JL29 Ways to win Explained — What 1024 Ways Actually Counts

Most pages that use the term Ways to win take reader familiarity with it for granted. This one does not.

Ways to win (including Megaways) — Position doesn’t matter for adjacent matching symbols under this payline alternative — they pay regardless.

What Ways to win actually means

Field	Value
Term	Ways to win
Written out	including Megaways
In one line	Position doesn’t matter for adjacent matching symbols under this payline alternative — they pay regardless.
Fixed by	It’s the game studio’s answer to fixed paylines.
Where you meet it	The spec tables of slots using cluster or scatter-pays mechanics

Matching symbols on consecutive reels from the left trigger a payout in a ways-to-win game, in any row, with no fixed paths required. In a 1024-ways game, the 1,024 possible combinations simply reflect five reels each carrying four rows, or 4 to the 5th power. Because Megaways varies the symbol count on each reel with every spin, the resulting way-count changes constantly rather than sitting at one fixed number.

A worked example

Working through the arithmetic is the clearest path to seeing it. A grid measuring 5x4 yields 1,024 ways, since 4^5 equals that number. 6x6 as a grid size gives 6^6, which comes to 46,656.

Rather than generosity, it’s the number of symbol paths the engine evaluates that both figures represent. Rather than payouts, it’s the grid getting described whenever a game’s advertised way-count climbs into the tens of thousands.

The common misreading

A sizable way-count is frequently mistaken for a sizable advantage. As an input to how RTP is calculated, the count doesn’t add extra value on top of it. The jump from 1,024 ways to 46,656 doesn’t make a game forty-five times better; it means more frequent hits worth less each, bounded by whatever return the studio decided on.

No jackpot mechanic and no bonus is involved in ways to win. On every spin, not just triggered ones, this structure is what the base game uses to resolve wins. The engine fixes the range behind a megaways game’s variable count, so it isn’t random generosity at play.

Using it in practice

Hitting more often comes with a cost in ways-to-win games: usually lower payouts per combination. Since the way-count says nothing beyond describing the grid, RTP and volatility make for the more useful comparison. Alongside paylines, it’s easier to hold onto — the same pages tend to mention them in the same breath.

This site’s game pages mention Ways to win frequently, and if a studio leaves the figure behind it unpublished, the page states that rather than citing a comparison-site number. Hence the gaps you will notice in some spec tables on this page.

Checking Ways to win at JL29

1. Pick a game in the JL29 lobby, then locate the info or help screen.
2. Ways to win sits there — read it with the definition above in mind.
3. Hold it up against another title’s version of that entry first, then choose at JL29.
4. Write your stake and your stop point down before the first round at JL29.