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THE SLOTS section of any online casino is always the busiest area of the platform, and that highlights the popularity of these games. There is always a vast choice, and although there are new releases regularly, some established titles continue to attract interest.

Released in 2006, Mega Moolah remains hugely popular, and that’s largely due to its jackpot potential. This Mega Moolah slot review will look at possible payouts along with all the other aspects of this game in closer detail.

Mega Moolah slot quick overview

Here’s a quick summary of what Mega Moolah offers:

Mega Moolah slot features overview

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Since its release in 2006, Mega Moolah has captured more media attention than most slot games. It has provided some of the biggest wins, and while it should be remembered that the big prizes are extremely rare, this is clearly a big part of its appeal.

Despite its low RTP, Mega Moolah has a medium variance, so wins can be more frequent than in other jackpot games. It can suit all players, but it’s largely one of the best online slots for experienced players whose main goal is to target jackpots.

👍 Pros

• Four progressive jackpots
• Free spins round
• Medium variance

👎 Cons:

• Low RTP
• High minimum stake

Mega Moolah slot graphics, sound & gameplay mechanics

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This game was released in 2006, so we shouldn’t expect to see state-of-the-art graphics. The game reflects the type of design that was in place back then, but it’s a colourful game, and the cartoon animals offer charming imagery.

The soundtrack aims to conjure the feel of an African safari, and it certainly hits the mark. It has been updated to work on mobile, so there should be no loss of functionality if you switch from a static device to playing on the go.

How to play Mega Moolah slot

Follow these steps if you want to play Mega Moolah at the best online slots sites in the UK:

1. Find a casino that hosts the game: All of the best online slots sites host this title, so it shouldn’t take long to find an outlet.
2. Set your preferred stake: The game may default to a high stake, so use the tool to change it if you prefer.
3. Press spin to play: The spin button will be clearly marked.
4. Look for high-paying combinations: Check our Mega Moolah slot review and follow the paytable for high-paying combos.
5. Bonus rounds: These will activate automatically when triggered.
6. Monitor your bankroll: Play responsibly and don’t use all your bankroll in one session. Ideally, play with up to a maximum of 10% of your balance.

Mega Moolah slot symbols

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Mega Moolah features a range of themed symbols split into high- and low-paying categories. The high-paying symbols include safari animals such as elephant, buffalo, giraffe, zebra, and antelope, each offering bigger rewards when landing in combinations. The low-paying symbols are the classic playing cards from A to 10, which appear more frequently but offer smaller payouts.

The lion is the wild symbol – it substitutes for all regular symbols and doubles the payout when part of a winning combination. The monkey serves as the scatter, and landing three or more triggers 15 free spins, where all wins are boosted by a 3x multiplier. These special symbols bring extra value to the base game and create opportunities for bigger wins during regular spins.

Mega Moolah slot RTP, payout & volatility

The RTP of 88.12% is low and means that, on average, £88.12 will be paid out for every £100 wagered, over time. Results between players will vary, but those independently verified stats are worth keeping in mind.

For players who get involved with Mega Moolah, it’s all about aiming for the jackpot. It’s rare to land the truly big payouts, but it’s that possibility that keeps players engaged. The slot has a medium volatility, and in general, payouts will be less frequent but they may be higher when they come in.

Mega Moolah bonus features & free spins

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We’ve already seen that the lion is the wild symbol and the monkey is the scatter in Mega Moolah. The lion is a conventional wild icon that replicates all others as it looks to find a matching combination. If it does find a winning match, it will double any payout.

To activate the free spins section, at least three of the monkey scatters must fall into view. When this happens, players are rewarded with 15 additional spins.

The progressive jackpots can be triggered at random at any point. There are no special symbols to look out for, and the four jackpots in question are labelled Mini, Minor, Major and Mega. Any of these can be activated randomly during the base game.

Where to play Mega Moolah slot in the UK

As one of the most popular games online, the best UK online casinos all host Mega Moolah. Use the search bar at your favourite casino to check, but it’s almost certain that it will be on the listing.

Two recommended options for players in the UK are Dream Vegas and bet365. Both are well-known brands, but more importantly, they are licensed by the UK Gambling Commission, they promote responsible gambling, and both offer a good choice of secure funding providers.

If you are looking for one of the best online slots sites, you need to find a platform that covers all of those points.

Another trusted option is Casumo. This has customer support around the clock, as well as secure payment options and a mobile-friendly casino interface.

