Scroll through any pokies lobby and you’ll see the same labels again and again: Megaways, Hold & Win, Bonus Buy, cascading reels, multipliers. They’re not just marketing. Each one changes how a game pays, how often things happen and how much risk you’re taking on each spin. Here’s what the most common pokie features actually do, so you know what you’re choosing before you press spin.
Megaways
Megaways is a reel mechanic created by game studio Big Time Gaming and licensed to many other providers. Instead of a fixed number of rows, each reel shows a different number of symbols on every spin, typically between two and seven. Because wins are counted as “ways” across adjacent reels, the total number of ways to win changes each spin, reaching 117,649 on many six-reel titles when every reel is at its maximum.
- What it feels like: lively and unpredictable, with plenty of small wins and occasional big combinations.
- Often paired with: cascading reels and free spins with growing multipliers.
- Watch for: high volatility on many Megaways titles. Check the game info.
You can see the format in action in Bonanza Megaways.
Hold & Win (and respin features)
Hold & Win games, sometimes called Hold & Spin or Cash Collect, trigger a special respin round when you land enough coin or bonus symbols. The basic pattern is similar across most versions:
- The trigger symbols lock in place and the rest of the grid clears.
- You get a small number of respins, usually three.
- Every new coin symbol that lands also locks, and resets the respin counter.
- The round ends when you run out of respins or fill the grid. Coin values are added up, and some games award fixed jackpots for special symbols or a full screen.
The feature is easy to follow and builds tension nicely. Many Hold & Win games sit in the medium to high volatility range, with a good share of their value concentrated in the respin round.
Bonus Buy
Bonus Buy (or Feature Buy) lets you pay a fixed price, often around 100 times your base stake, to jump straight into the free spins or bonus round instead of waiting to trigger it naturally.
Why players use it
- Skip straight to the most exciting part of the game
- Know exactly what the feature costs
- Some games show a separate RTP for bought features
Things to consider
- A single buy can cost as much as a long session of base spins
- The feature can still return less than its price
- It increases how quickly you move through a budget
If you use Bonus Buy, treat each purchase as a single, large bet and size it against your budget accordingly. Note that the feature isn’t available in every market or on every game.
Cascading reels
Also called tumbling or avalanche reels. When you land a win, the winning symbols disappear and new ones drop into their place, which can create another win on the same spin. A single paid spin can chain several wins together. In many games, each cascade also increases a multiplier.
Multipliers
Multipliers increase the value of a win: a 5x multiplier on a $2 win pays $10. They come in several forms:
- Random multipliers that land on the reels, as in Gates of Olympus.
- Progressive multipliers that grow with each cascade or free spin.
- Wild multipliers that boost any win they are part of.
Wilds, scatters and free spins
- Wild symbols substitute for other symbols to complete wins. Variations include expanding wilds (fill a whole reel), sticky wilds (stay in place for several spins) and walking wilds (move one reel each spin).
- Scatter symbols pay or trigger features wherever they land, without needing to be on a payline.
- Free spins are usually triggered by three or more scatters and often include an extra twist, such as an expanding symbol in book-style games like Book of Dead.
Scatter pays and “pay anywhere”
Some games ignore paylines altogether. In “pay anywhere” games, you win when a minimum number of matching symbols (often eight or more) appear anywhere on the grid. Sweet Bonanza is a well-known example, combining scatter pays with tumbling reels.
Jackpots
| Type | How it works |
|---|---|
| Fixed jackpot | A set prize, usually a multiple of your stake, listed in the paytable. |
| Progressive jackpot | A prize pool that grows as players stake on the game, until someone wins it and it resets. |
| Tiered jackpots | Several levels (often labelled Mini, Minor, Major and Grand), common in Hold & Win games. |
Jackpots are designed to be rare. Enjoy them as a possibility rather than a plan.
How features affect volatility
As a rule of thumb, the more a game’s value depends on one big feature, the higher its volatility. Games with frequent small features or line wins tend to feel steadier. If you’d like to understand the numbers behind that, our guide to how online pokies work explains RTP and volatility in more depth.
The bottom line
Features are what give modern pokies their personality. Megaways brings variety, Hold & Win brings tension, cascades and multipliers bring chain reactions, and Bonus Buy brings speed at a price. None of them changes the fact that results are random, so choose the features you enjoy most and keep your stake in line with your budget.
