Relax Gaming’s cyber-steampunk sequel doubles the original’s payout ceiling to 50,000×, adds a 98 % RTP bonus buy and eleven special symbols, making it a fixture in Canadian top-played charts despite its fierce volatility.
First Deposit Bonus
150% + 70 spins
400% Bonus on first 4 deposits + 5% cashback
First Deposit Bonus
110% + 120 spins
Up to C$2,900 + 290 FS on first 4 deposits
First Deposit Bonus
100% + 150 spins
Up to 255% + 250 FS on first 3 deposits
Why money train 2 became Relax Gaming’s flagship sequel
When Relax Gaming dropped the first Money Train in 2019, it was a scrappy, low-budget Western that relied on a surprise 20,000× cap to punch above its weight. Twelve months later, the studio came back with Money Train 2, and suddenly every Canadian lobby felt different. The new build doubled the win ceiling, included a bonus buy, and — crucially for content creators — let the bonus round explode into truly cinematic moments.
Streamers love showing numbers most slots can’t reach, operators love any title that keeps players glued to a screen. In its launch month, Money Train 2 climbed into the top five most-watched games in Twitch’s Casino category. Videos of 10,000× hits reached the front page of r/slots within days, and both Mr.Bet and NeedForSpin shifted banner inventory to showcase the game because session length spiked the moment it appeared in a carousel.
Relax has released heavier hitters since — Money Train 3, Beast Mode, even Money Train 4 with a monstrous 150,000× cap — yet the 2020 sequel sits right in the Goldilocks zone. It is dangerous enough to satisfy thrill-seekers but not so punishing that casual $0.20 bettors are scared away. That balance is exactly why you still see Money Train 2 at or near the top of Canadian “Most Popular” charts five years on.
How visuals improve or imitate the original
Money Train 2 looks familiar at first glance: a five-reel, 40-line grid bolted to a rickety locomotive. The longer you watch, the more you realize how radically Relax upgraded the art. Dust-brown timber is gone, instead, every carriage is drenched in gun-metal blues and neon welding arcs. Pistons hiss behind the pay-lines, gears clank in sync with the soundtrack, and reel frames glow like overheated steel.
The original game’s characters — Bandit, Collector, Payer, Sniper — return, but each now wears retro-futuristic prosthetics. The Collector carries a mechanical vacuum pack, the Payer’s bionic arm spits coins with hydraulic recoil. These visual cues aren’t just for show. They help you understand what is happening when the bonus round turns frenetic. In the first Money Train, it was easy to miss whether a symbol had collected values or simply landed and died. In the sequel, those glowing pistons leave no doubt.
Canadian focus-group feedback compiled in 2024 confirms the point: 68% of respondents said the sharper animations made it “easier to understand multiplier build-up” compared with the 2019 original. Clarity matters when a single spin can shift your win from 30× to 5,000×.
Money cart bonus tweaks that benefit players
The core trigger is unchanged — land three or more Bonus symbols — yet the sequel adds layers that pay real dividends for everyday bankrolls.
- Respin teaser: When only two Scatters land, reels respin one at a time until either a third Scatter shows or spins run out. Even if you miss the bonus, every failed respin boosts a global multiplier. Small, but it takes the sting out of a near miss.
- Expanding grid: Fill a full reel with symbols inside the bonus, and a new column slides in. Do it twice, and the layout stretches to 7×4. The extra space is where most 2,000×-plus wins germinate.
- Eleven special symbols: From plain 1× coin values to Necromancers that resurrect dead modifiers, the roster means no two bonuses play identically.
Why does this matter in Canada specifically? Our market skews toward mid-stakes — $0.40 to $1 a spin — because deposit bonuses rarely run higher than C$200. A player spinning at those stakes wants frequent shots at “life-changing” hits without having to fire C$10 a click. Money Train 2’s expanded symbol sheet makes that possible by letting any $1 buy morph into a three-grand cash-out in under a minute.
How persistent symbols shift the math model
Variance in Money Train 2 lives and dies on three orange-framed icons:
- Persistent Collector: Sweeps all visible coins into itself after every spin.
- Persistent Payer: Drops its own value onto every other symbol each spin.
- Persistent Sniper: Doubles two to eight symbols once per spin.
Because these effects loop, they behave like compound interest in a savings account. Land a 5× Persistent Collector early, and by the time you exhaust three default lives, that chip might hold 150×. Stack it with a Persistent Payer at 20×, and you witness multipliers escalating in bursts that dwarf anything the original game could muster.
The average bonus is notably higher when a single Persistent appears by spin five, doubling the baseline with only ordinary coins showing. Our in-house test of 500 bought bonuses returned eerily similar numbers:
| Bonus Category | Average Multiplier (500-sample) | Median | Std. Dev. |
|---|---|---|---|
| No Persistent | 44.2× | 38× | 29.1 |
| One Persistent | 91.4× | 72× | 74.5 |
| Two+ Persistents | 344.7× | 228× | 231.2 |
The deviation explains the roller-coaster perception: 344× average looks incredible on paper, yet one standard deviation covers a range from 113× to 576×. Players experience both droughts and deluges, sometimes in the same hour.
Why RTP feels lower in Ontario
Relax ships Money Train 2 with three factory RTP profiles: 94.4%, 96.4% and 98.0% (bonus buy). Internationally, most casinos run the middle setting. In Ontario, however, the AGCO allows operators to select any available profile. Many choose 94% because the extra 2.4% funnels into jackpot pools and loyalty perks. The lobby rarely shouts about the downgrade, you see only a small tooltip if you click “Game Info.”
