Specs

5 Lions Megaways landed in 2021 from Pragmatic Play, and it’s the Megaways cousin in a family that already had a few members. Don’t confuse it with the base 5 Lions and its tidy fixed grid. It isn’t 5 Lions Gold or 5 Lions Dance either. This is the ways-based one. The rules screen says it straight: “MEGAWAYS is used under licence from BTG”. So you’ve got Big Time Gaming’s engine underneath, Pragmatic’s red-and-gold fortune skin over the top, and a golden guardian lion handling mascot duties.

The theme? Standard-issue lucky-Chinese. Dragons, koi, a green frog, a turtle and a big golden lion, all sitting over deep red and gold with a glowing pearl up top. It looks the part. Still, nobody’s here for the koi. What matters is the shifting ways count, those middle-reel multiplier wilds, and a free-spins round that makes you choose between more spins and bigger multipliers before a reel has even turned. That’s where the real money argument starts.

The setup will feel familiar if you’ve played Pragmatic Megaways before. Six reels, each up to seven symbols high, with a ceiling of up to 117,649 ways to win. That’s seven to the sixth power, and you’ll only see it when every reel is fully stacked, which is rare. Reel heights change from spin to spin, so the ways count gets recalculated every time. The grid never really sits still. There are no paylines to fiddle with. Your stake is the total bet, and the live AUD demo confirmed the spread from A$0.20 to A$125.00. Every headline figure here came straight from the game’s own info and paytable screens in AUD fun-play. Not from some random listing floating around online.

One number needs a proper look before you keep going. RTP is 96.50% with the Ante off, and 96.50% with the Ante on. Exactly the same. On plenty of Pragmatic titles, the Ante trims the return a little, so it’s worth clocking that this one doesn’t, at least according to the stated game screens. The toggle changes how often you trigger and what each spin costs. It doesn’t change the listed return.

Symbols & paytable

Pragmatic lays the paytable out clearly on 5 Lions Megaways. Thank goodness for that, because some builds bury the numbers you actually need behind glossy panels. Wins pay left to right on adjacent reels from the leftmost reel, in any combination size. Standard Megaways behaviour. The values below were read from the Game Rules paytable page at the demo’s default A$2.00 total bet, with the Ante off, and Megaways pays for three to six of a kind.

At the top of the ordinary pile sits the red dragon. Biggest paying regular symbol on the grid. Below that you’ve got the golden coiled dragon and the green frog sharing a band, then the blue koi and the purple-gold turtle sharing the next one down. After that come the lows: the gold-styled royals, A, K, Q, J and 10. They pay the least, because of course they do.

Those figures are cash at the A$2.00 demo stake, so read them as the shape of the hierarchy rather than fixed prizes. Scale the bet and the numbers scale with it. The red dragon is the one you want stretching across the grid.

The game wakes up when the two special symbols get involved. The wild is the golden lion, and you won’t find it everywhere. It only appears on reels two, three, four and five, substitutes for every symbol except the BONUS scatter, and carries a random multiplier whenever it joins a win. In the base game, that multiplier can be 1x, 2x, 3x, 5x, 8x, 10x, 15x, 30x or 40x. A 1x lion barely gets your attention. Drop a 40x lion into a busy tumble chain and a nothing hit can suddenly become something you feel.

The BONUS scatter is the yin-yang. It can land on all six reels, doesn’t tumble away, and pays on its own as well as triggering the feature: three pay 3x total bet, four pay 5x, five pay 25x, and six pay 100x. Three or more also open the free-spins round. Land six and you’ve already got a 100x scatter pay before the feature even begins.

That reels-two-to-five wild rule changes the way you read the base game. First, the paying symbols need to stretch far enough across the grid. Then you need a lion sitting inside that run. Then the multiplier has to be worth caring about. Tumbles give you extra rolls at the whole thing, because every fresh drop can throw another lion into play. The paytable still points in one direction, though. Yes, the base can pay. The proper money is waiting in the feature.

Game rules

Megaways ways and how they change

Every spin rolls a new height for each of the six reels, anywhere from a couple of symbols up to seven. Multiply those six heights together and that is your ways count for the spin. When all six reels stack to full height, the game shows 117,649 ways. Most spins fall well short. In the live demo the counter bounced around constantly, sitting at 144 on load and climbing past 3,402 during play, which is exactly how a Megaways grid behaves.

Here is the practical read, punters. Do not treat the layout as fixed. The ways number moves with the grid, and a spin that looks half-empty can still carry thousands of ways because a win only needs matching symbols on adjacent reels from the left. Once that clicks, the screen stops looking chaotic. Still busy. Just less mysterious.

