Bandit Megaways: Slot Overview

Bandits outside of fiction are hardly charming, preying on the weak and making off with their cash and valuables. But in the Wild Wild West — or at least the online slot world’s take on it — things are usually glamorised (unless you’re Nolimit City), and bandits are no exception. That brings us to Pragmatic Play’s Western slot Bandit Megaways, which not only dishes up a warmed-over Megaways-style spin on its blockbuster Gates of Olympus, but does it alongside a tall, dark, moody outlaw and his crew.

And just as Pragmatic Play hasn’t gone digging for unfamiliar mechanics, it also sticks to the familiar on the visual side. Expect a dusty, middle-of-nowhere wooden shanty town where tumbleweeds routinely roll by. The free spins action shifts into the saloon, and while Bandit Megaways looks perfectly fine, it doesn’t really push into anything especially distinctive either.

The Bandit Megaways play area consists of 6 vertically spinning reels plus a 4-cell horizontally tracking reel positioned above the middle four reels. Counting both sections of the grid, up to 7 symbols can land in each column, creating up to 117,649 ways to win. In other words, it’s classic Megaways setup. The maximum RTP is comfortably strong at 96.55% when staking 20 c to $/€240 per spin, or 96.54% when purchasing either feature. Either way, this is a highly volatile slot.

Wins pay left to right, and there are 11 regular symbols on the reels: 10-A card royals as low pays and 6 character symbols as high pays. Landing 6-of-a-kind royals returns 0.5-0.8 times the bet, while 6 OAK high-pay hits deliver 1 to 7.5 times the bet. There are no wilds in Bandit Megaways, but it does include a tumble feature. The tumble mechanic removes winning symbols once they’ve paid and drops new ones into the gaps. Tumbles keep rolling until no further winning combinations are formed.

Bandit Megaways: Slot Features

Bandit Megaways places multiplier symbols on the reels to boost wins in both the base game and the bonus. In the bonus round, though, those multipliers can also build up into a persistent global multiplier.

Multiplier Feature

The multiplier symbol can appear on spins or tumbles in the base game and in free spins. When it lands, it carries a value of x2 to x500 and stays put until the tumble chain finishes. Once tumbles stop, the values of every visible multiplier symbol are totalled, and the entire sequence win is multiplied by the total multiplier value.

Free Spins

Landing 4, 5, or 6 scatters activates the free spins feature and awards 15, 20, or 25 free spins, respectively. In free spins, when a multiplier symbol lands and the spin results in a win, that multiplier amount is added to a global total multiplier. For the rest of the feature, whenever another multiplier lands and the spin wins, the total multiplier value is used to multiply the win. Hitting 3 to 6 scatters during the bonus adds an extra 15 to 30 free spins.

Feature Buy

Bandit Megaways includes two feature buy options. One costs 100x the bet and starts free spins with 4, 5, or 6 scatter symbols. The other costs 500x the bet; again, 4-6 scatters trigger the round, but during it x10 becomes the minimum possible value for a multiplier symbol.

Bandit Megaways: Slot Verdict

When Pragmatic Play releases games at the pace it does, overlap is almost inevitable, and if you’ve spent time with Gates of Olympus (as many players have), the similarities to Bandit Megaways are obvious. Of course, this isn’t a scatter paying slot; instead, it runs on a Megaways framework. That alone helps justify why Bandit Megaways exists. With scatter paying titles seemingly gaining ground, it can sometimes feel like Big Time Gaming’s engine is being nudged aside, yet Megaways still carries plenty of weight — and it pairs extremely well with the multiplier setup used here.

As in Gates of Olympus, the multiplier symbol can land at any point, but it really comes alive in free spins thanks to the global total multiplier. The overall rhythm is familiar too: multipliers can tease you by appearing without a win, meaning they end up wasted, and the global multiplier can also sit idle when it isn’t being applied because no multiplier symbols show up. On the flip side, things can swing the other way, and tumble wins can generate that satisfying tension as a strong total builds while multiplier symbols drop in at the same time. It’s a straightforward but lively feature mix that has kept plenty of online slot fans entertained from Gates of Olympus onward.

It’s not all positive, though. One potential sticking point is the 5,000x win cap, which feels a touch underwhelming for a Megaways slot. Even so, despite the plain name, familiar visuals, and recycled core idea, Bandit Megaways uses this feature combo well enough to deliver another serving of Western-flavoured fun.