Merge Up

Merge Up Overview

Merge Up is a gem-matching cluster slot from BGaming, released on 26 October 2023. Instead of reels and lines it uses a 6x6 grid with cluster pays, and its hook is borrowed from mobile puzzle games: winning gems do not simply vanish, they merge into gems of the next level. SlotCatalog lists a 97.25% RTP (the game comes in several RTP versions), high volatility and a maximum win of 5,000x the bet. Stakes run from 0.20 to 50.

How the Merging Works

The win panel on the left of the screen explains the mechanic better than any rulebook. Every win is written as a small equation: a number of gems of one kind, an arrow, and the number of higher-level gems they turn into. In our base game, for example, 5 yellow gems >> 2 blue gems paid 6.00, and 6 orange gems >> 2 pink gems paid 3.00. The cluster pays out, most of its gems disappear, and a few are upgraded to the next colour in the ladder – which can then join the next cluster.

Every cluster in our win panels had at least four matching gems, and the payout grows with both the size of the cluster and the level of the gem. A four-gem cluster of low-level orange gems is worth very little, while the same four gems one or two levels higher pay several times more.

The ladder ends at the Scatter. A cluster of the highest gem, the large purple one, does not become another gem: 4 purple gems >> 1 S paid 10.00 in one of our spins and left a scatter on the grid. Scatters can therefore land on the grid or be built by merging, which is what makes the bonus reachable from the base game.

Free Spins and Cell Multipliers

Enough scatters award the free spins – our round opened with “Congratulations! You’ve won 15 free spins”. During the round, the cells where wins happen keep a multiplier, and the multiplier doubles each time another win lands on the same cell. Our screenshots show the progression clearly: x2, x4, x8, x16 and x32 badges scattered across the grid, and several of them adding up inside one cluster.

What Our Free Spins Showed

We bought the round at a 10 FUN stake, and the win panel lets us follow two spins in detail.

On free spin 4 of 15, the panel listed four separate merges. The smallest, four orange gems, paid just 1.00; four gems sitting on a x16 cell paid 16.00 – the same cluster size, sixteen times the money. Then a cluster of 11 gems covering multiplier cells worth a combined x14 merged into five green gems and paid 560.00 on its own – the spin totalled 578.00, and the round stood at 621.00.

On spin 5 of 15, five gems on multiplier cells adding up to x34 merged into two red hearts and paid 272.00; with a small 1.00 cluster alongside, the spin paid 273.00 and the round total reached 1,018.00 – already 101.8x the stake with ten spins still to play.

The lesson from the two spins is that the size of a cluster matters less than where it lands. A five-gem cluster on the right cells outpaid many larger clusters without multipliers.

Buy Bonus and Chance x2

Two buttons sit under the logo. Buy Bonus costs 1,000.00 at a 10.00 stake – 100x – and our purchase screen confirms the price. Chance x2 raises the stake to improve the odds of triggering the bonus: at 10.00 it adds 2.50, so each spin costs 12.50 – a 25% premium. Our screenshot with the feature switched on shows a total bet of 12.50 and a total win of 62.00 on that spin.

Graphics and Sound

The look is clean and bright: faceted gems in orange, green, yellow, blue, red and purple on a violet background in the bonus and a green one in the base game. The candy-coloured logo and the soft pop of merging gems make it feel closer to a mobile puzzle game than to a classic slot, which is exactly the point.

The Merge Up Family

Merge Up became a series. BGaming released Merge Up 2 in October 2025 with bombs, three buy options and a 10,000x ceiling, and the casinos we checked also carry Sugar Merge Up and Lucky 8 Merge Up – read our Lucky 8 Merge Up review for another take on the idea. The original remains the simplest version of the mechanic.

Who It Is For

Merge Up is for players who enjoy cluster slots and want a little more strategy to watch unfold on the grid. The high RTP is a strong point, the merge ladder turns every win into a chance for the next, and the doubling cell multipliers give the free spins their punch. All six casinos we checked carry it.

You can try this game on 7gold Online Casino. There’s a unique casino bonus offer of 400% up to £1500 for a limited time.