• Six reels, each up to seven symbols high, produce up to 117,649 ways to win.
• The ways count is recalculated every spin as the reel heights change.
• Wins pay left to right on adjacent reels from the leftmost reel, any combination size.

Tumbling reels

A winning spin pays first. Then the winning symbols vanish, whatever sat above drops down into the gaps, and new symbols fall in from the top. If the new layout wins, off it goes again. Pays, clears, drops, checks. The chain only stops when a drop produces no fresh win.

That is why one paid spin can turn into a little run of events, and now and then into something a good deal bigger than little. It also explains why the multiplier lion gets dangerous mid-tumble. Every extra drop is another shot at a middle-reel lion landing and boosting the next connection. Not often enough to bank on. Often enough to keep you watching the grid.

• After every win, winning symbols are removed and new ones drop in to replace them.
• Tumbles repeat until a drop produces no further win.
• Each tumble is another chance for a multiplier lion to land and lift the next win.

Base-game multiplier wilds

The lion wild is pinned to reels two, three, four and five. That restriction matters more than it looks at a glance. The lion substitutes for everything except the BONUS scatter, and when it helps form a win it applies a random multiplier drawn fresh each time. Base-game values run 1x, 2x, 3x, 5x, 8x, 10x, 15x, 30x or 40x. No carryover between hits. Redrawn every time.

Some hits catch the flat 1x and barely shift the total. Others catch the 40x on the right tumble and the base game suddenly has a pulse. Because the lion cannot land on reel one or reel six, it does not repair a broken chain from the ends. It sits inside the run and boosts what is already connecting. Think of it as a booster in the middle of the grid, never a rescue rope from either edge.

• The lion wild appears only on reels two to five and substitutes all symbols except the scatter.
• When a lion is in a win, a random multiplier from 1x to 40x is applied to that win.
• The multiplier is redrawn on each qualifying win, including during tumbles.

The free-spins trigger and the seven-option pick

Three or more BONUS scatters open the feature, and then the game makes you choose the shape of your round before anything spins. Seven options. Each one locks in a number of free spins and the wild-multiplier range available during that round. Loads of spins at one end, heavy multipliers at the other, a MYSTERY draw in the seventh slot. This is the defining decision on 5 Lions Megaways, and treating it as a throwaway tap is how people leave value on the machine.

Option one hands you 25 spins but caps the lion range at 2x, 3x or 5x. Option six gives you just six spins but opens the range to 15x, 30x or 40x. The middle options step between those poles. More spins means more tumbles, more retrigger chances, and more chances for a lion to land somewhere useful. Fewer spins means each lion that does connect can hit far harder. You are not unlocking a hidden level or gaming a secret meter. You are picking how swingy the round will be before it starts.

Once the round is running the core mechanic carries across. Any lion that joins a win applies a random multiplier from the selected range, tumbles included, so the range you picked is live on every qualifying win. Three or more BONUS scatters during the feature retrigger it and add more spins at the same count you originally chose. The info screen also notes that special reels are in play during the feature, so do not assume the free-spins strip is just the base game with louder music behind it.

• Three or more BONUS scatters trigger the round; you then pick one of the seven options.
• Each option fixes a spin count against a wild-multiplier range for the whole round.
• Retriggering with three or more scatters adds more spins at your chosen count.

The Ante Bet

5 Lions Megaways carries an Ante Bet, shown in the UI as a bet-doubler toggle: 20x for normal play, 25x for the Ante. Flick it to 25x and the stake rises by a quarter, so each spin costs 1.25 times the normal amount. In return the natural free-spins trigger chance is doubled, because more BONUS scatters are seeded onto the reels. The scatter paytable is unchanged, and while the Ante is on the standard 20x setting is not available.

Here is the bit to actually notice. The RTP stays 96.50% with the Ante off and 96.50% with the Ante on. That is not how every Ante feels on other games, so read the screen rather than assuming. There is no separate bonus-buy button in this build. If you want to push harder toward the feature, the Ante toggle is the only tool the game hands you, and it is a pacing tool, not an edge.

• The Ante adds 25% to the stake and doubles the natural free-spins trigger chance.
• The scatter paytable is unaffected and the RTP stays 96.50% either way.
• There is no bonus-buy button in this build; the Ante is the only trigger boost.

Screenshots

These are our own captures from the live AUD demo. Demo credits, obviously, not staking advice. The middle shot shows a live base-game tumble win rather than a free-spins round, because the feature did not trigger naturally across a long base run. On a 5/5 volatility pokie, that is not strange. Frustrating, sure. Strange, no. The seven-option ladder, spin counts and multiplier ranges below all come from the game’s own free-spins options info screen, which documents them in full.