Key takeaway

Undoubtedly, it’s those progressive jackpots that have made Mega Moolah so popular with slots players over the years. The game is among the titles with the biggest payouts in history, and it continues to attract attention for that reason alone.

That said, those wins are rare, and it’s always important to play responsibly. With its straightforward gameplay, familiar safari theme and the chance to land life-changing prizes, Mega Moolah is a solid pick for UK players who enjoy classic slots with big potential. Try it out at a trusted, UK-licensed online casino.

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About the author

James Anderson

James Anderson is a Betting & Gaming Writer at The Sun. He is an expert in sports betting and online casinos, and joined the company in November 2020 to work closely with leading bookmakers and online gaming companies to curate content in all areas of sports betting. He previously worked as a Digital Sports Reporter and Head of Live Blogs/Events at the Daily Express and Daily Star, covering football, cricket, snooker, F1 and horse racing.

Find James on LinkedIn

Remember to gamble responsibly

A responsible gambler is someone who:

• Establishes time and monetary limits before playing
• Only gambles with money they can afford to lose
• Never chase their losses
• Doesn’t gamble if they’re upset, angry or depressed
• Gamcare – gamcare.org.uk
• GambleAware – GambleAware.org

Read our guide on responsible gambling practices.

For help with a gambling problem, call the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133 or go to gamstop.co.uk to be excluded from all UK-regulated gambling websites.

There may well be a few sighs of relief from senior finance company and banking executives following the Supreme Court’s ruling, but it is unlikely you will hear the champagne corks popping.

The verdict does almost certainly reduce the potential compensation bill significantly.

Lenders no longer face the prospect of having to pay £30bn to £40bn to aggrieved car buyers. The likelihood of the government stepping in also appears to have receded dramatically.

Nevertheless, the industry is not off the hook. The Financial Conduct Authority may still open a redress scheme for cases where dealers had a financial incentive from lenders to ramp up interest rates on loans as much as possible.

The Supreme Court’s ruling also upheld one consumer claim, in which the commission payments were deemed unfair – and that could provide a template for others to follow. All of this means the compensation bill could still be in the billions.

The Supreme Court’s intervention has been eagerly awaited since October, when the Appeal Court issued a verdict in three test cases which could have triggered an avalanche of compensation claims.

In each case, people who had bought cars on finance claimed they were partially or wholly unaware that the deal had involved a commission payment being made by the lender to the car dealer. They claimed that in law the commissions amounted to bribes, or secret payments.

The Appeal Court judges agreed, essentially saying that commission payments made by a finance company to a dealer for arranging a car loan were illegal if the car buyer had not given his or her “informed consent”.

They also concluded that a car dealer had a “fiduciary duty” towards the car buyer when it came to arranging a car loan. In other words, the dealer should set his or her own interests aside, and act purely on the customer’s behalf.

This meant that millions of car buyers could potentially claim compensation – if they could show that the dealer had not specified what commission payments they were receiving for lining up a finance deal. It was not enough for the details to be buried in small print.

Lenders had feared that this would lead to an avalanche of claims against them – and that the same arguments could be used to challenge other kinds of consumer finance agreements as well, potentially increasing the compensation bill still further.

But the Supreme Court threw very cold water over those arguments. The President of the Court, Lord Reed, dismissed the idea that car dealers had a “single minded duty of loyalty” to their customers, and insisted they “plainly and properly” had personal interests in the finance agreements they were involved in.

The ruling clearly blocks off what could have been a very wide avenue for compensation claims.

However, the court did side with one of the claimants. In the case of Marcus Johnson, a factory worker, it decided that the finance agreement was “unfair” under the terms of the Consumer Credit Act.

This was because the size of the commission payment was very large, and because Mr Johnson had been misled about the relationship between the dealer and the lender. He was, they said, entitled to compensation.

Analysts say this could open the doors for other cases in which the commission payments are seen to be egregious.

There is also a key question the Supreme Court ruling does not answer. This is what should happen in cases involving so-called Discretionary Commission Agreements (DCAs). These were finance deals in which the car dealer could set the interest rate of a loan, within a set scale. The higher the rate, the more commission they would be paid – and the customer would be unaware of the fact.

The Financial Conduct Authority banned such deals in 2021. It is now considering whether to launch a redress scheme for consumers who were affected by them. If it goes ahead, millions of car buyers could still have a claim, though it is not clear how much compensation they would get.

