Spin and Score Megaways

Theme and Design

For Spin and Score Pragmatic Play have created a very generic football stadium design that wouldn’t look out of place on a world cup scratchcard. The backdrop is a two-tier arena with excited crowd, twinkling floodlights and a lush green grass pitch. On the reels themselves a gaggle of modern footballers with slick hair and serious expressions stare out at you. They show their tricks in a short animation if they form part of a win which is fun to watch. Meanwhile, an upbeat dance track plays along in the background as you spin.

It’s a little too by the numbers for our tastes, but it’s popular design style means Spin and Score will have a wide appeal which is no doubt the intention.

RTP and Variance

Spin and Score Megaways slot has two RTP settings: 96.97% or 95.81%. Which you play at is at the discretion of your casino. We checked four UK slot sites to verify the RTP setting they were using. This is what we found:

• BacanaPlay (Skill on Net): 94.59%
• Casumo (independent): 94.59%
• MrQ (independent): 96.55%
• PlayGrand (White Hat Gaming): 94.59%
• Spin Rio (Aspire Global): 94.59%

Only MrQ runs Spin and Score at its optimum RTP level. If RTP levels are important to you then we recommend that you play there. This is an above average RTP.  Pragmatic Play slots usually come in with a max RTP of around 96.5%. Other games from this provider with a good RTP include Cash Elevator (96.64%) or Wild Booster (96.67%).

The volatility of Spin and Score Megaways is high at 5/5. This is similar to other games from this provider like The Dog House Multihold or Towering Fortune.

Maximum Win

The maximum win in Hold and Score Megaways is 5,000x. That is not very good for a high variance slot. However, it is not uncommon for Pragmatic Play games which regularly come in at this level. For better potential you could try Eye of the Storm or Gates of Valhalla, both of which have a 10,000x maximum win.

Symbols and Paytable

Pragmatic Play have not deviated in any way from the standard Megaways format in this game. The game takes place on a Megaways set up of six reels with up to seven rows each, with an additional 4x1 reel above the main set which adds an extra row to those reels AND introduces a Big Wild feature that we will come to in a moment.

On each spin the number or rows per reel changes on random and with payouts for 3 or more identical symbols from left to right on adjacent reels regardless of position, this gives up to 117,649 paylines when all six reels display 7 rows (7x7x7x7x7x7).

The paytable shows some good value at the top end of the range. The low-paying symbols are 9 to A, which can pay between 0.1x to 1.5x depending on how many you land in a winning sequence. But footballers who represent the high-paying symbols in different coloured jersey offer much more and they can pay between 1.5x and 20x for six on a line.

There are also two types of wilds that can help drive wins and a scatter that launches the free spins round. None of this have a cash value.

Features and Gameplay

If you’ve played other Megaways games, and let’s face it, we all have by now, then you’ll be familiar with much of what happens in Spin and Score. There are tumbling wins and free spins with progressive multipliers. And to keep things interesting, a new feature called Big Wild.

To begin, and for those who don’t know, Tumbling Wins works as follows: after any win, the winning symbols are removed and new ones drop in to replace them. If new win lines are formed, the process repeats, until no further wins occur. This gives you the chance to score multiple wins from one spin. And just like in Bonanza, the Megaways game that kicked things off, in the free spins round the Tumbles come with a Progressive Multiplier that starts at 1x and increases by 1x with each new Tumble. And just like other Megaways games that multiplier DOES NOT re-set between spins in the round.

And so to the extra feature Pragmatic Play have added to this game. On the extra reel that sits above reels 2, 3, 4 and 5 you will sometimes see a Goalkeeper in mid dive stretching out over 2 reels. When he does, and if he is ENTIRELY visible, then you he will turn the two reels he lands over FULLY WILD.  And, if he is still fully visible after the next tumble and appearing above two different reels, then they two will turn wild.

This is a nice add-on though to be honest it NEVER appeared in our testing period of around 150 spins! Maybe not our lucky day, but still, it could prove to be an elusive feature, and does not appear to add much to the overall experience.

The main event, as always with Megaways, is the Free Spins round. The big news here is that you get many more spins than you do in other Megaways games. Up to 30 from 9 scatters in fact. This is what you get:

• 4 scatter symbols get you 10 free spins
• 5 scatter symbols get you 15 free spins
• 6 scatter symbols get you 18 free spins
• 7 scatter symbols get you 22 free spins
• 8 scatter symbols get you 26 free spins
• 9 scatter symbols get you 30 free spins

If you land 4, 5 or 6 scatters then you will also get the opportunity to gamble for more spins. It’s a simple Win / Lose on the spin of a wheel to earn an extra 4 spins. But keep in mind that if you lose, you lose ALL your spins.

And finally, you can also earn an extra 4 free spins by landing 3 more scatters.

We unlocked free spins just once during testing. That gave us 10 free spins from 4 scatters and we elected NOT to gamble to make sure we could experience the round. In the end we scored a £2.85 win from a 20p stake. It gave us a chance to see the progressive multiplier in action which reached 6x by the end of the round. This is very much by the number Megaways, the same experience as you get many, many other games on this engine.  It does, however, kick off (literally) with a cool animation of a player making a leaping volley, which was satisfying!