How Buffalo King Megaways Works

RTP: 96.52%
Variance: High
Max cash prize: 5,000x
Grid layout: —
Winning ways: 200,704 Megaways
Released: 29/04/2021

Ante Bet or Buy Free Spins, Never Both in Buffalo King Megaways

Buffalo King Megaways puts its two shortcut decisions on the same wooden signpost, and they cancel each other out. Switching on the Ante Bet raises the stake by a quarter, doubles the natural chance of reaching Free Spins and disables the Buy Free Spins button; buying the round outright costs 100x the total bet and is only available while the Ante Bet stays off. The free run shows this trade plainly, because both options sit visible in the base game from the first spin. It also shows what each route leads to: a night-time round where Wilds on reels 2 to 5 carry 2x, 3x or 5x Multipliers that multiply together across a Tumble sequence, with retriggers adding five spins at a time. What the practice run cannot show is how often the high-volatility base game actually hands over four Scatters, which is the number the decision really turns on.

Play at these casinos

1XBET The welcome package spans three deposits. The first adds a 100 percent match up to $200, the second a 75 percent match up to $250, and the third a 50 percent match up to $150 plus 30 free spins. Each stage requires a minimum $20 deposit within seven days, wagering 35 times. Get started

18+

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Treat this as fun rather than a source of income, and set yourself a spending limit beforehand.

Buffalo King Megaways review: settings that route the play, not the odds

Grid variation is built in, never configured

Six reels carry variable height, up to 7 symbols on reels 1 and 6 and up to 8 on reels 2 through 5, with a stated maximum of 200704 ways. The ways total recalculates on every spin and after every tumble: the wooden MEGAWAYS plaque read 50400 on a settled base spin in the captures and fell to 12 mid-cascade, which is the counter recalculating rather than a fault. The pays are fixed multiples of the total bet, the buffalo alone pays from two of a kind, and the shift from desert-day palette to starry-night background marks the Free Spins state without any input from the player. The consequence for a practice run is direct: a handful of cost-free spins already displays the grid, the Tumble chains and the counter at work, because no setting on the menu touches any of them. The variation that defines Buffalo King Megaways is one the player only watches.

Free spins tumble cascade with streaked falling symbols, win $17.20, 10 free spins remaining

The settings buy a route into the feature, not better odds

Configuration	What it changes	Published RTP
Normal play, 20x multiplier	Nothing beyond the total bet, adjustable from $0.20 to $300.00	96.52%
Ante Bet, 25x multiplier	Free Spins chance doubled, more BONUS symbols; total bet 1.25x; Buy disabled	96.49%
Buy Free Spins	100x total bet starts the round at once, awarding 12, 17 or 22 free spins	96.50%

Where a cost-free run stops being informative

The demo opens with a $100,000.00 bankroll and no locked doors: the buy dialog, the Ante Bet toggle and the retrigger all behave exactly as documented, and the recorded practice round turned a $200 purchase into 17 free spins, five of them added by a mid-round retrigger, closing with a round win of $204.40. That close is also where the cost-free run stops teaching. The volatility badge reads High with five of five bolts, so any single session, winning or losing, says little about expectation, and the 5000x cap that ends a round on the spot is a printed rule, not an observed event. A practice run shows the reels, the ways counter, the Tumble chain and the bonus round in full; only a staked session shows what the variance costs over time, and none of the three configurations changes that. At $0.20 the minimum bet matches the lowest entry stake in the Buffalo King line, the narrowest step a practice run can take toward a staked one.