According to Richard Barnwell, a financial services advisory partner at accountancy firm BDO, the bill could still be substantial.

“We believe there is still a potential for redress, for example, if discretionary commission arrangements are deemed to be an unfair relationship, redress could still be from to £5bn to £13bn or more,” he said.

Other analysts agree. According to Martin Lewis, who runs the MoneySavingExpert website, “the Supreme Court has certainly narrowed the number of people who will be able to reclaim car finance. I think you’re probably talking the lower end of £10bn, as opposed to £40bn.”

That £10bn would still be a significant figure. But the finance industry appears to have avoided the potential free-for-all rush to claim compensation the earlier verdict had threatened to spark off.

And while the Treasury says it will “work with regulators and industry to understand the impact for both firms and consumers”, the BBC understands that the likelihood of the government intervening with retrospective legislation to protect financial firms has now diminished significantly.

The amount of money that the city of Los Angeles pays annually for police misconduct, trip and falls, and other lawsuits has ballooned, rising from $64 million a decade ago to $254 million last year and $289 million this fiscal year.

The reasons are complicated, ranging from aging sidewalks to juries’ tendency to award larger judgments to possible shifts in legal strategy at the city attorney’s office to an increase in the sheer number of lawsuits against the city.

The biggest chunk of payouts over the past five years were for “dangerous conditions” — lawsuits singling out faulty city infrastructure, such as broken elevators — at 32%, followed by civil rights violations and unlawful uses of force at 18%, and traffic collisions involving city vehicles also at 18%.

City officials have cited the legal payouts as a significant factor in a nearly $1-billion budget shortfall for fiscal year 2025-26 that was closed with layoffs and other spending cuts.

City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto, who took office in December 2022, heads the office that defends the city against lawsuits.

In an interview with The Times and public appearances throughout the city, Feldstein Soto cited a backlog of cases from the COVID-19 pandemic, when courts were barely moving, that were settled or went to trial in recent years.

“Structured settlements” negotiated by her predecessor, Mike Feuer, which are paid out annually rather than in one lump sum, have also contributed to the tab, she said.

Feldstein Soto also said she believes juries are increasingly antagonistic to city governments, resulting in larger verdicts.

Feuer said in an interview that the city was entering into structured settlements before he took office, and he does not believe he increased their use.

To explain the rise in legal liability payouts during his tenure — from about $40 million in 2013 to about $91 million in 2022 — Feuer cited a lack of investment in city infrastructure like streets and sidewalks during the 2008 financial crisis.

In public appearances, Feldstein Soto has sometimes blamed plaintiffs for trying to get financial compensation for what she characterized as risky behavior or interpersonal disputes.

Speaking to the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association earlier this year, she said that two types of lawsuits — “dangerous conditions” lawsuits and those brought by city employees over working conditions — are ripe for abuse. Some employees who sue the city simply don’t like their bosses, Feldstein Soto said, citing a lawsuit by an LAPD captain, Stacey Vince, who alleged that higher-ups retaliated against her after she complained about her boss. Vince was awarded $10.1 million by a jury, and the city subsequently settled the case for just under $6 million.

Feldstein Soto also described one man who sued the city as an “idiot.” The man was riding his electric scooter without a helmet, Feldstein Soto said, when he crashed on an uneven sidewalk and into a nearby tree, suffering a traumatic brain injury.

According to Feldstein Soto, taxpayers ultimately pay the price for these lawsuits.

“Please understand that every dollar you award is your money,” she said.

The number of lawsuits filed against the city has risen each year since the pandemic, from 1,131 in 2021 to 1,560 in 2024.

At the same time, the average amount the city pays per case has increased dramatically, from under $50,000 in 2022 to $132,180 in 2024. A contributing factor is the increase in payouts of least $1 million, with 17 such cases in 2022 and 39 in 2024. (The city counts settlements or jury verdicts in the fiscal year they are paid out, not when the dollar amount is decided.)

From July 2024 to March 2025, the city paid $1 million or more in 51 lawsuits.

Feldstein Soto said these “nuclear verdicts” cut deep into the city budget and could raise payouts for similar cases in the future.

Total annual payouts in police misconduct cases jumped from $15 million in 2020 to $50 million in 2024. Dangerous conditions cases rose from around $41 million in 2020 to about $84 million in 2024.

Earlier this year, the city paid $21 million to plaintiffs in a series of lawsuits related to a botched LAPD bomb squad fireworks detonation that injured more than 20 people and displaced many residents.

