Apollo Pays: slot review and demo

Apollo Pays review

SlotAtlas editorial team · updated 6 October 2026

Big Time Gaming released Apollo Pays on 23 February 2022, and the studio confirms that date. It is a Megaways game on six reels of up to seven rows with 117,649 ways to win. At its centre sit chains of respins: a win triggers an extra spin, and that spin can trigger the next one. On top of that come a win-for-bonus exchange and a bonus buy, and in free spins the multiplier climbs without a limit.

Volatility is labelled medium, yet the studio index is 9.4, only half a point under the 9.9 line past which the platform starts calling it high. The slot sits at the edge of the band, not in the middle of it. A 33.46% hit frequency means a win roughly every third spin, and RTP divided by hit frequency comes to about 2.9: that is how many bets an average winning spin returns, counting both the ordinary small wins and the rare big ones. Treating spins as independent, ten dry spins in a row happen in about 1.7% of cases, so the long wait in this game belongs to the bonus rather than the base game, and the bonus is where the multiplier grows.

The respin chain and where it breaks

By the studio description every win brings a respin, and its purpose is to improve the prize already earned. If two or more symbols improve the win after a respin, another one follows. The chain carries on until only one symbol improves the total or none does, and only then is the win paid. Scatters stay in place throughout, and during any respin the gods may bless a reel with an extra symbol, which the studio words as raising the chance of a big result.

A curious consequence: the chain does not break because a respin failed to win, but because too few symbols got better. A single improved symbol already stops the run. So long chains need improvement to touch two symbols or more again and again, which takes a fairly dense grid. How often that happens, how likely a blessing is and which symbol it adds are not disclosed in the public data.

Lyre scatters and the way into free spins

The scatter is a golden lyre. Holding the scatters through the chain changes the usual expectation: a symbol that has already landed is not lost while respins roll on. Two lyres on the grid at the start of a chain can become three if the next respin brings the third, and the studio itself names this as a way to raise the chance of free spins.

Both columns follow the studio formula: 10 spins on entry plus 2 for each scatter past the third, and 4 spins in the bonus plus 2 for each extra one. The table stops at six rows because the maximum number of scatters on the grid is not stated anywhere. The bonus has no fixed length: the number of free spins grows with every addition.

Free spins on Olympus: a multiplier with no cap

In the bonus the win multiplier starts at x1 and gains one with every respin; it has no upper limit, and the studio calls it unlimited. The Hold and Win mechanic from the base game stays active, but its wins now carry the multiplier. The description adds nothing else: which symbols are held, for how long and how it ties into the respin chain is unknown.

Nor does it explain whether the multiplier resets between free spins or carries over. It matters, because it decides whether the count of units runs through the whole bonus or restarts in each spin. If it carries over, a chain pays more than its length alone suggests: with equal underlying wins, a chain of twenty respins gives almost four times as much as a chain of ten. So in the bonus both the strength of each respin and the number of them in a row count, and this is where the meaningful sums gather, while the base game runs noticeably calmer.

Win Exchange and the 100x bonus buy

The Win Exchange™ feature works in two stages. When a win reaches 100 stakes, you may collect the money or swap 100 of those stakes for 10 free spins. If the win lies between 25x and 100x, you may gamble the whole amount for a chance to trigger the same 10 free spins. The Bonus Buy button sells those ten free spins at once, also for 100x, which puts one free spin at 10x.

The swap in effect turns a win into a bonus purchase at its price, and the test is the same: if you would buy the bonus for 100x anyway, the swap is justified, and if not, the win is better collected. In a swap the price comes out of a win that has just landed rather than out of your own balance, but arithmetically it is the same money. The studio gives no RTP for the buy; if it equals the game RTP, ten free spins are worth 96.57 bets on average at a price of 100, and the swap costs about 3.4 bets. Another point is unclear: with a win of, say, 250x, do the remaining 150x stay with you? The wording “exchange 100x” hints at that, but the description stops short of saying it.

The odds in the gamble part are not given either. Under the same assumption about the bonus value, the stake does not lose only if the chance is at least the win divided by that value: about 26% for 25x, about 52% for 50x and nearly 78% for 75x. The bigger the win, the harder the stake is to justify.

Apollo Pays and Millionaire Megaways

Six weeks apart the studio released two Megaways games: Millionaire Megaways in January 2022 and this one in February.

The newer game wins a little less often, yet pays more by RTP and has a ceiling one and a half times higher. Max Megaways has a 139,200x ceiling and 96.37% RTP. A different take on an ancient theme is Pragmatic’s Gates of Olympus, and a similarly named setting appears at Play’n GO as Rise of Olympus; both top out at 5,000x.

Technical data in the record

The studio record lists HTML5, a 16:9 aspect ratio and availability on mobile and desktop. The licence list names the UKGC. Bonus mode is marked as available, while a progressive jackpot and an ante mode are not marked. The fields for free spins and for the probability of a maximum payout are empty in the record, and neither the bonus entry rate nor the rule that limits a payout is published.