How to play the Atlantean Treasures: Mega Moolah slot

There's a new kid on the block when it comes to Microgaming progressive jackpot slot games and it is fair to say this new arrival has gone down a storm, or perhaps that should be a storm at sea, because the aquatic-themed Atlantean Treasures slot has proven to be immensely popular since its release at the start of 2020.

Given its huge popularity, one of the most pressing questions people want to know, is what makes the Atlantean Treasures slot so popular? Well to discover that, we need to first discover exactly how this slot, which is very different to other Mega Moolah-powered offerings, is put together and therein will lie the secret of this game's huge popularity.

How is Atlantean Treasures set up?

The first thing to note is that Atlantean Treasures is a slot game that is set up very differently to other slots linked to the Mega Moolah jackpot. The original Mega Moolah, and the Casino Rewards exclusive game Mega Vault Millionaire are both 25-pay line slots that feature standard Wild symbols, a Free Spins bonus round and also a chance to win the Mega Jackpot by triggering a bonus game.

Atlantean Treasures goes along a completely different tack. In this slot, you have just 10 pay lines in play and they cannot be selected. This means that the minimum bet on this slot is also smaller than on the other two games, with bets starting at just 0.10 per spin (as opposed to the minimum bet of 0.25 per spin on both other games).

However, one of the first big differences between the slots and part of what adds to Atlantean Treasures appeal, is the fact that on those 10 lines, you can win both ways across the reels. This, in effect, doubles your chances to win on any spin, as unlike the other slots, if you don't hit a winning combination across the first three reels, your spin isn't dead in the water, as you can land a win by landing corresponding symbols on the fourth and fifth reel to land a win from right to left.

Now the more astute of you will have thought "10 pay lines, win both ways across the reels, sounds familiar" and indeed it is. A couple of recent Microgaming releases, Aurora Wilds and Banana Odyssey both also use a very similar set up.

The similarities between those slots and Atlantean Treasures don't stop there though. As in the other games, Atlantean Treasures also features Expanding Wild symbols, the purple haired mermaid symbol, which also appears on the middle three reels and which, whenever landed, will expand to cover the entire reel, as well as triggering one free re-spin of the remaining reels with the Wild symbol locked in place.

You can trigger additional re-spins after that original spin by landing another Expanding Wild on another reel, which will lock both Wilds in place for the next spin and if you can land the third Wild on the other reel during that final re-spin, you will trigger one additional re-spin with all three middle reels Wild, which can lead to some very sizeable wins.

It is this relatively frequently triggered bonus that more than makes up for the lack of Free Spins bonus on the Atlantean Treasures slot. Indeed, conventional wisdom stated that these types of games should not be the most popular with players due to the lack of Free Spins, however this Expanding Wilds & Free Respin combination does seem to have huge appeal to slot players.

What makes Atlantean Treasures so special though is that it has married this ultra-absorbing game play of this particular type of slot, together with the nice mix of payouts that can be landed in this type of game, with one of the most famous and certainly highest paying progressive jackpot slot jackpots in the world, Mega Moolah.

The final piece of genius - Adding the Mega Moolah Progressive

It was already well-established that these particular types of slots were proving very popular with fans, and so too are the progressive jackpot game, particularly Mega Moolah and the latest game in that list, so what Microgaming have done is pair both together into a single slot. A simple strategy, but one that has proven to be massively popular.

With the Atlantean Treasures slot, you trigger the Jackpot Bonus game in a slightly different way to on the Mega Moolah or Mega Vault Millionaire games. With this slot offering spins from just 0.10 per spin, and the same rule about the size of your bet giving you more chance of triggering the jackpot game the more you bet, something needed to be slightly different to the triggering method in Atlantean Treasures.

What they have come up with as a Progressive Trigger Symbol, which is a small golden pearl. Now, this symbol doesn't sit on the reel as a standard symbol, but instead is overlaid on any of the standard symbols in the game on each spin. To give yourself a chance of landing a shot at the Jackpot Bonus Game, you need to collect as many of these Progressive Trigger Symbols as you can on the reels, and of course, the more you bet on each spin also increases your chances too.

When you do trigger the Jackpot Bonus Game, then you are met with a familiar sight in the shape of a Wheel. This wheel is very similar to the one you would spin when triggering the bonus game in the original Mega Moolah. There are a number of segments on the reel, each one of four different colours and each colour corresponds to one of the four Mega Moolah jackpot prizes available.

Of course, the wheel is purely representative of the complex and random mathematics in play that decide the outcome of a jackpot spin, but it is clear from the wheel that your chances of landing the smaller Mini and Minor prizes are far greater than landing the much larger Major and Mega prizes. Once the wheel is spun, whatever colour sector the pointer lands on for the spin, is the prize you win.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

What makes Atlantean Treasures: Mega Moolah so popular is not just the fact that its base game is based on some of the most popular slots ever made and then you add on to that a massive potential progressive jackpot prize, but also that the slot game is so easy to understand.

Atlantean Treasures is a real, pick up and spin slot that even if you are relatively new to slot games, you can understand what is happening within just a couple of spins of the game. Add to this truly enjoyable game play, a great range of wins in the base game and that massive progressive prize and it is easy to see why it is a winner!

Indeed, in an article a couple of years ago, I did speculate whether anybody would be imaginative enough to put together the popular game-play of an Aurora Wilds type slot, with a massive progressive jackpot prize as it seemed likely to be a smash hit success.

Well Microgaming have done precisely that and on first impressions, it has proven to be an even bigger hit than I imagined.

You can play the Atlantean Treasures slot at any of the Mega Moolah casinos and try to win the Mega Jackpot!