Also this year, the city paid out a $17.7-million verdict to the family of a man with mental health issues killed by an off-duty LAPD officer.

This coming fiscal year, the city increased its allocation for liability payouts from about $87 million to $187 million — far less than what it has been paying in recent years — out of a $14-billion budget.

City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who chairs the council’s public works committee, said the rising payouts stem in part from the city’s long-term lack of investment in infrastructure. The city spent about 10% of its overall budget on streets and other public works last year — substantially less than it spent on police, said Hernandez, who favors a smaller LAPD.

“As a city, we don’t invest in the maintenance of our city,” she said. “I have felt like I’ve been screaming into the void about some of these things.”

In one lawsuit paid out this year, the city agreed to give $3 million to a man who tripped over a slightly uneven sidewalk and suffered a traumatic brain injury.

Last April, the city reached a $21-million settlement with a man whose skull was broken by a street lamp part that fell on him. The city had gone to trial, with a jury awarding the man $22 million, but the parties eventually settled for the slightly lower amount.

“I believe the driving force is the delays and lack of maintenance of the city that has caused an increase in such incidents,” said Arash Zabetian, a lawyer for the man hit by the streetlight.

Some plaintiffs’ attorneys say that Feldstein Soto’s legal strategies are contributing to the rising liability costs. They assert that she is taking more cases to trial, resulting in larger verdicts than if she had settled.

Matthew McNicholas, an attorney who often sues the city on behalf of police officers, said he recently went to trial in five cases and won all of them, for a total payout of more than $40 million.

He would have been happy to settle all five cases for a total of less than $10 million, he said.

One of the lawsuits, which ended with a $13-million verdict, was filed by two male officers accused of drawing a penis on a suspect’s abdomen. The officers alleged that higher-ups did not cast the same suspicion on their female colleagues.

In another of the lawsuits, a whistleblower alleged that he was punished for highlighting problems in the LAPD Bomb Detection K-9 Section. A jury also awarded him $13 million.

“It’s not a tactic to say we’re going to play hardball. It’s just stupid,” McNicholas said. “I am frustrated because she goes and blames my clients and runaway juries for her problems.”

Greg Smith, another plaintiffs’ attorney, said he has also noticed a tendency at Feldstein Soto’s office to push cases to trial.

“Everything is a fight,” Smith said. “I have been suing the city for 30 years, and this has been the worst administration with respect to trying to settle cases.”

Feldstein Soto said her office settles “every case we can.”

“It’s in nobody’s interest to go to trial. It’s a waste of resources,” she said. “But we will not settle cases where we don’t think we’re liable or where the demand is unreasonable.”

To stem the flood of large payouts, Feldstein Soto is looking to Sacramento for help, proposing a bill that would cap lawsuits against California cities at $1 million or three times the economic losses caused by an incident, whichever is greater. Caps on damages exist already in 38 states, according to Feldstein Soto’s office.

She has yet to find a state legislator to sponsor the bill.

In police circles, it’s known as the “LAPD lottery.”

Speaking at a city budget presentation this month, Police Chief Jim McDonnell said some officers have sought to “weaponize” the department’s disciplinary system to settle grievances, leaving city taxpayers on the hook for the legal bills.

Los Angeles has paid out at least $68.5 million over the last five years to resolve lawsuits filed by officers who claimed to be the victim of sexual harassment, racial discrimination or retaliation against whistleblowers, according to a Times analysis of payout data released by the city attorney’s office.

Skeptics inside the Los Angeles Police Department write off the claims as opportunistic officers trying to hit the jackpot, twisting paper trails created by the department’s much-maligned internal discipline system into the basis for lawsuits.

But the officers who sue and their labor attorneys argue the department’s continued failure to thoroughly investigate complaints or fix systemic issues leaves no other recourse.

Several recent civil trials have resulted in settlements or jury awards in the seven figures or more, including $11.5 million to a former K-9 officer who alleged colleagues spread false rumors about him and mocked his Samoan heritage. Dozens of other suits remain pending, likely leaving the city staring down more substantial payouts in the coming years.

The question of how to deal with the suits has emerged as one of the most pressing issues since McDonnell’s tenure as chief began in November. Mayor Karen Bass has said the city’s $1-billion budget deficit is at least partly driven by expensive legal payouts, as well as emergency response costs related to the Palisades fire and “downward national economic trends.”

