Theme & Design

This is a great-looking slot, one Relax have clearly invested time and money into building. It is very obviously based on F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a story set in the art deco and jazz age of the 1930s, and a comment on chasing wealth and dreams. In this version, in place of the hero Gatsby, is our new hero Pigsby, beverage in hand, much like Leonardo di Caprio in the movie version of the book.

An expanding 6 reel grid sits forefront with a huge mansion in the background in which a decadent party is no-doubt taking place. When you trigger the free spins round you are taken inside to find out for yourself. What’s fun is that there are lots of nice details that reveal themselves only as you play the game. Premium symbols have little animations that play when they form part of a win: glasses chink and gramophones whirl. And a piggy bank atop the reels fills with wild tokens then explodes when full. Thereafter it snoozes until it’s next filled.

It’s all splendid stuff.

RTP and Variance

The Great Pigsby Megapays has a fixed RTP of 96.19%. As this is a progressive, that return is split where 86.75% pays out in the main game and 9.44% is paid out as the jackpots. Keep this in mind because whilst 96.19% is a good RTP, it may not feel that way because prize money is being held back for the big Megapays pay days.

This is also a very high variance game so it can be an unpredictable beast but it certainly has the ability to push out some big wins, aside from the Megapays, particularly in its bonus round where symbol upgrades, extra spins and wild multipliers all interact.

Maximum Win

The maximum win in the standard game for The Great Pigsby Megapays is 20,000x. That is very good, though of course its dwarfed by the biggest Megapays jackpot that regularly exceeds the million mark. Of course, Relax Gaming are known for slots with high maximum wins. We’ve listed a few in the table below.

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Symbols and Paytable

The Megaways™ engine which drives the reels in The Great Pigsby will be familiar to most. On each of 6 reels anywhere between 2 and 7 rows will be displayed on each spin. Wins are triggered by landing 3 or more identical symbols on adjacent reels starting from the left-most reel, regardless of which row the symbols are on.

That gives you up to 117,649 paylines on any given spin when all 6 reels display 7 rows. The number of paylines in play on each spin is displayed under the logo to the left of the reels.

You can see from the paytable that symbol values are not particularly high. The low paying symbols are the cards, 10 through to Ace, and their values are all 0.1x for 3 up to 0.4x for 6. Even the mid-range symbols mostly return less than your stake. A cigar and brandy glass gives 0.5x for 6 on a line, a gramophone gives you 0.8x for 6 on a line, and the headband gives you 1x for 6 on a line.

So it’s left to Ms Pigsby and Pigby himself to hold up the rest. But they only deliver 2x and 3x respectively for 6 on a line.

HINT: Whilst symbol values are very low suggesting most paylines won’t even return your stake, keep in mind that there are many, many more ways to win in Megaways compared to most slots. And some useful modifiers go a long way to boosting your wins too.

Outside the main group of pay symbols is the Wild. It doesn’t have its own value, but it contributes in other ways and proved key to securing wins in our session. As usual it subs for other symbols to complete win lines. But also, it expands every time to fill the entire reel and takes on a multiplier value that also equates to how many wilds it represents. This is important because these wilds are like tokens collected in the piggy bank for later use.

Features and Gameplay

The Great Pigsby Megapays is a lot of fun to play. Just like the lively jazz soundtrack it chunters along at quite a pace with plenty of events triggering on the reels. It helps that it’s a Megaways game of course so the reel-row ratio is always changing and wins seemed to trigger every 5 or 6 spins.

After a few plays it becomes clear you want the Wild to drop as much as possible. Not just to complete more lines but also to add to the piggy bank at the top of the reels. A number of Wilds equivalent to its multiplier value are added to the bank. The more you add, the fatter the pig gets, until it bursts and releases a feature.

One thing that is slightly annoying is that the number of wilds required to unlock each feature is not made clear. In fact, its random. So, you won’t know for sure what’s coming. But equally, that’s part of the fun – and experience shows that the more you collect, and the bigger the pig, the more likely the free spins are to trigger.

The first feature is a simple Re-Spins where 3 to 9 extra top value Pigsbys are added to the reels before the spin. You can see how this brought up a 72x win in our session in the shot below. Pigsby toasting the payout from all over the reels.

The second feature is Wild Reels where your piggy bank turns between 2 and 5 reels fully wild for a re-spin.

And the third feature is Free Spins. This proved the best and most generous one in our session, starting with 10 spins but progressing to 16 thanks to three extra scatters that landed during the round adding 2 more spins each. Every new scatter also turned one low pay symbol into a premium. This is displayed on a board at the top of the reels. You can see here how 10, Jack and Queen became a Ms Pigsby, Cigar and Brandy Glasses respectively. The total win was 27.5x from this round but of course, with better upgrades and more spins added, this could progress much, much higher.

The Megapays Jackpot itself can trigger at any time during the base game or free spins, and unlike some other progressives its not fussy about how much you stake. Whatever your bet, you are eligible, though higher stakes give you more chance of triggering the JPs apparently.

One way to watch if the feature is about to unlock is to keep watching the letters in the word ‘Megapays’ in the logo. Some turn pink on every spin. When all are pink, the feature starts.

The game has two stages – first, your Megapays™ symbol is chosen from the low payers. This is revealed in one spin, center screen. Next, a series of spins take place. For each one, if a Megapays™ symbol lands, then it is collected in the meter under the reels. If no Megapays™ symbol lands, then the round ends. You must have AT LEAST FOUR Megapays™ symbols in the meter when the round ends to hook one of the JPs as follows:

• Mini Jackpot (from £100) – 4 to 7 symbols in meter
• Midi Jackpot (from £1,500) – 8 to 11 symbols in meter
• Major Jackpot (from £20,000) – 12 to 14 symbols in meter
• Mega Jackpot (from £300,000) – 15+ symbols in meter

NOTE: There is no guarantee of winning a prize – you may land less than 4 symbols!

The Final Verdict

In its own right, before we even get to the jackpot, The Great Pigsby Megapays is a great slot.  The design is brilliantly executed with a sumptuous backdrop and reel set. We don’t need to say more about that. The best part is that we could enjoy this game without feeling like we were only there to chase down the jackpot prizes. There is enough action from three features and the Megaways engine to keep you entertained and it never felt like it took too long to break open the piggy bank and unlock another feature. The most exciting was the free spins round but you can earn some decent wins from wild reels or a good Pigsby re-spin as we did as well.

Add on the Megapays jackpots and this game gives you everything you could want from a good progressive slot.