Paylines
50 fixed paylines
Merlin's Millions is a 2012 NextGen Gaming throwback that Light & Wonder still keeps in the catalog, and the reason is sitting right on the reels: a stacked Merlin wild that lives only on reels 2, 3 and 4. Five reels, four rows, fifty fixed lines. The bet ladder runs $0.01 to $875 per spin, the volatility is high, and the headline ceiling sits at 10,000x. Visually it's storybook fantasy, all dripping cavern walls, a turquoise pool, gold-rimmed reels and a green-robed wizard waving his staff next to the grid. Card royals get drawn with serpentine flourishes. Spell books and purple potion bottles fill the premium slots.
The clever bit is the SuperBet ante. Five levels, each adding a flat side wager (+50, +100, +200, +250 or +300 x line bet) on top of your stake. Level 1 doubles every Merlin-substitution win. Level 5 takes that to x10. Crucially the booster only applies to wins Merlin helped create, not to clean paylines. And yes, the multiplier carries straight into the bonus.
Three blue Orb scatters on reels 2/3/4 award 5 free spins. Just five. Modest on paper, but Merlin now stands beside the reels and turns landed symbols, sometimes entire stacks, fully wild before payouts resolve. Retriggers are possible. Land three Owl scatters on reels 1/3/5 (in base or during the free games) and you get a pick-bonus, tapping owls for prize values until COLLECT shows up. Owl prizes scale with base bet only, SuperBet doesn't apply there.
Now the honest bit. The 95.07% base RTP is poor by 2026 standards, and you only nudge it to 95.63% by spending more on SuperBet, which feels like the math is gated behind paying extra. Five free spins is also pretty stingy, even with the wild-painting gimmick. Is it still fun? Yeah, oddly. The mechanic is genuinely different from a thousand modern wild-multiplier clones, and watching Merlin convert a full stack mid-bonus still produces the spike.
If you're hunting nostalgia or a classic NextGen-era feature set, Merlin's Millions earns its spot. Just go in knowing the SuperBet is doing most of the heavy lifting.