Last year, the LAPD’s private fundraising arm gave $240,000 to hire an outside consultant to help the department analyze “the results of litigation to see if there are lessons to be learned from that.”

The consultant, Arif Alikhan, the department’s former director of constitutional policing, said he and his team are seeking to identify trends of risky behavior, improve tracking of problem employees and hold supervisors accountable for not addressing conduct that exposes the department to liability.

Part of the challenge, he said, is that cases take years to resolve, leading to lag time in awareness. “Then it kind of bubbles up and becomes a bigger issue and then you have multiple people suing.”

The city attorney’s office, which is responsible for defending the department against lawsuits, said in response to questions from The Times that cases are settled when “there could be a jury finding of liability, and when we can reach an agreement for a reasonable amount of money.”

“We will always do what is in the best interests of the city and continue to aggressively defend lawsuits—especially when plaintiffs’ attorneys try to make a fortune off of the City with unreasonable non-economic damages claims,” the city attorney’s office said in a statement. “Our office will aggressively defend against lawsuits that lack merit, as well as lawsuits in which the plaintiff’s attorney is making unreasonable demands for taxpayer dollars to resolve a case.”

The LAPD has long wrestled with costly litigation, and many claims by aggrieved officers are dismissed. But according to the data released to The Times, payouts for officer-driven lawsuits have increased recently: At least 13 verdicts or settlements worth $1 million or more have come since 2019, including nine in the last three years.

Beyond the cost to taxpayers, the public airing of workplace disputes can prove embarrassing to a department that has long fancied itself a spit-and-polish institution.

Take the Transit Services Division, where years of troubles and finger-pointing have led to a snarl of more than half a dozen lawsuits.

A former detective, Heather Rolland, received a $949,000 payout after she accused male colleagues of disparaging her for being injured on the job and of fostering a hostile work environment for women who worked in the division, which holds a lucrative contract with the county Metropolitan Transportation Authority to provide security on bus and train lines.

Among the male officials mentioned in her lawsuit is Randy Rangel, a former Transit Services sergeant, who filed his own claim against the city alleging he was retaliated against after reporting another officer for abusing his overtime pay. Last month, an L.A. County jury awarded him $4.5 million, which may still be challenged on appeal.

One of the witnesses who testified on Rangel’s behalf was his former captain, Brian Pratt, who also has a pending suit against the city. Pratt contends he was targeted with an anonymous personnel complaint after accusing a deputy chief of inappropriately using division staff to do nontransit work — a claim the city has denied in court filings.

The cycle of litigation continued with an internal affairs detective assigned to investigate Pratt. The detective alleged in a whistleblower claim that his bosses demanded unfavorable findings despite no evidence of wrongdoing. The lawsuit by Det. Hamilton Alvarenga also remains pending, with the city disputing his allegations.

Yet another Transit Services supervisor, Ashraf “Andy” Hanna, is pursuing legal action over what he alleged is a culture of anti-Arab discrimination. Hanna is also named as a defendant in several lawsuits, with co-workers accusing him of workplace hostility, which he disputes. One of his accusers, an officer named Natalie Bustamante, recently settled her sexual harassment lawsuit with the city for an undisclosed sum.

LAPD officers are supposed to report wrongdoing — or attempts to cover it up — to their supervisors, internal affairs or the Office of the Inspector General, which can investigate and potentially refer cases of misconduct to the chief for discipline. Those complaints are sealed from the public under state law, but the plaintiffs in several recent civil lawsuits alleged that the internal investigations tended to drag on unnecessarily and rarely led to punishment for the accused.

Attorney Matthew McNicholas, who has represented scores of officers in civil lawsuits, said he thinks that the growing payouts are a reflection of the city attorney’s hardball approach to civil litigation. This tough stance is costing taxpayers money by insisting on fighting cases even when it was clear they would lose in court, he said.

He pointed to the cases of Lou and Stacey Vince, a police couple who filed separate lawsuits against the department for retaliation and discrimination they faced while working in the San Fernando Valley. Lou Vince had alleged mistreatment after he returned from a work injury. In her claim, Stacey Vince said that after speaking up in her husband’s defense, she was denied a promotion and moved into a cramped office underneath the gym floor at the Police Academy with no furniture or Wi-Fi.

The couple, represented by McNicholas, received nearly $11 million in combined payouts.

“We tried to settle them both for low seven figures,” he said.