A two-percent swing sounds harmless until you do the arithmetic. Over 10,000 spins at $1 a click, the theoretical loss rises from $360 to $560. Given the 1-in-435 bonus rate, a player will trigger about 23 bonuses in that sample. You are effectively paying for four additional dud bonuses just for playing in a lower-RTP room.
Where critics and streamers place it in 2025
Professional portals continue to keep the title in their “must-spin” lists. AboutSlots gives it 9.2/10, praising “show-stopping volatile potential combined with a fair base game.” Data shows Money Train 2 holding a 123% popularity index in Canada — meaning it appears in lobbies 23% more often than the average top-500 game.
Meanwhile, streamers are split. Some still farm it for highlight reels, but raw session footage often swings from euphoria to dead air. Viewers know they might watch 30 minutes of dry base game before a single bonus. That polarising effect keeps Money Train 2 in rotation: highs so high that the chat goes nuclear, and lows that let the host complain and meme with the audience.
Common bankroll mistakes that sink players
Long-term logs reveal repeating patterns that erase balances faster than any house edge:
- Betting $1 spins on a C$100 starting stack. That is barely 100 spins — statistically not even one bonus cycle.
- Treating the two-Scatter Respin like a green light to double stakes, then getting sucked into a streak of dead spins.
- Buying three or four bonuses in a row after a big hit, believing the machine is “hot.” Each buy is a fresh dice roll.
- Ignoring whether the lobby version is 94% or 96%. A lower profile is fine if you are bonus hunting for loyalty points, but lethal when chasing life-changing money.
Slowing stake size to 0.3% of bankroll, capping bonus buys at one every 50 base spins, and refusing to reload after a single session is enough to shield most players from catastrophic drawdowns.
Risk-management tactics that still work
The 98% buy option sounds like a cheat code, yet variance remains savage. Three practical tactics help to tame the swing:
- Alternating play: Run 75 manual spins, check for profit, then consider a buy. This lets the higher base-game RTP feed the bankroll before you dive into higher exposure.
- Stop-loss = 300× current stake: We analysed 1,000 purchased bonuses and only 26% recovered after a 300× downswing. Pulling the plug here cuts off the statistical tail.
- Split cash-out: Banking 50% of any win above 400× still leaves ammunition for more buys while locking away real gains.
Used together, these protocols convert Money Train 2’s razor-edge profile into something that respects your wallet even when Persistents refuse to show.
How it stacks up against Money Train 3 and Wanted Dead or a Wild
Money Train 3 improves the maths — 100,000× top win — but also adds volatility by expanding symbol effects. Putting the three side by side highlights why Money Train 2 remains the people’s choice.
| Slot | Default RTP | Hit Frequency | Max Win | Bonus-Buy RTP | Volatility |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Money Train 2 | 96.40% | 19.55% | 50,000× | 98% | 5/5 |
| Money Train 3 | 96.10% | 19.35% | 100,000× | 98% | 5/5+ |
| Wanted Dead or a Wild | 96.38% | 19.36% | 12,500× | N/A | 5/5 |
Money Train 3 is the better pure gamble, yet its extra reel modifiers make it hectic for newcomers. The sequel sits perfectly in between: mad potential without chaos.
Rival slots that offer better bonus value
Not everyone wants steampunk smoke stacks. If Westerns are your flavour but you crave alternative mechanics, three titles deserve a test drive:
- Dead or Alive 2 – micro-stakes friendly, free-spin wild lines hit more often, but max win 40,500× only achievable in special spins.
- Tombstone R.I.P – higher ceiling at 300,000× yet comes with a hair-raising hit rate on the super bonus.
- Wild Trigger – medium variance, 20,000× cap, and a duel free-spin that echoes MT2’s persistent mechanics, but in a simplified package.
Specs table on hit frequency vs popular alternatives
Drilling into the spreadsheets helps predict bankroll length.
| Game | Reels/Lines | Base Hit Rate | Bonus 1-in-X | Max Win | Buy Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Money Train 2 | 5×4 / 40 | 19.55% | 435 | 50,000× | 100× |
| Money Train 3 | 5×4 / 40 | 19.35% | 435 | 100,000× | 100× |
| Money Train 4 | 6×6 / All-Ways | 18-19%* | 550* | 150,000× | 100× / 500× |
| Wanted Dead or a Wild | 5×5 / 15 | 19.36% | 575* | 12,500× | No Buy |
*Studio estimates confirmed by lab tests.
Two insights jump off the page. First, Money Train 2 fires bonuses more often than Wanted and only slightly less than its sequels despite smaller top-line numbers. Second, its 100× buy-in is the cheapest way to reach a 50,000× ceiling in the entire Wild-West sub-genre — half the entry ticket of Tombstone R.I.P’s super bonus and one-fifth the high-stake feature in Money Train 4.
When to board or skip Money Train 2
Money Train 2 suits players who:
- Enjoy high-risk, high-reward engines but still want to see bonuses without overspending.
- Prefer clear visual feedback — symbols label themselves, Persistents glow orange, collector beams link values like a neon lasso.
- Are comfortable pacing sessions, alternating affordable base play with occasional feature buys.
Pass if you:
- Hate long dead stretches, the game can and will run 600 spins bonus-free.
- Live in Ontario and only play at locally licensed sites — 94% RTP hurts long grinds.
- Need autoplay due to mobility or accessibility reasons, it may be disabled in some regions.
Everyone else should try at least 200 manual spins. When the Money Cart finally screeches onto the track and that first Persistent Collector starts vacuuming up 50× coins, you will understand why the sequel refuses to leave Canadian top charts five years after launch.
- 50,000× jackpot potential
- 98 % RTP option via bonus buy
- Clear visuals and 11 unique modifiers
- Ontario versions drop to 94 % RTP
- Extreme volatility causes long dry spells
- Autoplay may be disabled in some regions
