Big Time Gaming is an Australian online casino content maker that got the ball rolling in 2011 and has since then been crafting mostly online slots (but other casino games as well) to become an important figure in the ever-expanding iGaming universe.
While it is a small studio, particularly when compared to industry giants like Microgaming and NetEnt (now part of Evolution), Big Time’s impact on the sector has been enormous.
The company’s Megaways invention became an instant success in 2016 and rocketed it into huge prominence. The product has been widely celebrated as truly revolutionary and has universally surprised and delighted both fellow game creators and global slots audiences.
The above-mentioned mechanic and the studio’s portfolio of online slots, each containing elements and features not seen before, have earned it quite a unique and enduring place in the iGaming community. Its content has been distributed by some of the industry’s largest aggregation platforms and can be found in the lobbies of pretty much every respectable online casino.
But how exactly did this small company with a rather limited library of titles become so important? Here’s a bit more about it, its games and its other inventions, and how these helped it gain its iconic status.
Best Online Slots Bonuses
Yabby Casino
202% up to
∞
Casino Brango
500% up to
$/€100
+ 500 Spins
HarrahsCasino.com
100% up to
$100
+ 100 Spins
Casino Extreme
200% up to
∞
Ignition Casino
200% up to
$100
Cherry Gold Casino
250% up to
∞
A Collective of Industry Talent
It should be noted that the studio’s success is not accidental. It was created by a team of leaders with rich experience in the online gambling industry and knowledge of what creating a cutting-edge trend entails.
The Aussie firm’s CEO, Nik Robinson, has been part of the world of iGaming for more than two and a half decades and has spent most of that time at the industry’s forefront. In 1996, Mr. Robinson founded New Tech Media, a move that marked the onset of a true revolution in the world of betting. The company pioneered the first non-downloadable online gambling products and became the first one in the world to take real-money bets through a Flash front-end.
After nearly a decade…
… New Tech was sold to News Corp. and merged with Orbis to become OpenBet. At the latter company, Mr. Robinson created hundreds of gaming titles and related products, including OpenBet’s non-download casino as well as the highly acclaimed Bonus Bar promotional tool that is now used by the likes of Betfair, Paddy Power, and British Columbia’s online gaming platform PlayNow.
The gaming studio’s CTO, Huw McIntosh, has an equally impressive career in the iGaming industry, having been part of it for more than two decades. He too worked at New Tech Media and later on at OpenBet.
And lastly, the studio’s Creative Director, Ian Schmidt, came on board with a solid games making background at Rock Star Games and with a range of elaborate titles under his belt.
And while great management is important, the company’s success should also be credited to the creative prowess driving its entire team of developers.
Licenses and Certificates
As the iGaming world has moved toward regulation (or rather the greater part of it), you won’t find a good games maker without a license or certificates from major gambling authorities. The company that is subject to this review is no different.
In fact, it has accumulated a handful of licenses to make sure that its products can be offered in some of the largest and most lucrative markets.
The Aussie games maker is licensed by the UK Gambling Commission, the Alderney Gambling Control Commission, and the Government of Gibraltar.
At some point, it also held a license from the Malta Gaming Authority (back when it was named the Lotteries and Gaming Authority), but according to the regulator’s site that appears to no longer be the case.
As previously mentioned, the company’s CEO and his previous business endeavors had long worked with British Columbia regulators, so it’s only natural that it now has a license by the province’s Lottery Corporation and offers its products through the latter’s online gambling operation.
Volatility, RTP, and Other Important Metrics
BTG has made a name for itself for its highly volatile slots. Even those of its games that fall in the medium volatility range are way more volatile when compared to their counterparts from other developers.
Although volatility is on the higher end of the spectrum…
… the mathematical models implemented in the games are, in the general case, extremely well balanced. This makes for one truly thrilling experience for fans of that particular type of offering and has really contributed greatly to the popularity of the Aussie developer.
For instance, Bonanza, one of the firm’s hit titles, is well-known in slots communities around the world for offering great return for the coin spent on it on a good day, but players need to arm themselves with some patience and calm.
Another specific feature shared by all games devised by this studio is their fixed return to player value. But what does this mean?
Well…
… it is pretty simple – you will find one and the same theoretical RTP at all casinos that offer one game crafted by the company or another. However, since more and more game makers have been switching to flexible payout rates, BTG’s own approach to this important metric could change in future.
The studio’s titles usually come with average to high RTP percentage. Most of them offer a payout rate in the 96% region. However, in its library, you will find titles with RTP lower than 96% (Dragon Born at 95%) and ones with a theoretical payback percentage of way above 96% (White Rabbit Megaways pays back up to 97.7% in an ideal scenario).
Most of the developer’s titles also boast high win potential, which in some cases soars to up to 50,000x a player’s stake. You shouldn’t really expect to hit the max potential win, as these happen quite rarely, but still if you’re really into this type of games, this studio’s products are well worth trying out.
The Australian company is not one of those presenting new slots on a conveyor belt. While it rolls out games every once in a while, it clearly puts a lot of thought and effort into each one of them, so that they all come with a little something that is new or rarely seen before in the industry.
Thanks to this approach to production, it has gained quite a following of slots aficionados with a never-ending appetite for products that push the boundaries. In addition, it has earned the company great respect among its peers in the slots making sector. And of course, this necessarily has prompted many of the largest online casino operators to enrich their lobbies with titles by the Aussie creator.
And if the company had been popular, albeit a small one, before 2016, that year saw its popularity go into the stratosphere. This was the year when the studio introduced the Megaways engine to the world and changed the sector for good.
The Megaways and Megaclusters Systems
The iGaming content maker premiered the Megaways mechanic with its Dragon Horn slot, which it launched in early 2016. While this first title created quite some buzz, it was the roll-out of Bonanza that truly brought the studio and this innovative engine on the map.
But what makes this product so special?
Well, it serves as a random reel modifier that changes the number of symbols landing on each reel during spins. In other worlds, every time the reels spin, a different number of icons would hop into view. This provides between several hundred and tens or even hundreds of thousands of ways to win.
This simple but really powerful engine quickly caught the attention of big-league developers and Big Time began licensing it to fellow game makers in 2018. The Megaways series now includes more than one hundred titles from the mechanic’s maker and other studios.
Even big software providers like Microgaming were tempted by this product and its widespread popularity and lined up to obtain a license from its creator and produce their own titles equipped with it.
In 2020, the Aussie studio cemented its reputation as an insightful and innovative content creator with the introduction of Megaclusters, an engine that aims to reshape the cluster pays game vertical the way its sister product did with the traditional slots segment.
With this new mechanic, when a winning cluster is formed anywhere on the playing grid, each participating symbol explodes out of view to make room for new and smaller icons. The new symbols can potentially create their own winning clusters and thus cause …
… a chain reaction that can theoretically last forever.
At time of writing, the studio’s second Mega-engine is relatively new but has already caught the eye of other game developers. Relax Gaming was the first third-party provider to produce and launch a proprietary Megaclusters slots, but more will certainly follow suit.
Popular Big Time Gaming Slots
Mass production is not this studio’s thing, so don’t expect a pile of new releases every month. However, what you should expect and what is delivered with every new game coming out of the company’s oven is experience that is pretty unique.
Its portfolio currently includes several dozens of online slots and several table games. However, slots are what it has really focused its attention and creativity on over the years and these are what we’re going to pay more attention to.
The studio’s library offers a variety of themes from ancient Egypt to Medieval times, haunted mansions, mighty vikings, modern-day flashy Vegas, and more. Its games all stand out in terms of quality of graphics. And these are also accompanied by excellent music and sound effects for one truly immersive experience.
A slots connoisseur would immediately recognize the expertise involved in each game from the company’s latest releases all the way back to the early 2010s when it rolled out its first creations.
While it’s not easy to say which of its slots are most popular and most played, because they are all compelling enough to appeal to a huge range of players, here are some of those that have established themselves as favorites at online casinos targeting customers from all parts of the world.
Danger High Voltage
This 2017 title came with a plenty of opportunities for wins that would please any player both during base game and Free Spins mode, but we’re set to talk about these later.
First things first, the online slot is inspired by a 2003 song of the same name by Electric Six. And just like the band, which has been described as playing “an energetic and unique brand of rock music infused with elements of garage, disco, punk, new wave, and metal”, Danger High Voltage is infused with all kinds of slots-related things for one truly electrifying experience.
The game’s graphics have this traditional feel that most slots players are more than content with. And of course, the Electric Six song with its quirkiness and erratic vibe serves as the game’s soundtrack.
This slot has a six-reel, four-row arrangement and offers 4,096 ways to win, which is much less than what Megaways games come with, but still not too bad.
Onto the paytable, you’ll find a selection of symbols that…
… seems pretty random at first …
… but totally makes sense if you’re familiar with Danger High Voltage’s lyrics. The low pays include the card symbols from 9 through Ace. Then comes a taco, a disco ball, and bells. The most lucrative symbol is represented by a Dia de los muertos skull mask. It pays 25x the stake for six matching icons. It is also the only symbol on the paytable that awards prizes for just two symbols on a payline. The others pay for at least three of a kind.
Helping form winning combinations…
… are two Wilds symbols. They both land on the middle four reels only. The first one – Wild Fire – spreads over an entire reel and substitutes for all pay symbols. The other one – Wild Electricity – does the same but also bolsters prizes with a x6 multiplier. If more than one of these appear on the reels during a spin, their multipliers combine and multiply each other for potentially massive prizes.
Aside from the two Wilds, quite some action is also offered in Free Spins. To unlock this feature, players need three or more My Desire scatters. These also pay up to 100x the wager for six of a kind on a payline.
Free Spins comes with two options and players are given the opportunity to pick one of them. The High Voltage Free Spins game offers 15 free spins and the High Voltage Wild. This symbol appears on reels 2 through 5 and extends over the full reel. It is equipped with a multiplier of x11, x22, x33, x44, x55, and x66 that multiplies any adjacent wins. Three or more scatters during a spin award 15 more spins.
As for the Gates of Hell Free Spins Games, it offers seven free spins and kicks off with a symbol that is randomly selected from the paytable. It appears on the middle four reels and becomes a Sticky Wild. This means that it stays locked in place throughout the entire feature. If a reel gets 4 Sticky Wilds, 3 extra spins are awarded to the player.
With this slot, player can bet between 0.20 and 40 in a preferred currency. The max win is set at 10,800x the stake during base game and 15,746x the stake during either of the two Free Spins games. In other words, with its two Wilds, the slot is viable enough during base game, but its bonus modes make it even more lucrative and enjoyable. With RTP set at 95.67%, it’s one of the studio’s games with a lower payout rate, but we won’t be too broody about that because it is truly one of its finest titles.
Bonanza Megaways
This slot was the game that turned Megaways in the phenomenon that it is now. It’s not that impressive in terms of a story unfolding on the reels, but no one really cares about that when you could be offered 117,649 ways to win and nab up to 12,000x your stake on a good day.
Shortly after it was launched in 2016, Bonanza created a lot of buzz in the slots community and ultimately resulted in other game developers yearning for a piece of that almost overnight success. As mentioned above, they were given the chance to acquire the IP rights to the game-changing winways engine in 2018 and they quickly took advantage of that opportunity.
Back to the poster child of the Megaways frenzy, it is a six-reel gold mine-themed slot. Each of the reels can host between 2 and 7 symbols. It is also equipped with an additional horizontal reel that further helps with forming winning combinations.
That extra reel appears in the form of four carts, each bringing an additional symbol to reels 2 through 5 for potentially bigger prizes.
One other important feature included in the game is cascading reels, meaning that after a winning combo the symbols forming it explode out of view and new ones cascade onto the reels to potentially continue the winning chain reaction.