Joanna Schwartz, a UCLA law professor, said risk managers in L.A. and other cities should be looking for “policy changes or adjustments to staffing” after getting sued repeatedly.

“Best practices include internally investigating all allegations brought in lawsuits and then reviewing all the information that comes out during the course of discovery and trial,” Schwartz said.

The issue is not unique to the LAPD: Los Angeles County spent $150 million last year alone to defend the Sheriff’s Department from a slew of legal claims. And employment-related awards are only a fraction of the $358.8 million paid out in all LAPD lawsuits since 2019, including for traffic accidents, crackdowns on protesters and a botched fireworks detonation that leveled several city blocks and left dozens of residents displaced.

But the department’s handling of workplace complaints has drawn criticism on multiple fronts, including from the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

The union for rank-and-file officers, which sometimes helps members bring lawsuits, has cited the large verdicts as a sign senior LAPD officials are turning a blind eye to injustices in the workplace.

Last week, Jamie McBride, an outspoken union board member, filed a lawsuit in which he accused an assistant police chief of unfairly reprimanding him for speaking out about the LAPD’s grooming policy, the rules for how officers can keep their hair and mustaches.

McBride said in his suit that his remarks came during a union meeting in August 2023, when someone in the audience asked whether the department intended to change its rules to allow beards without a medical exemption, which is commonly granted to Black officers with skin conditions that make shaving painful.

McBride said he replied, “Well, I hope not ‘cause I think it looks like s—.”

He learned, according to his lawsuit, that that the department opened an investigation for what it deemed “racially discriminatory comments.”

McBride’s suit argues that his statement — “however controversial” — was made in the “context of protected union activity.”

The city has not yet filed a response in court to McBride’s claim. He didn’t respond to a message seeking comment.

McBride, who previously received $1.5 million after suing over alleged retaliation by his LAPD supervisors, is part of an internal work group looking at potential changes to the discipline system, along with Deputy Chief Michael Rimkunas, who runs the department’s professional standards bureau.

Rimkunas defended the department’s “thorough and comprehensive process” for addressing officer complaints, but said he is also pushing for “additional safeguards to be certain the complaint system is properly used.”

He said internal investigators are being more judicious about screening complaints before starting a formal inquiry. Cases involving apparent personality conflicts between employees are referred back to their supervisors for mediation “within weeks, even when the behavior may not have reached the level of misconduct,” he said.

It used to take up to a year, Rimkunas said, to “reach a point for potential intervention.”

Long before the devastating fire in Pacific Palisades, leaders of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s labor union complained that the agency did not have enough money to keep the city safe.

“It’s a damn shame, and excuse my language, that it took this incident, the Pacific Palisades, to finally bring attention to our grossly understaffed, underfunded Fire Department,” Freddy Escobar, president of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, said at a city Fire Commission meeting in February.

Union leaders, along with top LAFD commanders, said budget cuts had resulted in a backlog of engines needing repairs and not enough mechanics to fix them. But even as they denounced those reductions, the union leaders secured four years of pay raises for the city’s 3,300 firefighters through negotiations with Mayor Karen Bass. And firefighters often make much more than their base pay, with about 30% of the LAFD’s payroll costs going to overtime.

That includes Escobar and other top union officers, who have for years been padding their paychecks with overtime while also collecting a five- to six-figure union stipend, a Times investigation found.

Escobar made about $540,000 in 2022, the most recent year for which records of both his city and union earnings are available. He more than doubled his base salary of $184,034 with overtime payouts that year, earning a total of more than $424,500 from the city in pay and benefits, payroll data show.

He collected an additional $115,962 stipend from the union, according to its most recent federal tax filing. He reported working 48 hours a week on union and related duties, while records provided by the city for that year show he picked up an average of roughly 30 hours of overtime a week — a total of about 78 hours of work each week.

After inquiries from The Times, the LAFD said this week that it has launched a “comprehensive review and overhaul” of its procedures for tracking the hours and reimbursement of those on leave for the union.

“The Department has recognized the need for significant improvements to its accounting and timekeeping processes related to union release time,” the agency said.

The overtime revelations come as the union, known as UFLAC, is facing scrutiny from its parent organization over its spending. The Washington D.C.-based International Assn. of Fire Fighters, which oversees local firefighter unions across the country, is conducting a wide-ranging audit of UFLAC’s finances, including the use of union credit cards by officers.

