Whilst known for the quality of its gameplay, Bonanza is in fact a pretty simple slot and once you’ve played in a few times, like us you will become very familiar with the patterns of spins, avalanches, the rare bonus round triggers and the adrenaline rush of those progressive multipliers. It’s not as feature packed as some of the more recent high variance game rolled out by rivals like No Limit City, but it doesn’t need to be. It does enough with what it’s got.
Now, here is how those features work.
Megaways™
This slot is played with the Megaways mechanic, which pushes the paylines up to a potential 117,649, giving an enormous number of ways to win. Bonanza was one of the first slots to use this mechanic, making it an innovative leader in the slot world.
Why 117,649? There are 6 reels, each potentially containing up to 7 rows of symbols. As wins are created by landing identical symbols ANYWHERE on adjacent reels, regardless of position so the win ways is simply calculated as 7x7x7x7x7x7.
Tumbling or Avalanche Reels
The Megaways feature combines with the Tumbling Reels to create monster payout opportunities. Whenever you hit a winning combination, all winning symbols disappear to be replaced by new ones – and new chances to win. These Reactions keep on going until no new wins appear, allowing you to enjoy many payouts from one single spin.
Free Spins
If you manage to land all the letters to spell out G O L D using the scatters in the main game, you’ll trigger the Free Spins round. This awards 12 Free Spins initially with 5 extra Free Spins awarded for every additional Scatter that lands on the triggering spin. You will get another 5 Free Spins if you hit 3 more Scatters during the round.
And there is no limit on how many more spins you can add.
The key here is that a Progressive Multiplier is in play during the Free Spins round with every spin starting with a 1x Multiplier. When an Avalanche sequence starts, so the multiplier increases by 1x with each Cascade.
Now the important point is that there is no re-set between avalanches. So, if your multiplier increases up to 5x from a sequence on your first spin, then that 5x is carried over to your next free spin. That means your multiplier can reach huge heights and boost your win total more and more.
This all adds up to being a classic high-risk feature to really get the blood pumping. BTG’s execution here is awesome and as fans of the genre will know, it kick started a revolution in high risk variance slots with variations on this mechanic appearing in games across the board from No Limit’s infamous San Quentin xWays to slots like Money Train from Relax Gaming.
