout possible in this game is 3x your total bet. With the maximum total bet sitting at $50, that gives you a maximum potential single-way payout of $150.

However, remember that you have up to 99,225 ways to win in this slot. Though that doesn’t mean it’s possible to land 7s on every position on every reel (we wish!), you can still trigger some pretty dramatic wins!

Plus, that doesn’t even include the extra win potential added by the Avalanches, Dazzling Wild Reels, and the Free Spins feature. You could indeed be dazzled!

Dazzle Me Megaways RTP and Volatility

How does Dazzle Me Megaways compare to other slots when it comes to payouts? The best way to make such a comparison is using the industry standard measurements of Return to Player (RTP) and Volatility (or Variance).

The RTP of a game is defined as the theoretical percentage of played funds that is paid out to players over the long term (i.e. millions of plays). It’s easier to think of this as the opposite of the house edge, which is the cut the casino keeps for itself. Dazzle Me Megaways has an RTP of 96.1%, which is a touch lower than the 96.9% of its predecessor, but still just above the industry average of 96%. That makes it a pretty attractive game to play in terms of payouts over time.

The volatility of a game is the balance of small, frequent payouts versus larger, less frequent ones and where on that scale the payouts of the game lie. Low volatility slots tend to pay out small and often, whereas payouts of high volatility games tend to be much more sporadic in both size and frequency. Dazzle Me Megaways has a volatility rating of Medium, which means its payouts fall somewhere in the middle, resulting in a good balance of payouts in terms of both size and frequency. That means this slot is suitable for all types of players, whether you’re looking for a longer gaming session or a shot at bigger wins.

Ready To Be Dazzled Again?

Dazzle Me Megaways is one of the rare games whose roots lie in a previous creation but which still manages to impress, keeping enough of the original to be instantly appealing, while introducing enough ingenuity and novelty to be exciting, fresh, and rewarding.

Though the new iteration dropped the popular Linked Reels feature, it gained a whole lot more in the form of Megaways, an extra reel, Avalanches, and an enhanced free spins feature, resulting in a really enjoyable and rewarding game to play.

Dazzle Me Megaways can be found at many of the top New Jersey online casinos including Golden Nugget, SugarHouse, Unibet Casino and Pala Casino.

Ready to see what those freshly polished gems have in store for you now? Check out our detailed reviews of the online casinos linked above and join the one that best suits you. Claim the site’s welcome bonus for some extra funds to get you started, then open Dazzle Me Megaways and unleash those 99,225 ways to win!