High overtime costs have long been a problem for the LAFD, whose around-the-clock staffing model depends heavily on employees taking on extra shifts. Many firefighters — who are typically scheduled for about 10 24-hour shifts a month, not including overtime — consider the option to boost their pay with extra hours at an increased rate an attractive feature of the job. But over the years, the LAFD’s reliance on overtime has generated concerns about fatigue, burnout and whether taxpayer dollars are being used effectively.

For many years, union leaders have warned the city that it needs to hire more firefighters to get overtime costs under control.

Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for Bass, said that overtime deployment is at the fire chief’s discretion and that the LAFD received $13.6 million this fiscal year to train three new classes of recruits. Seidl said that the LAFD union made salary increases one of its top priorities in contract negotiations but that Bass also secured $51 million for 10 fire engines, five trucks, 20 ambulances and other equipment. Bass’ proposed budget for 2025-26 includes 227 new LAFD positions, about half of them firefighters and including emergency medical technicians and mechanics, while some other city departments are slated for layoffs amid a nearly $1-billion budget shortfall.

Firefighters and fire captains last year made an average base salary of about $140,100, plus an average of $73,500 in overtime, according to the city’s payroll database.

Marc Bashoor, former chief of Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department in Maryland, who teaches leadership to firefighters across the country, said vacancies create more vacancies, because “everybody gets psychologically and physically tired of working.”

“It becomes this deafening cycle. People get tired of working and start getting injured, calling in sick,” Bashoor said. “Overtime begets overtime.”

Under its contract with the city, the union can place several of its 10 board members on full-time leave from their LAFD jobs while they still collect their regular salaries. The LAFD said the board members on leave are allowed to pick up extra shifts on nights, weekends or holidays outside of their 40-hour union workweek, being paid overtime at 1.5 times their hourly rate. That’s the arrangement Escobar has as union president, a post he has held since 2018.

Escobar, who had the highest union stipend among the board members, also made the most in overtime in 2022, city and tax records show. The records show he made a total of $738,439 in overtime from 2018 through 2024. The LAFD said that overtime payouts include vacation time that is cashed out.

Freddy Escobar, head of the LAFD’s firefighters union, visits Fire Station 26.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Escobar is in his final two-year term as UFLAC president. He did not respond to questions from The Times, including which major emergencies he dealt with during his shifts and the length of his typical overtime shifts. He recently told a Times columnist that he picks up several shifts a month.

Records provided by the LAFD show that in 2022, Escobar took on an average of about nine overtime shifts a month. The shifts were typically overnight on weekdays, starting in the late afternoon and ranging from 12 to 16 hours. Some shifts, mostly on weekends, began in the morning and ran for 24 hours. For example, on one Sunday in January, he took a 24-hour shift starting at 8 a.m. For the next two days in a row, a Monday and a Tuesday, he took 14-hour overnight shifts starting at 6 p.m.

Including Escobar, UFLAC board members together made nearly $750,000 in overtime in 2022, while each collected a union stipend ranging from $67,000 to Escobar’s $115,962. All board members received a stipend, regardless of whether they were on leave, the tax records show.

In 2022, LAFD employees, including both firefighters and others, made $225 million in overtime. The Los Angeles Police Department, with more than triple the number of employees that year, spent about $214 million on overtime, records show. The city can be reimbursed by the state or federal government for some overtime work.

Former LAFD union secretary Adam Walker, who made almost $50,000 in overtime in 2022, said the department was dealing with a staffing shortage that year.

“The overtime was a mixture of mandatory overtime … and voluntary in order to do my part in assuring that resources stayed open to serve the city,” he said in an email. Even though Walker was on full-time leave from the LAFD in 2022, the union’s tax filing reported that he worked only 23 hours a week on union and related duties. Walker said that number appeared to be a typo.

“I haven’t worked less than 60 hours a week since I was 18 years old. Accordingly, during 2022, I reported to duty as scheduled, working 40 plus hours a week,” he said, referring to his full-time union schedule.

In an email last week, the LAFD attributed the high overtime costs to staffing fire stations around the clock, even when people are out sick or on vacation. In the past, LAFD officials have also pointed to staffing shortages and large-scale emergencies, including extreme weather and wildfires, as fueling the costs.

An audit in 2019 found that LAFD overtime costs climbed from nearly $166 million in fiscal year 2014-15 to almost $193 million in 2018-19 due to wage increases, even though overtime hours hovered around 3 million for each of those years. At the time, the city controller called for better oversight and regulation to improve staffing and protect employees from burnout, as well as to ensure that taxpayer dollars were spent effectively.

