Playtech Money Drop Live is a live dealer casino game show inspired by the TV game show Million Dollar Money Drop. The gameplay revolves around a big Money Wheel, comparable to many other popular casino game shows. However, the game also introduces a Money Drop feature in which players split their winnings into four platforms and see how much they can keep.
In this review, we’ll take a detailed look at all of the rules, features, and mechanics of the Money Drop casino game. We’ll explain how it works, strategies to win, and how it compares to other popular casino game shows. Finally, we’ll rate this game based on our experience with it and how well it performs compared to similar titles.
Game Specifications | |
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Game name | Live Money Drop |
Game provider | Playtech |
Game type | Game Shows |
Streaming from | Lithuania |
RTP | 97.2% |
Bet range | €$0.10 - €$500 |
Max win | 5,000x |
Side bets | Yes |
Supported platforms |
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Supported OS |
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Languages |
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The Playtech Money Drop game takes the core idea of casino games and flips it on its head. Winning a huge multiplier here is easy. Keeping it for yourself is the hard part.
With the rising popularity of Game Shows at live casinos, games such as these are becoming a lot more interesting. Playtech have been at the forefront of innovation in live casino gaming, so we’re not surprised to see them come up with such a unique concept.
Live casino game shows are focused on entertainment above all else. As such, The Money Drop Live delivers premium-quality footage from Playtech’s purpose-built set. It’s presented by professionals whose main job is to keep the audience engaged and entertained.
More importantly, though, the game stands out even in the colorful world of betting game shows. From the betting options to the unique blend of live streaming and CGI, it can keep you glued to your screen for hours on end.
Inspired by the Channel 4 game show The £100K Drop, The Money Drop is all about balancing risk and reward.
It’s a completely unique idea, offering payouts as high as 5,000x your stake. However, winning so much takes a bit of courage and willingness to risk it all, which is what makes The Money Drop so exciting.
The Money Drop Live is difficult to compare to other games due to its unique gameplay mechanics. However, Evolution’s Deal or No Deal is another casino game show based on a popular TV show, which makes them similar in some ways. We’ll also compare the game to Playtech’s own Adventures Beyond Wonderland.
Feature | Money Drop Live | Deal or No Deal | Adventures Beyond Wonderland |
Game Type | Wheel-based gameplay with a 4-way prize split feature | RNG-based game show with 3 gameplay phases | Wheel-based game show with limited RNG |
Betting Options | 7 Number bets + 1 bonus bet | Slot machine minigame used to qualify for 2nd and 3rd phases | 4 numbers (1, 2, 5, 10) + 4 bonus bets |
Bonus Features | 1 bonus bet, 1 side bet, random boosters | Unique base game, but no additional bonus features | 4 bonus rounds triggered by bonus bets + Mystery Bonus feature |
Max Payout | 2,500x | 5,000x | Capped at $500,000 |
RTP | 96.02 – 97.50% | 95.42% | 96.11 – 96.70% |
Volatility | Very high | Very high | Medium (by game show standards) |
Visuals & Theme | Inspired by the Million Pound Drop TV game show | Inspired by the Deal or No Deal TV game show | Themed around Alice in Wonderland with multiple wheels and CGI elements |
Unique Appeal | Players confirm all wagers by splitting their winnings into four parts and keeping only a random one | Unique 3-phase gameplay that simulates the rules of the TV show | More frequent bonuses with lower payouts + fun, themed graphics |
The Money Drop by Playtech is divided into two distinct stages.
The first stage is most similar to other live dealer specialty games that include a money wheel. You’re presented with a large Wheel of Fortune-type setup and 8 different wagering options. These are mostly distinguished by the multiplier that you’ll be awarded at the end of the first stage and include:
The basic premise is easy to understand. If you bet on 30x and the wheel pointer lands on that section, you get a 30x multiplier on your stake. You can bet on any number of positions per round, including all eight.
If this sounds like an easy way to get a lot of money, don’t get too excited just yet. Your cash still has to get through the second stage – the Money Drop itself.
Before the Drop, you’ll be presented with four different platforms titled A, B, C, and D. Your job is to distribute your winnings from the first stage among these four platforms.
Once you’re done distributing, 3 of the 4 platforms will be “dropped”, forfeiting any money on them.
As you may imagine, the goal is to correctly guess which platform will not be dropped. You can place money on any number of platforms and distribute it any way you want. For example, placing money on all 4 platforms guarantees a profit, but your winnings may end up being quite small. Conversely, you can go for “all or nothing” and put it on just one platform, which will only give you a 25% chance of winning.
You can also just click Auto Stack, which lets the game choose for you. Generally, it will simply make 4 equal stacks, which is arguably the safest way to play the game.