The cards from 9 through Ace…
… represent the lowest paying symbols on the paytable. There are also five gemstones of different colors acting as the premiums. Of these, the purple amethyst is the most viable one, offering a staggering 50x the stake for six of a kind.
Wins are paid for three matching symbols on neighboring reels starting from the leftmost one. The amethyst is the only pay symbol that forms winning combinations with just two symbols.
The dynamite Wild symbol substitutes for all pay symbols and can only be spotted on the extra horizontal reel above the regular reel arrangement.
What’s more, if the G, O, L, and D symbols appear on the reels during base game, players are awarded 12 free spins. Each additional Scatter awards 5 more extra spins. And if 3 Scatters come into view during a spin in Free Spins mode, players are given 5 more free spins.
One more great thing about the bonus game is that it features an Unlimited Win Multiplier that kicks off at x1 and rises by 1 every time a winning combo appears. It also remains in operation for the entirety of the round.
The game comes with up to 117,649 winways courtesy of the Megaways engine. But you must be aware that you won’t get that many all the time as their number is randomly generated at the start of each spin.
Players can wager between 0.20 and 20 per spin. The game’s RTP sits comfortably at 96%, which is a common payout rate for a BTG slot. Players can win up to 12,000 times their bet playing this highly volatile game.
Bonanza Megaways is undeniably the studio’s most popular asset…
… and to build on the success the game has achieved, its maker released in 2021 a progressive jackpot follow-up that is equipped with the trademarked Megapays jackpot system.
The newer game is more or less the same as its predecessor but also features four progressive jackpots above its extra reel. Its math model is a bit different, but that’s only natural, and it’s visually a bit more crisp than the original title.
The Megapays Jackpot feature, which is pretty much the only thing that is new to the game…
… is triggered randomly …
… and when that happens, one symbol from the paytable is randomly chosen to be the Megapays symbol. Action then takes place on a 6×7 set of reels. Players are awarded additional spins as long as Megapays symbols continue to fall on the reels. At least four are needed to win a jackpot.
The feature ends where no more special symbols appear on the reels. Based on their number, players get one of the four jackpots:
- 4-7 Megapays icons award the Mini jackpot that seeds at 100
- 8-11 award the Midi jackpot that seeds at 1,500
- 12-14 award the Major jackpot that seeds at 20,000
- 15+ award the Mega jackpot that seeds at 300,000
This jackpot-powered title comes with one major disappointment, though. Its RTP during base game is set at 86.96%, which is … well… embarrassingly low… but we guess that’s the price to be paid for the potential to win a jackpot of up to 3,000,000 the size of your bet. RTP during the Megapays feature is above average at 96.40%.
Donuts
Donuts is one of those feel-good games that you can immerse yourself in to escape from mundane life for a brief while.
Released in 2018, this online slot features a 4×4 reelset and a lively color scheme. Action takes place in a donut diner in the middle of a desert. The game comes with 256 paylines and up to 2,401 winways during base game.
A look at the paytable reveals six low pays and four premium symbols. The cards from 9 through Ace serve as the low paying icons, while the premiums are represented by donuts, each in different color. The purple one is the symbol that pays the most, 15x for 4 of a kind.
With the high pays you need at least three symbols for a winning combo, while with the low paying ones you need four matching icons.
Every self-respecting diner has a jukebox with some of the greatest bangers of the past and this one is no different. The jukebox landing on reels 2 and 4 serves as the game’s Wild. It substitutes for all other icons but the Scatter. The latter appears in the form of a golden donut and makes quite an entrance onto the reels with a banging sound.
There’s one more symbol…
… that players can come across while spinning the reels – the Donut Boxes. These open to unveil up to four donut symbols that extend the paylines or a Wild symbol with a x2, x3, or a x4 multiplier.
While there’s a lot going on during base game, the real thrill comes from the slot’s additional features. To trigger the Bonus Round players need three or four Scatters anywhere on the reelset. Three of this symbol give 12 Free Spins, while four of them award 20 additional spins.
