Mahjong Ways 2 Strategy Guide: How to Play and Win

Welcome to the expanded edition of the Mahjong Ways 2 strategy guide. To have reached this point, you will likely have dedicated hours to playing the free demo game through our site and may have forgotten about all life existing beyond this game. This is entirely understandable, as the slot game presents players with a richer experience than the preceding slot. It’s elegantly designed with Mahjong tiles, featuring cascading mechanics, multipliers, and a high-volatility, high-reward system.

This Mahjong Ways 2 guide will introduce you to all the dynamics of gameplay developed by PG Soft in superior detail, expanding on the original Mahjong Ways 2 slot review. Here, I will guide you through how to play the game, the bonuses, the programs, and the mechanics, along with Mahjong Ways 2 strategies and tips to enhance your performance within online casinos.

Mahjong Ways 2 is the 2020 sequel to the Mahjong Ways slot by PG Soft, which had huge success in the previous year. But you should already know this, given that you’ve come this far to learn more about the game. So, let’s dive deeper and explain how the developer, PG Soft, improved on the first game, making Mahjong Ways 2 a highly captivating experience that is going viral online, with major interest in American, European, and Asian markets.

The best Mahjong Ways 2 strategy is to use the free play offered by the demo. Why? Because first and foremost, it answers the most important question: Do I like this game?

To know the game, you must first know about the developer. PG Soft took a sledgehammer to the industry with a single goal: to revolutionize the mobile-first approach for online players, and they did. Their slots went on to include dream-like visuals, playability enhancements through engaging mechanics, and, from what I can tell based on many successes, they give players a very credible chance of winning. Now, don’t get me wrong; I was a critic at first, but it literally took two plays of each of their games, Wild Bandito and Lucky Neko, for me to realize, in that delayed brain-responsive way, “Aah, I get it,” that this is a very special slot provider.

The evidence of this continues deep into the slot Mahjong Ways 2. The sequel appeared a year after the first game. The developer made the slot bigger; the grid expanded away from the original 4x5 layout and introduced a greater number of ways in which you could win. 

Mahjong is part of Asian heritage, and of all the video slots online dedicated to this homage to such an important social game, Mahjong Ways 2 is considered by many in my geeky profession to be the best – and I agree.

When you play a slot by PG Soft, the beauty lies in the unexpected. With other developers, there is a distinct familiarity when it comes to RTP, volatility, prize money, and in-play mechanics. PG Soft isn’t like this at all. Their games range across all volatilities; therefore, theoretical returns vary, along with the prize money to be won. This is what you get with Mahjong Ways 2:

*Note: The maximum theoretical payout is calculated to reward 100,000x your bet, but the slot caps at 2,000x. 

If you’ve somehow managed to reach this expanded player's strategy guide without having played the free demo of the game first, let’s briefly touch on how to play Mahjong Ways 2. Rule number one, in gaming and in any online slot strategy, is to always play the game in its demo mode first before committing your money to online casinos.

The game lands a cushioned blow on the eyes with its soft pastoral colors of pinks, blues, and yellows. Unlike the first Mahjong Ways layout, the sequel features a staggered grid with five reels presenting a row pattern of 4-5-5-5-4. From this tile arrangement, the number of ways you can win becomes 2,000. You multiply each row together to get this sum. Wins are produced by landing three, four, or five identical symbols along adjacent reels, which must start on reel one. You can use the game’s information menu to open the Paytable to see the values of each Mahjong tile and to know which symbols are the lowest and highest in value, along with many more gaming details.

What is a cascading reels mechanic, you ask? I’ll explain. When you achieve a win on the slot, that moment activates a gaming mechanism called the cascading reels, which removes the winning symbols and produces new symbols as replacements. The symbols above the winning symbols drop when removed, creating a cascading effect. When the new symbols enter the game, they come with the possibility of triggering additional wins, which then reactivates the Cascade. The player benefits from the potential to produce unlimited consecutive wins from just a single spin.

The cascading reels also serve another facet of the gameplay. Linked to the Multiplier feature that sits above the reels, with each cascade that is activated through a win, the global multiplier counter increases. This goes from 1x to 2x, then onto 3x, and then 5x. The more cascades you hit, the greater the sum of the returning payout.

The Wild symbol can also enable wins, as its purpose is to duplicate any paying symbol. Wilds can land on any reel and produce wins through a combination of numerous possible outcomes.

What originally troubled me about PG Soft slots at the beginning was their seemingly limited bonus games. I loved video slots that offered multiple different bonus games, which gave me a real sense of enhancing the gaming concept through them. PG Soft and Mahjong Ways 2 are the polar opposite of that, and I’ve learned to accept and love what they create for their bonus rounds.

