Last updated: 6 September 2026
01 / U88 SLOT GUIDE
What did PG Soft change between Mahjong Ways and Mahjong Ways 2, and what stayed the same?
Sequels in this business are usually a fresh coat of paint on an identical maths model. This one is not. PG Soft kept the tile set, the cascading reels and the multiplier ladder from the first game, then changed three structural things: the shape of the grid, where wilds are allowed to form, and what the free-spin round does before you have won anything.
Taken together those changes push the sequel's activity toward the centre of the screen, and they make its bonus round the main event in a way the original's is not. If you have not met the underlying engine, the explanation of how the Mahjong Ways cascade and multiplier ladder resolve covers the shared foundation in full, and everything below assumes it.
02 / U88 SLOT GUIDE
Original versus sequel, line by line
| Mahjong Ways | Mahjong Ways 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Grid shape | Five reels, four rows throughout | Reels of 4-5-5-5-4 rows |
| Ways to win | 1,024 | 2,000 |
| Symbol positions on screen | 20 | 23 |
| Wild conversion | Winning gold tiles anywhere | Winning gold tiles on reels two to four |
| Free spins awarded | 12 on three scatters | 10 on three scatters |
| Inside the free spins | Gold tiles still land at random | Reels two to four gold-plated outright |
| Multiplier ladder | x1, x2, x3, x5 rising to x2, x4, x6, x10 in free spins | Identical |
| Volatility class | Medium | Medium |
03 / U88 SLOT GUIDE
Two thousand ways comes from a different grid shape, not a bigger one
The original runs four rows on every reel: four to the power of five gives 1,024. The sequel leaves the outer reels at four rows and lifts the middle three to five, so the sum becomes four times five times five times five times four, which comes to 2,000. Three extra symbol positions, nearly double the ways.
The distribution is the interesting part. Reel one is unchanged, and reel one is still the gatekeeper, since wins are read from the leftmost reel across adjacent reels. So the sequel has not made it any easier to start a combination. What it has done is make combinations that do start far more likely to find a continuation in the middle, which is precisely where the sequel also concentrates its wilds. The two changes were designed together.
04 / U88 SLOT GUIDE
The wild rule moved to the middle three reels
Both games gild a handful of tiles at random on any spin, and in both games a gold tile only becomes wild once it has taken part in a win. The sequel adds a location rule: that conversion happens on reels two, three and four. Wilds no longer appear on the outer reels at all.
In the original, a gold tile winning on reel five converts and helps the following drop. In the sequel it does not, and the effect is that the sequel's cascades tend to build inward. A chain that survives long enough starts stacking wilds through the widened centre, where the extra ways live. It is a narrower rule that produces a more concentrated result, which is a fair summary of the sequel generally.
05 / U88 SLOT GUIDE
The free-spin round gilds those reels wholesale, which is the biggest single change
In the original, free spins change one thing: the multiplier ladder runs at doubled values. Gold tiles keep arriving at whatever rate they always did, and the round is a run of ordinary spins with better multipliers.
The sequel does something more aggressive. For the duration of the round every symbol on reels two, three and four is gold-plated. Any winning combination touching the middle of the grid therefore converts something to wild, every time, rather than occasionally. Combine that with the doubled ladder and the sequel's bonus round is a genuinely different piece of software from its base game, whereas the original's is more of the same at better rates. This is the single reason to prefer the sequel, and the honest counterweight is that you have to reach the round first, which is not something you can influence.
06 / U88 SLOT GUIDE
Ten spins instead of twelve, and why that is not the downgrade it looks like
Three scatters award 10 free spins in the sequel against 12 in the original, with extra scatters adding spins in both, and retriggers available in both. Read in isolation, fewer spins looks worse. Read alongside the gold-plating rule it is a trade, and it is the standard one: a shorter round in which each spin does more.
Studios balance these things against each other, and the total is settled by the model, not by the spin count. Comparing two bonus rounds on their length alone is the same mistake as comparing two slots on their ways count alone. Neither number means anything without the paytable it sits in.
07 / U88 SLOT GUIDE
What did not change is the part most people assume did
The multiplier ladder is identical. First win of a cascade chain unmultiplied, then x2, x3 and x5, doubled to x2, x4, x6 and x10 inside free spins, resetting the moment a drop pays nothing. Anyone switching to the sequel expecting fatter multipliers has misread it. The sequel gives you more chances to keep a chain alive, which is a different thing entirely.
Also unchanged: wins read left to right from reel one, cascades remove and replace, the ladder never carries between spins, and every spin is generated independently of the last. A dry run in either game leaves nothing stored up. Both remain negative-expectation games where the house edge is built into the paytable, which is the honest frame for any RTP figure you read.
08 / U88 SLOT GUIDE
The RTP figures quoted for the sequel disagree with each other, and that is informative
Search for the sequel's RTP and you will find several different percentages, sometimes on reputable sites. That is not sloppiness so much as a symptom: PG Soft supplies a number of its titles in more than one RTP configuration, and the operator running the game selects the build. A figure that was accurate for one deployment is simply wrong for another.
Which is why this page quotes none. The percentage that governs your session is stated in the game's own paytable, reachable from the information panel before you stake anything, and that is the only source worth trusting. The same applies to maximum-win claims for the sequel, which vary wildly between sources. Background on the studio's catalogue and conventions sits on the PG Soft provider page.
09 / U88 SLOT GUIDE
Which of the two to play
Choose the sequel if the bonus round is what you are playing for. The wholesale gold-plating makes it the more spectacular of the two rounds, and the widened centre gives cascade chains more room to run once they start. Choose the original if you spend most of your time in the base game and prefer a slightly cleaner grid where wilds can form on any reel.
Neither choice improves your returns, and neither game is ever due. Load both free in demo mode and play twenty minutes of each. The difference in how the two bonus rounds feel is obvious within one trigger, and no review will settle it for you. Other titles pulled apart the same way are indexed in the slot game guides, and the volatility guide explains why two medium-rated slots can still produce very different sessions.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
What to remember
- The sequel adds a row to the middle three reels only, taking the format from 1,024 ways to 2,000 without changing the outer reels.
- Gold tiles convert to wilds on reels two, three and four, so the sequel concentrates its wild activity where the extra ways were added.
- Free spins award 10 spins rather than 12, and gild the middle three reels wholesale instead of waiting for gold tiles to land at random.
- The multiplier ladder itself is identical in both games, so anyone expecting bigger multipliers from the sequel is looking in the wrong place.
- Published RTP figures for the sequel vary between sources because PG Soft ships titles in multiple configurations, so read the in-game paytable.
- Neither game is more likely to pay than the other on any given spin, since outcomes are independent in both.