The seven-option pick is the whole game, so learn to read it

A lot of Pragmatic Megaways titles dump you into a fixed feature and let the maths do the rest. This one doesn’t. It stops first and asks you a question. That seven-option pick is the big decision on the machine, and anyone treating it like a cosmetic tap hasn’t read the paytable closely enough.

Option one gives you 25 spins, but the lions can only draw from 2x, 3x or 5x. Option six gives you just six spins, while the range jumps to 15x, 30x or 40x. The middle picks walk you between those two ends. More spins means more chances to tumble, retrigger and actually get a lion into the right spot. Fewer spins means a connecting lion can hit much harder. Sounds clean on paper. On the balance, not so much.

Why’s it messy? Because both sides need help from the other. A multiplier is useless unless the lion joins a paying combination, and that lion can only land on reels two to five. Take the six-spin high-range option, miss the useful lion connections, and the feature can be finished before you’ve even settled in. Take the 25-spin low-range option and the round usually has more room to breathe, but the lion values are capped low. It can just shuffle along without ever throwing a proper punch.

RTP doesn’t save the decision either. The overall figure stays 96.50%, so you’re not choosing the better-return option like you’re backing the good horse in a weak field. You’re choosing the shape of the variance. That’s it.

MYSTERY is there for punters who don’t want the choice in their own hands. It randomises the spin count and multiplier range from the same pool as the listed six. You might get a long, gentle round. You might get dumped into the short, spicy one. Don’t mistake it for a cheat code to the best feature. It isn’t. It’s just the game taking the wheel. No option is automatically right. The sensible pick comes down to what you want: more shots at smaller lions, fewer shots at heavier ones, or a blind draw. The strategy page works through that judgement properly.

The Ante Bet decision: what you are actually buying

The Ante looks like a feature-hunt switch because, really, that’s what it is. Set it to 25x and each spin costs 25% more. In return, the natural free-spins trigger chance is doubled by putting more BONUS scatters onto the reels. What it doesn’t do, at least according to the game’s own info screen, is raise the RTP. Off is 96.50%. On is 96.50%. Same return figure.

So what are you actually buying? Pace. Access. More attempts at getting into the part of the game where the top-end potential lives. If you’re spinning mainly to reach the feature, the trade is easy enough to understand. You pay more per spin. You should see the bonus more often.

The catch is bankroll burn. Switch the Ante on and every dead stretch costs a quarter more. Leave it off and you wait at the cheaper rate, but the trigger comes less often. Neither setting is secretly smarter in every session. The mistake is thinking the Ante gives you an edge. It doesn’t. On the stated figures, it’s return-neutral. Use it when you want more feature pressure and your bankroll can handle the quicker spend. Leave it alone when you’d rather make the bankroll last.

High volatility and the tumble rhythm of a session

Pragmatic rates this at a full 5/5 for volatility, and the demo gave us no reason to argue. With the Ante on, a long base-game stretch of roughly 52 spins still failed to produce a free-spins trigger. That’ll test your patience. What we did get was the usual parade of small tumble wins, plenty worth only part of the stake, sitting in the A$0.80 to A$4.00 range at a A$2.00 to A$2.50 bet. The grid keeps shifting. The balance gets little taps. Nothing much happens. Classic feature-gated Megaways.

For Australian players, the lesson is boring but useful. Expect dry stretches. Don’t let a few small tumbles convince you the game is warming up or somehow “due”. It isn’t. Those little hits stop the balance falling in one clean straight line, but they’re not the main event. The feature is. And the feature can leave you waiting a long time.

Punters mix up RTP and volatility constantly. Don’t. 96.50% is the long-run return over an enormous sample. 5/5 volatility tells you how rough the ride can get while you’re nowhere near that sample. One is the long-run cost. The other is the bruising you take on the way there.

The 5,000x ceiling, in proportion

The advertised top cap is 5,000x total bet, and there’s a rule attached that matters. If the total win of a free-spins round reaches 5,000x, the round ends immediately and any remaining spins are forfeited. So a monster feature doesn’t keep paying beyond the ceiling. It stops. Door shut.

To get anywhere near that end of the game, you need a free-spins round with strong tumble chains and lion multipliers landing near the top of your chosen range, especially around the 40x mark. That’s not normal session traffic. It’s way out in the tail of a high-variance distribution. The sort of result you see in a promo clip, not during an ordinary night of spins.

Put the cap into stake terms and it gets very clear. At A$0.20, 5,000x is A$1,000. At A$125.00, 5,000x is A$625,000 in theory. That’s exactly why multiplier talk is cleaner than cash talk. The ceiling scales with your stake, but your chances of touching it don’t suddenly become friendly because you picked a neat bet size. Build the session around what it costs to reach features and survive the gaps. Don’t build it around chasing 5,000x.

