XXXtreme Lightning Roulette

The first Lightning Roulette launched in 2018 and is one of Evolution Gaming's biggest successes. It took classic roulette and turned up the volatility using win multipliers on straight bets. The XXXtreme variant turns it up even further.

A clear trend in the crypto casino world since the early 2020s is high volatility. We want to win big on relatively small bets. Who doesn’t? We shouldn't scoff at classic European roulette. A single bet pays a nice 35:1, but compared to slots with max wins in the thousands of times our bet, roulette games are at a clear disadvantage. Until Lightning Roulette was invented by Evolution and now XXXtreme Lightning Roulette which introduces even more prospects for multiplied wins.

In short, these rule-tweaks lower the payout on a straight bet in exchange for a potential win multiplier (on that same straight bet). In the first Lightning Roulette we can hit multipliers up to 500x, in XXXtreme Lightning Roulette wins can be multiplied all the way up to 2,000x.

For a more detailed breakdown on the rules of roulette, variants, bet types and payouts, check out our roulette guide.

Let’s look at how it all works. It is very similar to the first game, but a number of potential bonus features have been added after the initial lightning moment. A game round goes like this.

1. Make your bet, remember only straight bets on single numbers are affected by multipliers.
2. Lightning round, 1-5 numbers are assigned a random multiplier.
3. Chain Lightning round, up to five additional numbers are assigned a random multiplier (10 total is max).
4. Double Strike, one of the Lightning affected numbers have its multiplier increased.
5. Ball lands and the game round is done.

The Lightning Round Multipliers

First, up to five (5) single numbers are selected, these are randomly assigned one of the following multipliers.

• 50x
• 100x
• 150x
• 200x
• 250x
• 300x
• 350x
• 400x
• 500x

The max multiplier here is the same as in the original game but the 150x, 250x and 350x options are new.

The next game element is called Chain Lightning and means that additional multipliers can be introduced. At most, there can be 10 numbers in total affected by Lightning and Chain Lightning. I.e., get assigned a win multiplier.

After the Chain Lightning has done its job, the Double Strike feature kicks in, where one of the selected numbers has its multiplier randomly multiplied to give a total value between 600x-2,000x.

Now it is time for the ball to land and see which number won.

XXXtreme Lightning Roulette is played with one zero and European rules. The payout schedule for straight bets is the only one affected, and it is also only straight bets that are affected by win multipliers. The game showcase up to 2000x, but in roulette (and other classic casino games) the payout is usually expressed in terms that include your bet.

In this case, 19:1 is what you get paid when a straight bet hits, without a Lightning multiplier. Your bet plus 19 more bets. So, 1999:1 is the same as 2000x, but does not take into account your bet. This makes it comparable to how slots wins are expressed. In comparison to other live roulette variants it looks like this:

It should also be mentioned that the house edge is slightly increased if you only make straight bets. Straight bets result in a RTP of 97.1% compared to if you avoid those, which means you are playing with regular roulette rules, and a 97.3% RTP – but then you might as well head on over to any other of Evolution’s Live Roulette games for less distracting and faster gameplay.

Additional information

Those who have some experience with crypto gambling may recognize the "XXXtreme" prefix. It was first introduced in the highly anticipated follow up to the classic Starburst online slot. The game Starburst XXXtreme was released the summer 2021. In the slots using the XXXtreme monicker it has come to mean a special play mode, with some extra feature guaranteed. At a price of course.

NetEnt, the game studio behind both slots, is one of Evolution Gaming's slots studios, alongside Red Tiger and Big Time Gaming, and since 2022 Nolimit City is also part of the gang. Quite an impressive line-up.