Pragmatic Play · 2021 · tested 2026-09-10
5 Lions Megaways
The 25-spin option stayed fixed throughout our 5 Lions Megaways test, where the longest purchased feature paid less than half as much as the best unretriggered one.
Two retriggers stretched one purchase to 75 spins and USD 384.30, while a 25-spin purchase paid USD 795.40. The complete purchase series finished just USD 125.80 ahead.
measured over 10,000 spins · 50 buys
Is 5 Lions Megaways worth playing?
quick answerThere are seven bonus choices here, and this review measures one of them. We selected 25 starting spins with 2x, 3x and 5x wild multipliers in every natural feature and purchase. The 50 buys returned 101.26%, although 33 failed to recover their USD 200 price. Ordinary play returned 94.84%. Keeping the choice fixed makes those results comparable within this test; it provides no ranking of the other six choices. The footage shows how the selected feature plays, including the final award.
Test card
10,000 spins · USD 2.00 bet · every request logged| Spins | 10,000 |
| Bet | USD 2.00 |
| RTP declared | 96.50% |
| RTP measured | 94.84% (95% CI 78.5–111.2) |
| Hit frequency | 29% · every 3.4 |
| Dead streak max / avg | 23 / 3.4 |
| Median hit | 0.80x |
| Max win (base game) | 450.0x · spin 5742 |
| Free spins, natural | 19 · every 526.3 spins · mean 95.1x |
| Balance start → end | 100,000 → 98,969 |
Play 5 Lions Megaways demo
same math as real play · demo balance
Bonus buy lab
50 buys × 100x · USD 200 eachmean 1.01x · median 0.79x · 33 of 50 below price · best 3.98x · worst 0.18x
| Spins per bonus (avg / min–max) | 28 / 25–75 |
| Retriggered | 10% |
| Bonuses that paid nothing | 0% |
- Spent
- USD 10,00050 × USD 200
- Returned
- USD 10,125.80101.26% · CI95 82–120%
- Net
- +USD 125.80+0.6 buys
- Break-even or better
- 17 / 5034%
- Paid 2× price or more
- 3 / 506%
- Price in base spins
- 100natural trigger every ~526 spins
One buy costs the same as 100 base spins. Natural bonuses arrived once per 526 spins in this run and paid an average of 95.1x the bet; bought bonuses averaged 101x the bet. These are different entry costs, not a prediction of which route will pay more.
Risk profile
how much bankroll this run needed| 50 bets | bust at spin 138 |
| 100 bets | bust at spin 284 |
| 200 bets | bust at spin 436 |
One run, one bet size. A different session can bust earlier or never; treat this as a measured example, not a rule.
How it plays
8 rules screens from the game
Six reels change height from spin to spin, with as many as seven symbols on each and 117,649 possible winning ways. Matching symbols connect across adjacent reels, beginning on the left. They need no fixed line pattern, but a missing match on an intervening reel breaks the combination. After a win, the winning symbols disappear and replacements drop into the gaps. These tumbles continue until the layout has no further win.
The dragon leads the paytable: six matching dragons pay 25x the total stake per way before a wild multiplier. That is USD 50 at our USD 2 stake. Lion wilds land on reels two through five and replace regular symbols. When a wild participates in a winning combination, a random multiplier applies to the winning combinations using wilds. The ordinary-game values are 1x/2x/3x/5x/8x/10x/15x/30x/40x. A tumble can produce another win; this is not a multiplier that automatically increases on every tumble.
Yin-yang bonus symbols can appear on all six reels and remain in place during tumbles. Three or more start the free-spins choice. Three, four, five and six bonus symbols also pay 3x, 5x, 25x and 100x the total stake respectively.
The choice screen offers 25 spins with 2x/3x/5x multipliers; 20 with 3x/5x/8x; 15 with 5x/8x/10x; 13 with 8x/10x/15x; 10 with 10x/15x/30x; and six with 15x/30x/40x. The seventh, mystery choice selects a spin count and multiplier range from the other options. During a feature, three more bonus symbols award the same number of spins as the option originally selected. Our fixed 25-spin choice therefore adds another 25 on a retrigger.
Buying access costs 100x the normal stake, USD 200 in this test, and still leads to the choice screen. The optional Ante Bet raises a USD 2 stake to USD 2.50 and is described in the rules as doubling the chance of a natural feature; it disables purchases. Ante remained off in both statistical series.
The captured English rules state high volatility and 96.50% theoretical RTP for regular play, Ante and purchases. They list USD 0.20–300 as the overall stake range, including the Ante setting. The normal-stake maximum win is 5,000x; any remaining feature spins are cancelled when that limit is paid. Our sample did not reach it.
Megaways
Cascading reels
Wild symbol
Multiplier
Scatter symbol
Free spins
Retrigger
Bonus buy
Extra bet
Bet range 0.20 – 300 per spin · payouts read from the game's paytable at bet 2.00
Gallery
5 frames from the test
Verdict
who it suits, who should skip itPurchase 35 lasted 75 spins. Its two extensions made it the longest bought feature in the sample, yet its USD 384.30 payout was less than half of purchase 2's USD 795.40. That earlier purchase finished after the original 25 spins. More spins supplied more opportunities, but the outcomes of those spins determined the return.
Five of the 50 purchases extended beyond 25 spins. Their payouts ranged from USD 135.10 to USD 432.30, so even an extension could finish below the USD 200 entry price. Across all purchases, the median was USD 158.50. The total paid, USD 10,125.80, exceeded the USD 10,000 spent by only USD 125.80. Three buys returned at least twice their price; none returned five times it.
The largest ordinary-series result arrived without a feature. Round 5742 paid USD 900, or 450x, across two steps. It exceeded even the largest naturally triggered round, number 9455, which paid USD 801.40 including its trigger award and 25 free spins.
Natural features were scarce here: 19 in 10,000 paid spins, all played with the same 25-spin selection. Only round 5454 retriggered, reaching 50 spins and paying USD 98.40 for the complete round. At its deepest drawdown, the balance had fallen 1,414.4 stakes from a previous peak, and the series closed USD 1,031.20 down. A simulated starting budget of 200 stakes ran out at spin 436, long before the eventual USD 900 result.
The useful comparison here is between the recorded outcomes of the 25-spin option. The sample shows its costs, extensions and payouts; it cannot say what would have happened had we selected six spins with the larger multiplier range. That would require its own recorded series. The same limit applies to the narrow purchase profit: it describes these 50 entries, while the stated long-run RTP remains below 100%.
- The selected spin count and multiplier range are explicit in both the test and the captured rules.
- The ordinary series contains a 450x result without a feature, with the complete sequence preserved in the log.
- Thirty-three purchases lost money despite the slightly profitable combined purchase total.
- A retrigger could double the starting spin count and still leave the entry price unrecovered.
- All three budget simulations ended before spin 500, including the largest starting allowance of 200 stakes.
- The first purchase already extended to 50 spins and paid USD 135.10. Purchase 2 then paid USD 795.40 in 25, followed by the smallest return, USD 36.90, in purchase 3.
- A 23-spin blank run stretched from 2649 to 2671. Only four entirely blank runs reached 20 spins, even though the cumulative balance decline was much larger than any one of those gaps.
- Nineteen natural features and 50 purchases produced 69 recorded selections of the first lion. None of the statistical results mix in a different choice or the mystery option.
Method & data
open data · closed rig10000 base-game spins at a fixed USD 2.0 bet; 50 bonus buys at 200.0 each (100.0x) on the official Pragmatic Play demo server (jurisdiction 99, RTP profile 96.5%); every request and response logged; test run 2026-09-10.
The test rig recorded every round on the official demo server. Screenshots and video were captured in a separate browser session and are not part of the statistical samples. This release has completed automated data, content and page checks; human editorial review is pending. How we test →
| 2026-09-10 | 10,000 spins · RTP 94.8% |
FAQ
4 questions · answered from the logWhich lion did this review test?
Every statistical feature used the first choice: 25 starting free spins and wild multipliers of 2x, 3x or 5x. That covers 19 natural features and 50 purchases. The other five fixed choices and the mystery choice are explained from the rules, but have no separate measured return in this review.
Does a longer feature necessarily return more?
No. Purchase 35 retriggered twice, lasted 75 spins and paid USD 384.30. The largest purchase payout, USD 795.40, came from number 2 and its original 25 spins. Both began with the same option and cost USD 200.
How much did the bonus buys actually earn?
The 50 purchases cost USD 10,000 and paid USD 10,125.80, leaving USD 125.80 above their combined price. That is a 101.26% measured return. The median payout was USD 158.50 and 33 purchases failed to recover their individual USD 200 cost; the overall profit does not describe a typical purchase.
Did free spins contribute to the recorded 450x hit?
The USD 900 result on ordinary-series round 5742 had no free-spins feature. At a USD 2 stake it equals 450x. The largest complete round with a natural feature was number 9455 at USD 801.40, or 400.7x. Both remain below the tested rules' 5,000x cap.
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Field notes
0 notes