Provider context

Pragmatic Play is based in Malta, and Australian players mostly come across its games through offshore casinos. 5 Lions Megaways is a 2021 title from the studio’s Megaways lane, using the engine licensed from Big Time Gaming, and it sits beside Pragmatic’s other ways-based multiplier-wild pokies. Same broad access situation as the rest of the offshore RNG slot market for Australians.

The golden-lion skin doesn’t change the legal setting. This is an offshore RNG slot. The demo on this page runs in AUD fun-play, so you can test the tumble rhythm, multiplier wilds and seven-option feature pick without touching a real balance. Do that first. With this volatility profile, going in blind just means paying to learn something a free test could’ve shown you.

• Pragmatic Play is not licensed under the Australian Interactive Gambling Act 2001, because no offshore RNG slot studio is; AU players reach its titles only through offshore-licensed casinos.
• Accessing an offshore casino is not itself a criminal offence for the player under the IGA 2001; what the Act bars is operating or advertising real-money online slots to Australians locally.
• The demo on this page runs in AUD fun-play, so you can test the tumbling reels, the multiplier wilds and the seven-option free-spins pick yourself before deciding whether the high-variance profile suits you.

Game series and comparisons

5 Lions Megaways belongs to a loose family of Pragmatic lion-themed pokies, but each plays differently under the skin. If you want to place this one against other reviews on the site, these three are the cleanest comparison points.

Mechanics decide the choice. Want variable reel heights, tumbles and a decision before the feature? 5 Lions Megaways or 5 Frozen Charms Megaways are the fits. Want the cleaner line-based lion games? 5 Lions and 5 Lions Gold sit in that lane. Same provider, same cats, very different beat.

Demo notes

The demo on this page runs through Pragmatic’s own demo gateway. You start with fresh fun-play credits, not a real balance, and it’s genuinely useful for checking how the machine behaves before you care about the result. Watch the Megaways counter jump around. Test the tumbles. Flick the Ante on and off. Try to land three scatters and reach that seven-option pick.

The gateway served the game in AUD and showed A$ throughout. The bet stepper confirmed the full spread from A$0.20 minimum to A$125.00 maximum total bet, while toggling the Ante lifted the total bet from A$2.00 to A$2.50, the 25% step you’d expect. It loaded cleanly with no geo-block, so no proxy was needed. Nice when that happens.

One limitation needs saying plainly. Across a long base-game run of roughly 52 spins, including with the Ante on, three scatters didn’t land, so we did not capture a live free-spins round. That doesn’t clash with the 5/5 volatility rating. If anything, it backs it up. The seven-option pick, spin counts, multiplier ranges, retrigger rule and special-reels note all come from the game’s own free-spins options info screen. The ways engine, tumbles, base-game multiplier wilds, the reels-two-to-five wild rule, scatter trigger and pays, the Ante and the 96.50% RTP all come from the demo’s own info and paytable screens.

FAQ

Q: What is the headline feature in 5 Lions Megaways? A: The seven-option free-spins pick. That is the lever. Three or more BONUS scatters open the round, then you choose one of seven options that trade spin count against the wild-multiplier range, from 25 spins at 2x/3x/5x down to six spins at 15x/30x/40x, plus a MYSTERY draw. You are not just pressing start on a fixed bonus.

Q: How does the Ante Bet work? A: The Ante sets the bet to 25x, adding 25% to your stake, and it doubles the natural chance of triggering free spins by seeding more BONUS scatters onto the reels. It does not change the listed RTP, which stays 96.50% either way, and there is no separate bonus-buy in this build. So you are buying more feature frequency, not a better return.

Q: What is the max win? A: The game lists a 5,000x total-bet cap. If a free-spins round’s total win reaches that cap, the round ends immediately and any remaining spins are forfeited. So the ceiling is large, but it takes a rare free-spins run with strong tumbles and heavy lion multipliers to get near it.

Q: What is the RTP and how volatile is it? A: The info screen states 96.50%, and the notable bit is that it stays 96.50% with the Ante on or off. Volatility is high at 5/5. Our live run felt like that: small base-game tumbles showed up often enough, but the feature did not trigger across roughly 52 spins.

Q: How many ways to win are there? A: Up to 117,649. That comes from six reels, each up to seven symbols high, with the ways count recalculated every spin. Wins pay left to right on adjacent reels from the leftmost reel, then winning symbols tumble away and new ones drop until no further win forms.

Q: Does the BONUS scatter pay on its own? A: Yes. On top of triggering the feature, the yin-yang scatter pays as a multiple of total bet: three pay 3x, four pay 5x, five pay 25x and six pay 100x. So a big scatter landing can pay before the free-spins round even begins.

Last updated: 5 Jul 2026 Reviewed by Mark Henderson, Senior Slots Analyst

Demo embed · played in fun-money mode. No real-money play here.