Slots that spin a normal reel set beside a taller colossal one and pass wild reels between them. Light & Wonder's games compared, with what each version costs.
Two Reel Sets Side by Side
Colossal Reels is a Light & Wonder format, first built by its WMS studio, that puts two sets of reels on one screen. On the left is a normal grid of five reels and four rows. Beside it sits a much taller grid, also five reels wide but twelve rows high, and both pay on every spin.
The two grids are linked. When a whole reel on the small grid turns wild, the matching reel on the colossal grid can turn wild too, and that is where most of the big wins in these games come from. Other five-column layouts are on our 5 reel slots page.
Light & Wonder’s Colossal Reels Games
All four games below come from Light & Wonder. The figures are the studio’s own; where it offers more than one version, a casino picks which one to run.
| Game | Layout | Lines | RTP | Top prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spartacus Super Colossal Reels | 5×4 + 5×12 | 100 | 96.76% | – |
| Spartacus Gladiator of Rome | Two reel sets | – | 94% | – |
| Spartacus Wonder 500 | 5×4 + 5×12 | 25 + 75 | 92% or 94% | 500x |
| Colossal Splash Ink & Win | 5 reels, giant symbols | 25 | 90% to 96% | 18,183x |
Light & Wonder gives Super Colossal Reels a top prize of 250,000 without saying whether that is coins or a multiple of the stake, and outside listings range from about 2,400x to 10,000x, so we leave it blank. The studio’s page for Gladiator of Rome does not yet give its lines or its top prize.
Spartacus Super Colossal Reels
Launched in 2021, this is the fullest version of the format. Wilds transfer from the main grid to the colossal one, multipliers reach 50x, and the game adds Golden Wild Respins, Wild Overlays and Super Wilds on top. At 96.76% it has the highest return of the four, with one version listed.
Spartacus Gladiator of Rome
The original gladiator game on two reel sets. Wilds and feature symbols can move between the reels, symbols land stacked, and a free spins bonus completes the set. Light & Wonder’s current listing shows a 94% return.
Spartacus Wonder 500
A lighter remake of the classic, with 25 lines on the main grid and 75 on the colossal one. Stacked wilds appear on both sets, and scatters bring up to 20 free spins with a multiplier of up to 20x. It caps both its top prize, at 500x, and its stake, at 2 per spin, and comes in 92% and 94% versions.
Colossal Splash Ink & Win
Despite the name, this 2024 game has one set of five reels. The colossal part is a giant mystery symbol that can cover several positions, alongside Colossal Free Spins and a Hold N Spin feature. It has the highest top prize here, 18,183x, and four versions from 90% to 96%.
How a Wild Reel Crosses Over
On the Spartacus games, stacked wilds on the small grid are the key. When they fill one of its reels completely, the same reel on the colossal grid is copied over as wild, and a twelve-row wild reel touches far more of the 100 lines than a four-row one. The free spins work the same way, only with more stacked wilds in play.
The same gladiator also appears in Spartacus Megaways, a separate game on a single changing grid rather than two fixed ones. More games on that engine are on our Megaways slots page, and more fixed-line layouts on our 100 payline slots page.
Colossal Reels or Colossal Symbols?
“Colossal” turns up in slot names for two different things. Colossal Reels means the second, taller grid. Colossal symbols are single icons that cover a block of positions on an ordinary grid, as on Colossal Splash Ink & Win. Some sites mix them up, so the screen layout is the quickest way to tell which one a game uses.
Games that grow symbols across the reels are on our expanding symbols slots page, and games built around locking symbols in place, as in Hold N Spin, are on our hold and win slots page.
What Each Version Costs an Hour
Super Colossal Reels at 96.76% costs about £19 an hour on average over 600 spins at £1, about £97 at the £5 limit for players aged 25 and over, and about £39 at the £2 limit for 18 to 24-year-olds.
Spartacus Wonder 500 stops at 2 a spin. At that top bet, its 94% version averages about £72 an hour and its 92% version about £96, so the version a casino runs matters more here than the bet size. No bonus buy is offered on slots in Great Britain, so every feature on these games has to land in normal play.