Free spins reel shows a BONUS coin and two WILD mesas marked x3 and x2, 11 spins left, win $10.00

Symbol payouts

Paytable page 1 of 7 lists buffalo, eagle, cougar, wolf and moose payouts alongside WILD rules and ways-to-win grids

x2 / x3 / x4 / x5 / x6

Buffalo / bison High 1.00 / 2.00 / 4.00 / 10.00 / 20.00
Bald eagle High — / 0.75 / 1.25 / 2.50 / 6.25
Cougar / mountain lion High — / 0.50 / 0.75 / 1.25 / 3.75
Grey wolf High — / 0.30 / 0.50 / 0.75 / 1.50
Moose High — / 0.30 / 0.50 / 0.75 / 1.50
A Low — / 0.20 / 0.30 / 0.50 / 1.00
K Low — / 0.20 / 0.30 / 0.50 / 1.00
Q Low — / 0.10 / 0.20 / 0.40 / 0.75
J Low — / 0.10 / 0.20 / 0.40 / 0.60
10 Low — / 0.10 / 0.20 / 0.40 / 0.60
WILD Wild — / — / — / — / —
BONUS Bonus — / — / 5.00 / 20.00 / 100.00

How to place a bet

High volatility defines Buffalo King Megaways: symbols pay left to right from the first reel across up to 200704 Megaways, every win fires a Tumble that refills the grid, and four or more BONUS coins open the Free Spins. The decision that repeats each round is the total bet, with or without the Ante Bet.

Intro screen to base game The game opens on an intro screen showing the grid preview and the volatility badge. The circular arrow button under the wordmark starts the base game; the INTRO SCREEN toggle in SYSTEM SETTINGS skips this screen on later loads.
Bet, spin and Tumble − and + beside SPIN set the total bet; the DOUBLE CHANCE TO WIN FEATURE switch is the optional Ante Bet. SPIN plays one round: the Tumble pays each win, drops the winning symbols and refills the grid until no new win appears, then the round total lands in the balance and the bet choice repeats.

Managing your bankroll and volatility

High volatility means the balance can run dry before a bonus lands, so each decision here manages cost per round or the route into Free Spins rather than the outcome of any spin. Four choices with distinct consequences are documented: the Ante Bet toggle, the Buy Free Spins option, the total bet level, and the pace of play.

Ante Bet: paying 25% more for doubled bonus odds

The Double Chance toggle is available only before a spin in the base game and lifts the stake to 25x the base bet level. It doubles the natural chance of triggering Free Spins, leaves the paytable unchanged, and records RTP at 96.49% against 96.52% in normal play. Whether doubled means a materially shorter wait is not quantified.
Buy Free Spins: instant entry at 100x the bet

The purchase button sits in the base game and, once confirmed with the checkmark, starts the round immediately at 100x the current total bet, with a random 12, 17 or 22 spins as a natural trigger would award. Documented RTP is 96.50%. The option disappears whenever the Ante Bet is on, so the two routes never combine.
Total bet: scaling exposure, not the odds

The minus and plus controls set the total bet from $0.20 to $300.00, and every win is a multiple of that figure, up to the 5000x cap that ends a Free Spins round early. Changing it alters only the size of wins and losses per round; the research record links no bet level to any change in trigger frequency.
Spin pace: Turbo, Quick Spin and Autoplay

Holding SPACE activates Turbo Spin, and the Autoplay panel offers Turbo Spin, Quick Spin, Skip Screens and a spin count up to 100. These settings change how fast rounds resolve and how much interaction each one needs; nothing in the record ties them to payout behaviour. Faster play simply spends the session budget sooner.

See the game in action

Buy Free Spins confirmation shows a $200 cost with red X decline and green checkmark accept buttons

Wooden Congratulations banner reports a total win of $204.40 across 17 free spins, spins left at 0

Trigger screen confirms 12 free spins awarded, Megaways counter at 6720, win $10.00 showing below

Daytime base game reels show buffalo, cougar, eagle and wolf tiles with a Megaways count of 50400

Retrigger screen adds +5 free spins to the round, with a running win of $196.00 shown below

Base game daytime reels display wolf, eagle, moose and buffalo tiles with a Megaways count of 5760

How the game plays out

One round structure underlies all four cards: the base grid resolves every spin through tumbles, the Free Spins round is the single destination every other path leads to, and the two side options are alternative routes into it that exclude each other. High volatility applies throughout.

Mid-cascade free spins frame shows blurred falling symbols, win $21.20 with 9 spins left

Base Game

The base state runs before anything else on these cards. Six reels of changing height, up to 200704 ways, pay left to right from the first reel; after each win the Tumble feature clears the winning symbols and refills the grid, recalculating the ways until no new combination appears. BONUS coins landed here decide whether the next state begins.

Free Spins

This round starts only after 4 or more BONUS symbols land in a base spin, awarding 12, 17 or 22 spins depending on the count, or after the purchase path below. During it, Wilds on reels 2 to 5 carry 2x, 3x or 5x values that multiply together within one tumble sequence, 3 or more BONUS symbols add 5 spins without a retrigger limit, and the round ends early if the 5000x cap is reached.

Ante Bet / Double Chance to Win

An optional toggle on the base game, active only before a spin. Switching to the 25x bet multiplier doubles the natural chance of reaching Free Spins and puts more BONUS symbols on the reels, while the paytable stays unchanged. Enabling it closes off the purchase route, so the two entry options never run together.

Buy Free Spins

The direct alternative to waiting: for 100x the current total bet, the next state begins immediately from the base game, with a random 4, 5 or 6 BONUS outcome awarding 12, 17 or 22 spins exactly as a natural trigger would. The option is unavailable whenever the Ante Bet toggle is on, so it functions only in normal 20x play.

Works on your device

Autoplay option	Yes

Wager sizes

Smallest stake permitted – Top bet limit: 0.20 – 300.00

Currency used for bets: USD

Who made this game

Pragmatic Play

Pragmatic Play is a Gibraltar-headquartered supplier of online casino content, licensed by the Malta Gaming Authority and the Gambling Commission in Great Britain within a footprint of more than 30 regulated jurisdictions, and it distributes its games through a single API built on mobile-first HTML5. Its range centres on video slots but extends to live casino, bingo, virtual sports, table, scratch and crash titles. The catalogue mirrored on this website covers releases from 2014 onward, with recurring series such as Big Bass, Sweet Bonanza, Gates of Olympus and The Dog House.

Features

Ante Bet	Free Spins
Megaways	Multiplier
Retrigger	Scatter
Tumble	Wild

Game themes

Wild animalsThe huntCowboys of the Old West

Bonuses

Buy bonus option: Yes · Cost 100.00x
Ante bet increase: 1.25x

Available bonus buy prices

Default Buy Free Spins Cost 100.00x

Same game series

Games in series: 3

Buffalo King

Buffalo King Megaways tops out at 200,704 ways per spin, well above the 86,436 ceiling of Buffalo King Untamed Megaways, yet its maximum win is capped at 5,000x bet where the Untamed build allows 10,000x and the original Buffalo King advertises up to 93,750x. It carries over the wildlife cast, high volatility and the 2x/3x/5x multiplying wilds from the 2020 original, and adds a tumble feature plus an ante bet that doubles the free spins chance; its 96.52% default RTP is the highest figure printed for the three builds shown.

Editor's rating

Key advantages

Return stays near 96.5 in base, ante and buy modes, so a demo run reflects real math
Wilds carrying 2x, 3x and 5x multiply together inside one tumble chain, visible in free play
The live ways counter and tumble cycles can be watched spin by spin before any stake

Drawbacks

A 5000x hard cap ends the round on the spot and discards any free spins still left
Ante bet and bonus buy exclude each other, so the two entry paths cannot be combined

FAQ: what players want to know

How do the Wild multipliers work during Free Spins in Buffalo King Megaways?

In Free Spins, Wild symbols on reels 2 to 5 carry a random multiplier of 2x, 3x or 5x. Every Wild that lands within one tumble sequence multiplies together with the others, and the combined value applies to that sequence's total win. In the base game Wilds carry no multiplier and only substitute for all symbols except the Bonus symbol.

Can the Ante Bet and Buy Free Spins be used at the same time?

No. Enabling the Ante Bet (Double Chance to Win Feature, a 25x bet multiplier instead of 20x) disables Buy Free Spins, and the two are mutually exclusive. The Ante Bet doubles the natural chance of triggering Free Spins without changing the paytable, while the buy option costs 100x the total bet for instant entry.

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Date published 21/10/2026

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