With roughly 3,300 uniformed firefighters and 106 fire stations, the LAFD responds to more than 500,000 calls a year, or an average of more than 1,300 a day. According to the LAFD’s strategic plan, 81% of calls in 2022 involved medical emergencies, and the rest involved fires or other unspecified incidents.

The department is staffed by three 24-hour shifts, known as platoons, with about 1,000 firefighters on duty at any given time. When firefighters call out sick or are on vacation, their shifts are either backfilled by employees working overtime, or the department places some engines, ambulances or other equipment out of service for the day.

Oshea Orchid, an attorney who represented more than 1,100 LAFD firefighters in a federal lawsuit alleging they were stiffed out of overtime for being expected to show up to their shifts early, said the city is not hiring enough firefighters to keep up with those retiring or leaving.

“Because they sleep and live there, they’re willing to work overtime,” she said. “When you have less staff, you just have huge overtime bills.”

She added: “There’s no question in my mind that with more workers, more budget, you have more engines running — you’d have better service.”

An agreement to settle Orchid’s case for $9.5 million is pending, court records show.

Last year, LAFD employees received 23% of the city’s total overtime payouts, which reached $1.1 billion, the city’s payroll database shows. The Department of Water and Power accumulated the most overtime pay: $426 million. About $262 million in overtime went to LAFD employees, while the LAPD paid out more than $265 million in overtime.

The city’s highest-paid employee last year was LAFD Battalion Chief Nicholas Ferrari, who racked up more than $644,000 in overtime, with total pay and benefits of more than $928,000, according to city data. About a dozen LAFD employees each made more than $300,000 in overtime.

Ferrari did not respond to a request for comment.

Firefighters battle the Palisades fire off Bollinger Drive in Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

In a December 2024 report, then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said a $7-million reduction to the overtime budget “severely limited the Department’s capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires, earthquakes, hazardous material incidents, and large public events.”

But City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo told The Times in January that Fire Department overtime actually increased in this year’s budget by nearly $18 million.

The union’s parent organization, IAFF, is also examining the finances of UFLAC’s Fire Foundation, a charity for injured firefighters. That review resulted in the removal of Walker, the former UFLAC secretary, from his posts with both the labor union and the foundation board. The IAFF accused Walker of improperly depositing more than $75,000 of the charity’s funds into his personal accounts from December 2022 to January 2024, according to internal records reviewed by The Times.

Walker, who still works as a firefighter, disputed the allegations. He said the account he drew from was not for the charity but was set up for two golf tournaments to raise money for a disabled former firefighter. All of the deposits, he said, were reimbursements for his legitimate out-of-pocket expenses for the tournaments.

Separately, The Times found that UFLAC’s former treasurer, Domingo Albarran Jr., bought a union car at an alleged discount — and then reported an even lower sale price to the state to avoid paying taxes. Albarran, who has since retired, acknowledged that he underreported the sale price to the DMV because he did not want to pay taxes. But he said the price he paid was fair because the car was in poor condition.

Once the IAFF completes its financial audit, it will determine whether to place UFLAC under a conservatorship, which could result in the removal of officers, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation.

UFLAC has long been considered a political force in the city, with elected officials valuing its endorsements and financial contributions, although it backed the losing candidate in the last two mayoral elections with no incumbent running.

Union leaders also have fiercely backed Crowley, who was ousted by Bass over, in part, her handling of the Jan. 7 fire that leveled much of the Palisades and killed 12 people. Crowley and members of her executive staff blamed City Hall budget cuts for their inability to prevent or limit the scope of the destruction.

They said 40 fire engines — 1 in 5 of the LAFD’s fleet — were out of service when the blaze broke out because the Fire Department didn’t have enough money to fix or replace them. In an interview with a Fox 11 reporter, Crowley said the city of Los Angeles and its leaders had failed her and her department.

But The Times found that LAFD officials chose not to predeploy any engines in the Palisades amid extraordinary wind warnings, even though dozens were available. Bass cited the LAFD’s failure to keep 1,000 firefighters on duty for a second shift as one reason she ousted Crowley.

Bass and her team have also said that, once employee raises were factored in, the Fire Department budget actually grew this year.

“Chief Crowley had the guts and the courage to speak out,” Escobar said during a City Council hearing on whether to give Crowley her job back. “But her honesty cost her her job.”

Only two of 15 council members voted for Crowley’s reinstatement.