The free spins bonus game is triggered by landing three bonus scatter symbols anywhere on the five reels. This results in ten free spins, but you can easily earn more during the round, as each additional bonus symbol you land awards you two more free spins. During the bonus, the central reel contains gold symbols. When these gold symbols become part of a win, they will turn into Wild symbols for the next cascade. Additionally, the multipliers for this bonus double, becoming 2x, 4x, 6x, and 10x.

At any point in play outside of the bonus round, gold symbols can appear on reels two, three, and four. When these are part of a win, they turn into Wild symbols for the next cascade activation. The player can benefit because Wild symbols can increase the chances of securing a win following a cascade.

There’s no secret that the luck you have when playing a slot machine is somewhat influenced by the programming of the game. The two main factors that could have some bearing on your failures and successes come down to the RTP and the volatility.

The RTP stands for Return to Player, and if you’re a slot aficionado, its purpose will be old news to you. For the newbies out there, the RTP is a theoretical score given to the probable payback rate. In this instance, the Mahjong Ways 2 RTP comes in at 96.95%, which is in the higher bracket when it comes to the average score for a modern game. The score tells players that, over millions of spins, this slot is expected to return 96.95% of the money they deposited into it. The other 3.05% is the house edge.

So, what about the volatility of Mahjong Ways 2? Well, this game comes with a medium volatility setting, which is my personal favorite among the volatility ratings. What is its purpose? For better understanding, volatility can be low, medium, or high. The influence rests on the risk and payout of a game. When the volatility is low, the wins are more frequent, though often lower in value. When high, the frequency is diminished, but the payouts can be greater. The medium volatility sits nicely in the middle, making the experience just right.

The flip side of this is that gaming often feels more prolonged, as wins can keep you close to your starting balance. I often find myself able to increase the value of my bet from time to time in order to strike those higher wins, which usually occur after brief periods of play when nothing has landed.

The big question surrounding slots or any online game is, “Are there any strategies to help you win?” Naturally, we all want the quickest route to success in any form. So, when it comes to playing Mahjong Ways 2 at the real money casinos, what can you do to increase your chances of success and reduce the likelihood of failure? Let’s discuss the reality of the Mahjong Ways 2 strategy.

Medium volatility slots are ideal for every player, regardless of their budgeting situation. Because of the medium volatility, the risk rate and the average value of payouts often balance themselves out. You’ll often find that gameplay lasts longer, and big wins can allow for adjustments to betting costs.

The longer a game goes on, the more you are able to read its performance. I abide by the principle that if, after ten spins, no win occurs, then I cease playing. If two or more wins come in the first ten spins, then I see it through. With Mahjong Ways 2, the hit rate is roughly 29.9%, so that’s nearly three wins in every ten spins. Now, add to this the cascade mechanism, and for me, this game is an immediate no-brainer when looking for a slot that will help you maximize your cost of play and present the right opportunities to produce wins through its programming, leaving the rest down to luck.

I am a huge advocate of playing free demo games before jumping wallet-first into a real-money game situation. The best Mahjong Ways 2 strategy is to use the free play offered by the demo. Why? Because first and foremost, it answers the most important question: Do I like this game? It’s better to find out a game is not enjoyable while it's completely free rather than after spending any money on it and regretting the decision just five minutes in. Preserve your money for when you know what the game is like.

Do not become one of those players who jumps from game to game because they are bored, waiting for a big win to drop. Assess the market first through free demos; use them to learn how games perform and how they are programmed. Only then, once you have played them and are excited by them, should you make the switch to the world of online casinos and real money jackpots.

Pick the right game, the right programming, with a slot offering the right opportunities, and yes, you can begin to see that your successes outweigh your failures. Sadly, there is no strong strategy for improving luck, unless perhaps you turn to divine prayer or satanic worship.

The first Mahjong Ways slot comes with a different design featuring red, green, and yellow color tones and feels darker compared to its sequel. The first slot displays a 4x5 layout with 1,024 ways to win, while the sequel introduces a five-reel slot with a 4-5-5-5-4 row pattern, holding 2,000 ways to win. The Multiplier feature remains, but it is only present in the sequel; the scoring doubles to reach a maximum of 10x.

The Gold Plated symbol feature remains one of the few untouched elements of the game, along with the medium volatility. The RTP of the first game is 96.92%, compared to the now updated RTP of 96.95%. If you enjoy playing Mahjong Ways 2 by the game developer PG Soft, then by all means, give the first game a spin if you haven’t already. You can find the free-to-play demo on our site.