Importantly, there may be more drops than one. The bets with higher multipliers in the first round need to go through multiple drops. For instance, if you win a 100x multiplier in the first stage, the game goes through two drops. If you retain any money after the first drop, you simply need to distribute it again using the same 4 platforms.
Winnings are cashed out only you still have money after all the required drops are completed.
However, the 8x bet is a special case. It drops money only once, but you can only put money on a single platform in the second stage.
Card Clash and Winning Zones are special bets which we’ll discuss below.
The base game is fairly engaging, but the complete Money Drop live casino offer doesn’t end there. Players have access to two additional bet types.
The Card Clash is a special minigame that looks a bit like a game of Hi-Lo. If you bet on the Card Clash position and the wheel lands on it, you get to participate.
The camera pans to a special card table with two betting positions – Blue and Pink. You pick one of the two, and the dealer will start drawing cards. Each position receives one card, and the one with the higher value wins. This process repeats for 3 rounds. This Playtech Money Drop bonus round awards a multiplier based on the outcome.
The Winning Zone side bet is only available to players who don’t place the main bet or lose all their money in the Money Drop. It’s simple – just pick the winning Drop Zone correctly and you get a 2,95:1 payout.
Boosters also occasionally trigger and give the players an edge of some sort. One possibility is for all profits in the round to be doubled. Alternatively, you may get 2 safe platforms during the Money Drop stage instead of one. These features are completely random and sometimes just trigger on their own.
The Money Drop live has a unique twist that we don’t really see in gambling games. While the goal of most casino games is to simply make a prediction and win some money, this title is all about holding on to money you’ve already won.
In the long run, this doesn’t make much of a difference – it’s still a fully chance-based game show. However, the setup is important for the psychology of how the game is played.
Effectively, players are encouraged to take bigger risks because they already believe they’ve won a big multiplier. Splitting these winnings into 4 parts makes people feel like they’re losing, even though the money isn’t really theirs yet. It’s a fun trick by Playtech, but our experience with the game tells us that playing conservatively is better in the long run.
Covering all 8 initial betting positions is a surprisingly effective strategy. This also applies to distributing your money to all 4 platforms in the Money Drop stage. This approach guarantees non-stop action, though you’ll need some luck to actually turn a profit.
The key to Playtech Money Drop strategy is not to be blinded by the big numbers after the first stage. Covering all 4 platforms equally is especially effective if you’re working with big multipliers such as 2,500x. After all, hitting the 25% chance in the second stage 3 times in a row is highly unlikely.
Always keep your initial bet in mind when aiming for the final profit. Seeing a massive 2,000x multiplier shrink can be painful, but some returns are better than none.
We’ll also go through a few common mistakes newbies make while playing The Money Drop Live.
Pros |
Cons |
✅ Unique twist on the Money Wheel game show formula
✅ The Money Drop feature allows players to adjust the volatility of the game ✅ Relatively high RTP for most bets ✅ Side bets and bonus rounds that add variety between different game rounds ✅ Great at building tension and excitement thanks to its unique mechanics |
❌ The game’s features don’t reward risk-taking strategies, so the game is more suitable for casual players
❌ Gameplay can quickly become repetitive because bonus rounds are rare ❌ No real decision-making. Despite its premise, the game is completely based on luck |
The 7 main bets in the Money Drop are all tied to a specific type of wheel segment. Every bet is also basically named after its base payout, so its easy to understand how much you stand to win. Of course, you should still remember that you’ll be splitting these winnings into up to 4 parts every time you win. Riskier bets also have to survive multiple drops, which makes them even more volatile.
Every bet also has its own RTP rate, though they’re generally consistent around 96-96.40%.
You can check out the full stats for every bet in The Money Drop Live on the table below.
Bet | Color | Base Payout | Number of Drops | Wheel segments | Win Probability | RTP |
8x | Red | 8x | 1 | 20 | 37.03% | 96.02% |
15x | Orange | 15x | 1 | 11 | 20.37% | 96.25% |
30x | Green | 30x | 1 | 6 | 11.11% | 96.25% |
100x | Pink | 100x | 2 | 7 | 12.96% | 96.01% |
250x | Purple | 250x | 2 | 3 | 5.55% | 96.18% |
1,000x | Yellow | 1,000x | 3 | 3 | 5.55% | 96.40% |
2,500x | Gold | 2,500x | 3 | 1 | 1.85% | 94.40% |
Card Clash (5x – 1000x) | Silver | 5x – 1,000x | N/A | 3 | 5.55% | 96.62% |
Winning Zones | N/A | 2.5x | N/A | N/A | 25% | 97.50% |
Every bet in the Money Drop live has its own RTP rate, as you can see on the table above. The average rate is around 96.20%, though some bets stand out as better than others.
