Here's why the classic Mega Moolah slot transcends time

Play an excerpt from a Beatles song and many people will immediately be able to recognise who created the song, played it and made it a hit. They may well even be able to sing along and name the track itself. Do the same for a song by The Doobie Brothers, and while they are still a popular band, they haven't quite transcended music as The Beatles or someone like Elvis Presley has.

The same can be said in any form of art or entertainment. There are thousands and thousands of films that have been made over the years, but few ever achieve the status of a true classic. For every Gone With the Wind, The Third Man, Metropolis, Blade Runner, or Star Wars, there are a litany of films that just didn't cut the mustard, for whatever reason. You can say the same for art, sculpture, architecture or indeed anything we ascribe an intrinsic value or meaning to.

In the modern digital age, the same can also be said for the humblest of entertainments, slot games. When Charles Fey made the Liberty Bell slot, the first slot of its ilk, back at the turn of the 20^th century, few would have guessed as to just how popular they would become, spawning countless variations over the years and growing in popularity and complexity as technology developed, especially over the latter stages of the 20^th century.

In the 21^st century, we moved into the digital age and a new age of slot gaming was born. Online slots offered companies more flexibility than ever when it came to designing their games and as such, many new types of slot games were devised. One of these was the Progressive Jackpot slot. Previously only available in linked real-world casino games (and very few at that), these games found a thriving environment online and proved to be a smash hit success.

One game that has probably done more to further the cause of progressive jackpot games more than any other is the Mega Moolah slot. The slot has paid out many millionaire winners, including a Guinness World Record and the biggest ever numeric value prize of over CA$20 million.

When the game was released, the fact that its top Mega jackpot prize (which gives the slot its name) would be seeded at £1 million, was huge news. Very few slot games offered a prize anywhere near that potential winning amount.

However, there is a lot more to Mega Moolah's continued success than simply its progressive jackpot and its minimum value. So in this article, we are asking what makes the classic Mega Moolah slot remain so popular with slot players? Why has it remained one of the most popularly played games month after month and year after year, and only seems to be getting more popular?

Million pounds+ Mega Jackpot

It is fair to say that the initial impact of Mega Moolah was based largely on the size of its progressive jackpot. The game, a 25 pay line, 5x3 reel slot had a number of other features, including the Lion Wild (which was key to landing the base game jackpot of 75,000 coins, or the Free Spins jackpot of 225,000 coins) and the jackpot amounts it could create in the base game and Free Spins were also a very attractive option for players.

After all, if you played the minimum bet amount of 0.25 per spin, then this would still equate to a win of £2,250 and of course, if you scaled up your bet, then the value of the top prize on the standard Mega Moolah slot would increase in proportion.

So while a high value base game and Free Spins prize played a role, there is no doubt that that paled when compared to the importance of the progressive jackpot available on the slot.

Mega Moolah was unusual in that it offered four progressive jackpot prizes. The Mini, which sees prizes of around £10 awarded very often (hundreds of times a day), Minor (which sees prizes of around £100 awarded tens of times a day), Major (which sees prize of tens of thousands awarded usually every few days) and lastly the Mega jackpot (which has been won four times this year).

Obviously, it was the Major and in particular, the Mega Jackpot that attracted most attention but it was not solely their potential value that was attractive. The fact you could spin for a minimum of 0.25 and be guaranteed that spin could be a winner was also very exciting for players as any spin, anywhere in the world, at any time, in any place by any player, could potentially be the winner.

Now all this explains why Mega Moolah grew from a new release, into a slots behemoth over the first few years, especially when those first big money winners started to land in the five years after the slot was released, but by this point, other progressive jackpot games had been released, but none really caught the attention of the world quite the way that the Mega Moolah slot did.

So just what was it about Mega Moolah that has helped it enjoy such longevity.

Well, for me there are a number of factors here to consider, some entirely a matter of strategy from the game designers, Microgaming, and others just a matter of good fortune and a good example of the latter is in the first of the key factors.

Key factors in Mega Moolah's enduring success

• An increase in the number of winners

The actual chances of winning the Mega Moolah jackpot are a closely guarded secret by Microgaming, but what we have seen over the years since the game's first release, is that the number of winners has increased in general.

Over the first few years of operation, Mega Moolah tended to pay out between one and four winners over the years. However, by 2014, that was starting to change, with six winners landed in that year alone.

There were fewer winners in 2015 and 2016 once again (two and four respectively) but by then the cumulative effect of these big money winners had really started to take hold and now, many more people were playing many more spins on the slot, which by the law of averages means, there are likely to be more jackpot winners.

2017 was a perfect illustration of that with 13 jackpot winners in that year alone, we then saw seven more in 2018 and then a dozen landed in 2019. Already in 2020, we have had four winners, three coming in the month of May alone.

There's nothing more likely to make a progressive slot appealing to players than seeing regular big money winners and over the years, Mega Moolah has done that better than any other game.

• An increase in the value of wins

One of the examples of where luck has played a key role in keeping the Mega Moolah slot at the forefront of players mind has been when it comes to the value of wins and in the early days there were a couple of big money wins that really enhanced the reputation of the slot.

Klaus E's $5.5 million win, and Georgios M's €6.3 million win, followed by John Orchard's £5.8 million win in December 2012 were the first really big money wins that caught attention. Then three years later, another UK player landed a massive win, and a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, when Jon Heywood landed a £13.2 million prize. At the time, this was the largest ever cash prize awarded by an online slot in history.

In addition, it was the first 10 million plus Mega Moolah jackpot and had broken through that mark.

Since then we have seen a steady increase in the number of 10 million plus wins (nine in total so far) and one of those has even crept over the 20 million mark. With the jackpot currently now at 13.9 million and counting, the next time it triggers, will be the tenth 10 million plus win in the game's history.

This gives slot players a double whammy of confidence, not only do they see more wins on the slot, they also see the value of those wins increasing and while, of course, there is no guarantee that any jackpot will grow beyond 20, 15, 10 or even 5 million (the jackpot can be won at any time, on any spin, regardless of how much is in the prize pool) just seeing that data gives players confidence that the jackpot can and will be won.

• Key additions to the classic Mega Moolah slot at key times

The other thing that Microgaming have done superbly well is enhance Mega Moolah's appeal by offering new games to play that also offer a chance at the jackpot prize. After the original Mega Moolah was released, Microgaming a short time later released three other games, Mega Moolah Isis, Mega Moolah Summertime and Mega Moolah 5-Reel Drive, all of which offered a different type of game-play to the original Mega Moolah, but the same chance of triggering the jackpot bonus game.

There then followed a couple of now unavailable film tie in slots that were also linked to the Mega Moolah progressive, Lord of the Rings and then The Dark Knight.

Then over the last 12 months or so, the filed has been increased once again with the release of the Casino Rewards Network exclusive slot Mega Vault Millionaire and then two other new Mega Moolah linked games, Atlantean Treasures and Absolootly Mad.

These games all offer a very different way to play for the jackpot prize. Atlantean Treasures is a 10 pay-line, win both ways slot, whereas Absolootly Mad is a 20-pay line, Rolling Reels slot that has 243 Ways to Win across the reels.

By injecting fresh momentum into the Mega Moolah brand with these key releases, Microgaming has kept the jackpot game fresh and in addition to the new games proving popular, this has also inspired a new generation of players to try their hand at the original game too.

So as you can see, it is a number of factors that have combined to keep the Mega Moolah slot at the top of the progressive jackpot tree for years to come!