Megaways Casinos & Big Time Gaming Slots UK

Most software studios are known for a list of games. Big Time Gaming is known for one idea. The Sydney studio invented Megaways — the mechanic that reshuffles a slot's reel layout on every spin — and its influence on the last decade of slot design is out of all proportion to the size of its own catalogue, which is slots only and has never included a table or live game. Everything below is about that one idea: what it does to a spin, which of BTG's own games are worth your attention, and why "Megaways casino" has come to mean something broader than "Big Time Gaming casino".

How Megaways works

On a conventional slot the grid is fixed: five reels, three symbols each, the same paylines every spin. A Megaways game redraws that grid constantly. Each of its six reels lands between two and seven symbols tall, and the number of winning ways is the product of those heights — so one spin might give you a few hundred ways and the next the full 117,649 that a maxed-out layout produces. The counter above the reels tells you what the current spin is worth in ways, and adjacent-reel matches pay wherever the symbols sit.

That counter is also the mechanic's most misread number. A spin offering 117,649 ways costs the same as one offering 324, and over time it gives back the same share of what you stake — the layout decides what a win can look like on that spin, while the game's long-run return is set in its maths model and sits still however the reels resize. Where the design genuinely differs from an ordinary slot is volatility: Megaways maths concentrates value into occasional chained wins, so the routine experience between those moments is losing spins. Budget for the drought, not the highlight.

Bonanza and the studio's other games

• Bonanza — the mining-themed game, released in 2016, that turned Megaways from one studio's invention into an industry phenomenon. Its bonus round is the template the industry copied: chained "reaction" wins feed a multiplier that keeps climbing with no cap, which is where the game's reputation for rare but dramatic results comes from.
• Extra Chilli — the chilli-market follow-up to Bonanza, keeping the six-reel Megaways engine and the uncapped bonus multiplier under a different theme.
• Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Megaways — licensed quiz-show IP on the same engine, with a bonus built as a gamble ladder echoing the show's money tree: each rung risks what you hold for a bigger spins package.

All three predate the Evolution deal, and a decade after Bonanza's release they remain some of the most widely stocked slots in the UK.

Why Megaways casinos outnumber Big Time Gaming casinos

Search for "Megaways casinos" and you'll find far more games than BTG has ever released, because the studio runs the mechanic as a licensing business. Other suppliers pay to build Megaways versions of their own titles — Microgaming uses it on selected games, and NextGen's Medusa got the treatment under its parent group. The Megaways logo on a thumbnail therefore tells you which mechanic is inside, not who built the game. Nearly every large UK lobby now keeps a shelf of these titles from a dozen different studios, with BTG's originals somewhere among them.

That spread is also why this page's casino list is longer than the studio's size might suggest. BTG sells its games individually to operators, and the mechanic's popularity has made them a standard fixture in multi-provider UK lobbies. Those same lobbies cover the table side through other suppliers — NetEnt, Novomatic and iSoftBet among them — so BTG's slots-only catalogue doesn't leave a gap at the roulette and blackjack end.

Bonuses and Megaways: an awkward pairing

Wagering requirements and high-volatility games mix badly. Clearing wagering means putting the bonus through the reels many times over, and a design that pays in rare lumps can empty the balance well before the requirement is met. Some offers also exclude specific titles from counting towards wagering, so if the plan is to work a bonus off on Bonanza, check the eligible-games list before accepting it. A modest offer you can actually complete beats a headline figure you can't. And the quicker check comes before any of that: Big Time Gaming's involvement ends at the game files. Who holds your money, and under which licence, is decided by the casino — a minute on the UKGC public register confirms both before you deposit anything.

The company behind the mechanic

Big Time Gaming was founded in Sydney in 2011, but its founder's track record starts much earlier. Nik Robinson set up New Tech Media back in 1996, an early developer of browser-based real-money betting, and sold it to News Corp, where it was folded into OpenBet; BTG was his return to building games. For its first stretch it was a small independent releasing slots into a crowded market; Megaways changed its weight class, first through Bonanza's success and then through the licence income as other studios adopted the mechanic. In 2021 Evolution bought the company, adding it to a stable that already held NetEnt and Red Tiger — three slot studios under the live-casino group's roof, each still releasing under its own name.

The studio's games are accredited in the jurisdictions where they're sold — the UK, Malta, Gibraltar and British Columbia in Canada among them — and it has been acknowledged by the Responsible Gambling Trust for its backing of safer-gambling work.

Big Time Gaming: Company information

• Company: Big Time Gaming Pty Ltd — part of the Evolution group since 2021
• Registered office: Sydney, Australia
• Founded: 2011, led by Nik Robinson
• Known for: inventing the Megaways mechanic and licensing it across the industry; Bonanza, Extra Chilli, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Megaways
• Catalogue: slots, plus the licence business built around Megaways
• Accredited in: the UK, Malta, Gibraltar and British Columbia (Canada), among other regulated markets
• Acknowledgements: Responsible Gambling Trust
• Website: www.bigtimegaming.com

Our view

Few studios of any size have changed slot design the way this one did, and the proof is in every UK lobby's shelf of Megaways games carrying other suppliers' names. Judge the individual games with clear eyes, though: the mechanic is built for spectacle, its volatility is the price of that spectacle, and a spin showing 117,649 ways is no closer to paying than one showing 324. Bonanza earns its decade of shelf space regardless — a well-made, swingy game, best played from a UKGC-licensed account whose bonus terms you've already read.

18+. The volatility that makes these games watchable also makes them expensive to chase; decide in advance what a session is allowed to cost, and use the casino's deposit-limit tool to hold yourself to the figure. Free, confidential support is available from BeGambleAware and GamCare, and GamStop runs the national self-exclusion scheme — one registration covers every online gambling site licensed in Great Britain.