As far as the main bets go, 15x, 30x, and 1,000x stand out as the best options. Conversely, the 8x and 100x are slightly weaker than other wagers, while the 2,500x bet is the weakest by a significant margin. The Card Clash bonus is also the strongest bet you can initially make, which is somewhat surprising.
All in all, it’s a decent house edge compared to most other game shows. However, it’s not particularly impressive by most other standards.
Casino players are a naturally suspicious bunch, so we often get asked whether The Money Drop live is rigged or not.
But bluntly, no – the game is not rigged. It simply has a house edge like every other casino gambling game, which means the house is always at a statistical advantage of around 3-4%.
Playtech is a reputable provider of live casino software with an excellent reputation and a long-standing history in the gaming industry. Their games are tested for fairness by multiple regulatory authorities, including the UKGC and the MGA.
These tests ensure that the game’s statistics and house edge align with the information provided by Playtech. Though the maths behind this game can be difficult to analyze, you can rest assured that they’re exactly as Playtech described them.
Remember that LiveCasinos.com isn’t here just for live casino game reviews. We also handle guides and strategies, helping you get the best start possible. You can find some money wheel game strategies here.
The main betting screen should be familiar to anyone who has ever played a wheel-based casino game show. You have 8 betting positions, and each one corresponds to a specific type of wheel segment. The segments and positions are even color-coded, so it’s easy to understand what you’re betting on.
Once the Money Drop phase comes around, you get 4 betting positions, corresponding to the 4 platforms you split your money between. This phase also offers a very handy Auto-stack feature, which allows you to pick the number of zones you wish to cover and automatically distributes your current budget between them. It tends to split the money equally between the selected zones.
While the interface is generally intuitive, the in-game tutorial could probably do a better job at explaining the rules to new players. The Money Drop is not difficult to understand, but it’s still a unique product that may confuse newbies, so we wish Playtech had dedicated more effort to explaining the game’s rules and features.
The game is streamed 24/7 in full HD from a special studio that was purpose-made for The Money Drop Live. Unsurprisingly, the studio is set up to look like the one from the British version of the original game show. The colorful wheel and the game interface are specific to Playtech’s vision, but it all translates quite well into an engaging live dealer game.
Beyond that, The Money Drop boasts high production value, much like Playtech’s other flagship game shows. This entails multiple camera angles, running shots of the action, and special effects during the bonus rounds. We wouldn’t say the game looks as impressive as something like Adventures Beyond Wonderland, but its looks do remind us of popular TV game shows, which was the intent.
We’re also happy to say that the stream itself is quite stable. We’ve encountered no real technical issues during our review, and the game looks good and runs well on all supported platforms.
Unsurprisingly, the game is compatible with most modern devices, including phones and tablets. It works on both Android and iOS devices and can be played directly from most browsers with no downloads required.
The mobile version of the game is pretty much identical to what you would get on a desktop. The interface looks a bit different to accommodate the screen controls and layouts of phones and tablets, but that’s the only real difference.
Beyond that, everything we’ve stated in this Money Drop Live review is true, no matter which platform you’re using to play it. It’s a well-designed, well-implemented, and ultimately good-looking game with next to no technical flaws.
The concept behind The Money Drop is great at building up suspense, which is one of the game’s unique advantages. It’s hard not to feel excitement whenever you pick up a seemingly massive multiplier and then have to fight hard to keep it in your pocket.
The fact that players are given direct control over how they wish to split their winnings between platforms adds a lot to this tension. Although the decisions are ultimately an illusion, you still get to decide how volatile you want your game to be. Moreover, the crucial moments where the money “drops” are everything that the TV show makes them out to be. We have to applaud Playtech for translating the concept so well into a live dealer table.
As always, the presenters are a key part of all this excitement. Like in most entertainment-style game shows, their main job is to engage the audience and hype players up whenever big multipliers are at stake. They’re great at their jobs, too, which is not surprising given Playtech’s extensive experience with this style of gaming.
All in all, it’s one of the most entertainment-driven games in Playtech’s lineup, which is no small feat. If you tend to enjoy game shows in casinos and how it feels to play them, it’s safe to say you’ll love what the Money Drop Live offers.
Our live casino game reviews and ratings are based on a strict set of standards we’ve acquired over the years of playing and analyzing live dealer tables. Although unique titles like The Money Drop are hard to rate because they’re difficult to compare, we can still explain our review results by explaining the standards and factors that contribute to them.
Though it’s made to look and play like a TV game show, remember that The Money Drop Live is a real gambling game. As such, it bears very real dangers.
Always remember to play responsibly. Control your bankroll, don’t go over the budget you set up at the beginning of the game, and take regular breaks so as not to damage your health.
Check out this page to find more information about responsible gambling and useful tips on how to avoid problem gambling and control your spending. If you suspect you may be developing symptoms of problem gambling, we recommend contacting organizations such as: