Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Slot Machines

Developed by Ash Gaming, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is a 5 reel, 50 pay line online slot based on the same titled game show.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is one of the most successful game shows of all time and is still running on TV today.

The original U.S. version ran on ABC from 1999 to 2002 and was hosted by Regis Philbin. The combination of Regis’ TV personality and an intriguing format led to a wildly popular show early on.

The format sees contestants try to answer 14 consecutive questions of increasing difficulty to win a $1 million prize. Contestants win money along the way and can choose to walk away at any time,rather than risk losing most of their cumulative winnings with a wrong answer.

Contestants are also given 3 lifelines, which they can use to gain help with difficult questions.

The show was initially an unprecedented hit, drawing 30 million viewers per episode, three nights a week in the first season. Ratings would drop off in seasons 2 and 3, with ABC canceling WhoWants to Be a Millionaire.

But it was immediately syndicated, with Meredith Viera hosting for 11 seasons (2002-13), Cedric the Entertainer hosting from 2013-14, Terry Crews hosting from 2014-15, and Chris Harrison hostingfrom 2015 until now.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire has a long history of success, which begs the following question: Does Ash Gaming replicate the show’s popular format in this slot?

Keep reading to find out as we discuss this game’s atmosphere, music, animations, pay table, bonuses, and comparisons to other game show slots.

This slot definitely prepares you for what will be a unique slots experience. You’re shown an introduction video that not only showcases the show’s logo, but also the features of this slot,including a progressive Jackpot Ladder and Prize Pick bonus.

The intro ends with a replica of the show’s set, with a contestant sitting opposite the host ready to answer questions.

The main game takes place in the studio, and one feature that we like is how the reels become transparent when you spin so that the host and contestant are shown behind them.

Ash Gaming did a good job of creating the show atmosphere by also including music from Who Wants to be a Millionaire. You’ll hear another jingle from the show when you spin the reels.

Another nice touch is the audience clapping whenever you get a winning payout, along with the same music that plays during correct questions.

While this game’s emphasis is on the game show atmosphere and music, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire also offers plenty of animations during winning payouts.

The payouts and symbols for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire include:

The best and most detailed bonus in this game is definitely the Jackpot Ladder. When you trigger the Jackpot Ladder round, the reels move off to the side, revealing the contestant and host.

A ladder will appear on the right hand side, which simulates the 14 questions that you must answer to reach the game show’s $1 million prize, or, in this case, the progressive jackpot.

The bottom part of the screen features a multiple choice question and four answers, while the left hand side has your 3 lifelines.

When you click Play, a cursor will move around the multiple choice answers and randomly pick one. The goal is to keep getting Advance as your answer so that you continue moving up the ladder.

If you get Collect, the round is over and you collect whatever prize you earned on the ladder. If you get Mystery, the answer flips around to reveal Collect, Advance, Advance 2 (spaces), orAdvance 3.

The lifelines add yet another interesting aspect to this round. 50:50 will remove two answers from the choices, phoning a friend will remove up to 3 answers, and choosing the audience will havethem decide your answer.

Just like the show, you can only use each lifeline once. From a strategy perspective, we only recommend using lifelines in later rounds, when more Collect symbols are presented as multiple choiceanswers.

The number of free spins that you earn depends upon how many triggering Free Spins icons you landed. 3 icons earns you 10 free spins, 4 earns you 15 spins, and 5 gets you 20 spins.

Unlike the other two bonuses in this section, free spins don’t come with any embellishments and act like standard free games.

When you trigger the Prize Pick round, the triggering Prize Pick symbols turn into multiple choice answers. You click one of the answers to collect a credit prize.

This pick’em bonus is used in many slot machines, but we love how the game show aspect is incorporated into the choices.

You can adjust pay lines from 1 50, and change your coin denomination from $0.01 to $6.00. This makes the minimum bet worth $0.01 per spin, and the max wager worth $300.00.

Pay lines change in 10 line increments, meaning you must bet 1, 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 pay lines per spin. Once you get past $1.00, the coin denomination only increases in increments of $1.

With flexible pay line and coin size options, we’re surprised that there’s no auto spin option. But you can at least speed up play by clicking the Turbo Mode button, which spins the reels about3x faster.

You can also click the Spin button, then click it again to halt the reels and speed up play.

The only other available option is the ability to turn sound on and off, which, given the game show theme, would detract from the entertainment.

The win frequency in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is below average, although we did pick up a lot of small wins that covered about half our bets.

Unfortunately, we also experienced cold spells that lasted for several spins in a row, which is rough when 50 pay lines are in play.

The bonuses do happen a fair amount, which gives you some big wins to counteract the small win and no win spins.

RTP for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is only 91.0%, which is very poor for an online slot. This partly explains why we saw our bankroll drain quicker than we’d like.

Fans of the show will likely still want to play this slot regardless of the RTP. But just bear in mind that the average player has little chance of beating Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is just one of the game show slots available online. Here’s a look at how it compares to two other game show slot machines.