Here it is important to note that players first go through a Bonus Round and are then transported into Free Spins.
During Bonus Round…
… players are presented with 16 separate 1×1 reels. Each of them can either generate a blank result or produce a Golden Donut Scatter on each spin. The round kicks off with three spins and each Scatter dropping onto the reels increases a Free Spins multiplier between x1 and x50. Scatters also reset the spins back to three.
Free Spins mode is activated when there are either three consecutive spins with no Scatters or when all 16 1×1 reels are filled with Scatters. The sum of all multipliers collected during the Bonus Game is applied to all wins players score during Free Spins.
When 2, 3, or 4 Scatters land on the reels in this mode, they award 10, 20, or 30 additional spins and also retrigger the Bonus Game, during which more multipliers can be secured.
Bets can be as low as 0.05 in this slot, while max bets are capped at 10. Thanks to the multipliers that players are awarded during the Bonus Round, they can win up to 20,000x their stake.
The game’s RTP is perched at 96.54% which is pretty standard for a BTG slot. And as a typical title produced by this developer, its volatility is quite high.
Features Coming with This Studio’s Games
While Megaways is the jewel in the company’s crown, this iGaming content maker is also known for packing its titles with a nice plethora of features that boost their win potential and help them deliver premium experience.
One of the special features that pulls the studio ahead of competition is the Unlimited Multipliers that many of its slots are equipped with. With this one, players see multipliers increase by one for upcoming wins, most often during Free Spins.
And thanks to Win Reactions, another great feature, players can get many individual wins during a single spin. This can potentially result in the multipliers soaring to extremely high levels.
Last but not least, some of the company’s titles allow players to take advantage of the so-called Feature Drop option, which was debuted with White Rabbit Megaways. At a certain price, players can trigger Free Spins without having to wait for three or more Scatters to activate it organically.
Of course, the Aussie creator’s slots come with a lot more features, but these are the ones that are most popular with players as they offer the biggest chance for heftier wins.
Final Words
Big Time Gaming is one of those iGaming studios that put a lot of thought and effort into each and every one of its games and a player can easily detect that within the very first few minutes of spinning the reels.
While this company doesn’t release tons of content in a short space time, each of its products has this hand-made feel to it that really appeals to devoted slots players. And, of course, it speaks volumes about the importance the developer places on quality.
Packed with an excellent mix of features and dressed up with nice graphics and atmospheric music and sounds, its titles are truly a pleasure to play. In addition, they are all based on solid math models and feature adaptive layouts that bring equally great experience on all devices a player may use to play the games.
Most of them come with high volatility, which usually means that wins don’t come too often, but when they do, they could be quite voluminous.
All of the above and the introduction of the Megaways engine a few years ago placed this studio on the same footing with the larger game developers and cemented its position there, even though it doesn’t boast a large portfolio.
Big Time games can be found in almost any online casino out there and are distributed by all major aggregators in the industry. While it has achieved quite a lot since it was formed, by the looks of things, even better things are to come for this studio and fans of its products. As for us, we are all eager to see the next big innovation that it’s clever team is set to come up with.
Warning! We are only showing Big Time Gaming Online Casino Software Provider for OHIO! Toggle knob to see for all countries!
Oh snap! There are no casinos shown for this country.
EmuCasino
Bonus Amount
100% up to
∞
HarrahsCasino.com
Bonus Amount
20 Spins
Borgata Online Casino
Jazz Casino
Bonus Amount
10% up to
$250
TropicanaCasino
BetMGM Casino NJ
Bonus Amount
100% up to
$1,000
EmuCasino
Bonus Amount
100% up to
∞
HarrahsCasino.com
Bonus Amount
20 Spins
Borgata Online Casino
Jazz Casino
Bonus Amount
10% up to
$250
TropicanaCasino
BetMGM Casino NJ
Bonus Amount
100% up to
$1,000
