Montezuma Review

From the moment you first load up WMS’ Montezuma slot machine, you’ll be transported to Central America, placed deep into the jungle as you search for ancient relics, long-lost treasures, and – hopefully – big wins!

The online slot game has been a major success for the software provider, and it can be found at both online casinos and land-based casinos all over the world.

The game’s aztec theme is excellent. Aside from a fantastic bonus round, WMS’ Montezuma slot game offers exciting, fast-paced, action-packed base-game play, too, with big wins if you land the premium symbol stacked across all five reels!

Thankfully, Williams Interactive has now also ported Montezuma over to HTML5. It’s much easier to play from your mobile devices, and you don’t need to download any apps or allow any special permissions to get started!

Let’s kick off the next part of our Montezuma slot review by looking at the game’s format and the betting options available.

Game Format and Betting Options

Like most of the studio’s slots, Montezuma’s betting options are directly tied to the number of paylines in play; Montezuma conforms to a 5-reel, 3-row format with 30 fixed paylines. The “fixed” part of the previous sentence means that you cannot adjust the number of lines active on every spin.

Because the number of paylines in the slot game is set at 30, the min bet to begin playing for real money is $0.30. While it’s a tad higher than some games, it’s still within budget for most players.

If you’re a high-roller, you’ll be pleased to learn that Williams Interactive has set the max bet at a whopping $150. Some online gambling sites may choose a lower max bet, especially if they’re newer and don’t want to risk as much financial exposure.

Montezuma is built around a volatility medium math model, which is likely one of the reasons why players like it so much.

Montezuma offers decent play-time regardless of whether you’re playing at the maximum bet or low-rolling using casino bonuses. It isn’t usually too harsh on your balance, and you’ll often find that you’re able to trigger several bonuses within a single playing session – although there are no guarantees, of course!

Complimenting this medium variance math model is a slightly below-average RTP of 95.86% – but that’s to be expected with WMS software. They primarily focus on the land-based market. In these games, RTPs are much lower – reaching down to as little as 85% – so all things considered, Montezuma’s RTP isn’t too bad!

Load up virtually any WMS slot, and you’ll notice from the get-go that they all tend to have a certain feel; they’re well-made, well-thought-out, and, for the most part, they all offer a decent bonus game too!

Montezuma is no different – although we’ll cover the bonus game in just a moment. First, let’s take a look at the symbols and payouts.

Williams Interactive has chosen to use playing card values in this video slot, including 10, jack, queen, king, and an ace, to represent the game’s low-value symbols. These aren’t worth a huge deal – especially during the base-game – but the slot machine can churn out some decent wins, even if you don’t manage to trigger the free spins bonus!

That’s because the premium symbols are worth much more – and these premiums include a Dragon, an Aztec Mask, an Ornate Headdress, an Eagle, and a Tribal Queen.

Montezuma is the game’s highest-paying symbol, awarding 10X your stake for a 5-of-a-kind combo. He’s stacked on all reels, so a full screen would award you a payout worth 300X in the base game, as the slot uses 30 paylines!

The game’s wild symbol is represented by an Ancient Pyramid; this substitutes for all of the paying symbols when it lands in view. You’ll also notice the spinning Wheel symbols on the reels. These Wheel symbols are the game’s scatter symbols, the key to triggering the main free spins bonus round.

The biggest attraction of this iconic game is the Montezuma slot free spins round. Below, we’ll look at how you activate the free spins feature and what makes it special!

There’s also a unique little twist the game developer has built into the slot – something we’ll also be covering after looking at the free spins bonus.

Free Spins

The main Montezuma slot free spins bonus is triggered by landing 3, 4, or 5 of the scatter symbols anywhere in view. Doing so will take you to a giant wheel, where you get to spin to see how many free spins you’ll be getting.

You can have up to 25 free spins awarded (and the 25 additional free spins round lands more than you’d think). While the lowest value on the wheel is 3, it seldom lands here, from our experience.

Before the start of each free spin, you’ll notice a small wheel above the reels; this wheel contains multiplier values of 2X, 3X, 5X, or 10X. Whatever multiplier value the Bonus Wheel lands on is the multiplier that will be applied to any wins you form for the next spin. With a multiplier of up to 10X on offer, it’s not hard to see where the game’s win-potential lies!

Things get even more interesting when you land two or more of the scatter symbols during the free spin feature. Doing so will take you to the Wheel Bonus, which allows you to spin for another set of free spins. You spin a wheel, and you’ll be awarded between 3 and 25 free spins.

However, whatever multiplier was active before the Wheel Bonus triggered is carried through for the duration of these spins. If you land more scatter symbols in view during these extra spins, you’ll again be taken to the Wheel Bonus.

Naturally, if you can get the 10X multiplier locked in, your chances of winning big per spin increase dramatically; it’s one of the reasons why the bonus in this iconic slot is so popular!

It’s not uncommon – when a good free spin bonus is in play – to see the 10X multiplier locked in alongside a number of 25 free spins. You can end up with 50 free spins (even more than 50 free spins if you’re lucky), during which all wins are subject to the 10X multiplier!

Bonus Guarantee

WMS was the software provider that made the bonus guarantee a “thing,” – so if during the free spins, you don’t manage to hit wins with those juicy 10X multipliers, it’s not all bad news.

If you finish the free spins round with a win worth less than ten times your stake, your total win will be bumped up, ensuring you win at least ten times your bet.

This is a unique bonus feature, and it’s something that we’ve seen replicated in other slots. WMS’ own Raging Rhino offers the same mechanic, for example. Whenever you trigger the free spins round, you know you’re winning at least 10X your bet!

Meet Montezuma Megaways

If you’ve already tried to play the Montezuma slot, you may have come across another version of the game called Montezuma Megaways.

This was released back in 2019. While it’s pretty similar in design and theme to the original Montezuma slot, it also uses Big Time Gaming’s Megaways mechanic. It offers as many as 117,649-ways-to-win on each spin and adds a progressive multiplier into the free spins feature, dramatically increasing the win potential from each free spin.

The free spins feature in the Megaways version of the Montezuma slot offers some mega win potential. We’ve seen players walk away with thousands of times their bet from the free spins feature – so it’s well worth checking out, especially if you like the developer’s original Montezuma slot!

There’s no secret why WMS’ Montezuma is one of the most-played video slot machines in history. This online slot type has paved the way for many “copycat” games. Thanks to the volatile free spins mechanic, the 2X, 3X, 5X, and 10X multipliers on offer – and the bonus guarantee – this video slot has stood the test of time and shown us what players like.

It’s refreshing to see such a popular slot built with five reels and 30 paylines. Today, so many games are doing away with the reels five mechanics, turning to larger grid areas and complex mechanics instead. The five reels in Montezuma is refreshing – almost retro – especially for those of us who’ve seen the online gambling market flooded with Megaways-like slots over the past few years.

When we were writing this online slot review of Montezuma, we triggered the main free spins round a fair few times. We love that a random multiplier is awarded before each spin. This adds a certain level of unpredictability to the game and ensures the bonus spins are always really exciting!

If you’d like to try out this online slot for yourself – but don’t want to join a casino or just want to play for free – simply head to the top of this review, load up the game, and get playing!